Creston wrote on May 5, 2018, 16:52:
Did that ever really happen?

Yes, it happened.

AIB's had already created new branding (which costs money) for AMD based gpus because of GPP.

Why do you think there was such a stink about the whole thing?

Muscular Beaver wrote on May 5, 2018, 13:51:

Slick wrote on May 5, 2018, 04:31:
They are hardly perfect drivers. I know plenty things they lack and where they suck. Simplest thing would be a fucking pivot function.
But AMDs are worse, and I mentioned an example. Still lots of artifacts in less known games. Plus they really have issues far more often that Nvidias drivers have. Its not unusual that people dont use newer drivers because they dont work properly anymore, break a function, crash a game, etc. Happens with Nvidia from time to time too, but not like that.

There must be some article by HardOCP or some review site which tests driver performance between nVidia and AMD cards. These review sites test so many cards, they must have some sort of empirical analysis which reveals more. I've had AMD GPUs since 2014 and I don't recall any driver issues off the top of my head. So from my experience, they're fine. Basically, how are AMd drivers worse - show some evidence please? I mean that sincerely

With GPP, we asked our partners to brand their products in a way that would be crystal clear. The choice of GPU greatly defines a gaming platform. So, the GPU brand should be clearly transparent – no substitute GPUs hidden behind a pile of techno-jargon.

Did that ever really happen? And if it did, why not just battle that through false advertising / bait-and-switch laws?

I do not think that nVidia did the GPP to ram the final nail into AMD's dGPU coffin. nVidia has been running circles around AMD in dGPUs for the last few generations, especially since AMD moved away from TSMC.

No. Wot I think is they did this to put a leash on their board partners. This whole thing was solely born out of a fight of nVidia vs. their board partners.

You can produce GPUs all you like -or have them produced at TSMC more precisely- but if you do not have board makers to stick those GPUs on then you're fucked.

And ever since the mining craze, the board partners were busy shifting capacities to AMD GPUs because of high demand by miners.

Remember how consumer Volta (now codenamed Turing according to leaks) was originally scheduled for a Q1/2018 launch?



Well, I can vividly imagine how that went...

Huang: So, Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, everyone... may I have your attention please?

Board partners: Nah. Fuck off. We're too busy with our mining greed.

Huang: Ahem. MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PUUUHLEASE?!?!? We have our consumer Voltas ready to go for Q1/18. Y'all up for it?

Board partners: Dude. What part of F-U-C-K O-F-F did you not understand?!?!? We're too busy allocating resources and production facilities to mining cards. Shove your consumer Volta up your dumb ass!!!

Huang: Da fuq bruuuuhss??? You do realize who was ya daddy and made ya all that sweet cash all these years? Who gave you everything you ever wanted? Who loved you, spoiled you and pampered you and now... now... this? You ungrateful bastards!!! This will have consequences...



... and born was the GPP to piss off the board partners or more precisely to remind them that you do not jump on the mining bandwagon and switch horses that easily.

Even if nVidia did not intend to launch consumer Volta in Q1/2018, they still must have been pissed off with the Pascal supply issues that were caused by some of the major board partners reallocating nearly all of their resources for AMD mining card production.

The GPP was a way to remind the board partners who made them big and beautiful as well as a reminder that the mining shit won't last forever so once the board partners come back crawling to nVidia for gaming GPUs after the mining party is over then there will be stricter consequences if they want to keep selling nVidia cards.

That is the only explanation for the GPP that makes any real sense to me.
There's no way it was about AMD in the gaming segment. AMD is far behind at this point. Further than ever in the history of dGPUs so nVidia really did not need to introduce the GPP as a bulwark against AMD.

Nah. This stunt was all about nVidia vs. Asus, MSI, Gigabyte et al because they didn't behave in light of the mining madness.

Slick wrote on May 5, 2018, 04:31:
I disagree with muscular about the AMD drivers. Nvid has this rep for having "perfect drivers" while AMD has "crap drivers". But in reality they're both 50/50. I can't tell you how many times I've had to roll back nVid drivers because of crashes, flickering, not all VRAM being utilized, or other weird and by any standards "totally unacceptable" shit to the nVid fanboy, but they still have this rep like they're godlike. Reminds me of how people think Valve is the best company for gaming and defend it to the death. The truth is always a bit murkier.

They are hardly perfect drivers. I know plenty things they lack and where they suck. Simplest thing would be a fucking pivot function.
But AMDs are worse, and I mentioned an example. Still lots of artifacts in less known games. Plus they really have issues far more often that Nvidias drivers have. Its not unusual that people dont use newer drivers because they dont work properly anymore, break a function, crash a game, etc. Happens with Nvidia from time to time too, but not like that.

As for technical issues with the Nvidia driver: Nothing a fresh install with DDU hasnt fixed. If you cant get your problems like that under control, its likely a hardware problem, a background program is interfering (Riva Server is often a culprit) or your Windows is shot (latter is not unlikely, because of the crappy upgrades MS does twice a year). I had that once. Sent in the card, got a new one and all worked fine.

ive omly ever had 3 amd (or ati) gfx cards, ati rage+ (with orchod righteous 3d!), 3850 (oc to 3870) and a 6870. rest have been nvidia from original gforce256 up to my current 1060. i did have some qeird gfx card somewhere inbetween but cannot remember the name.

nvidia has always been the best gfx card at the time, for drivers,reliability and performance. ive always bought "middle ground" gpus.

El Pit wrote on May 5, 2018, 02:59:
One thing came to my mind: Of course, nvidia might fall into the same trap that intel fell into. intel did not work enough on innovating its cpus because of lack of competition. When AMD presented Ryzen, intel was still ruling but the competition was suddenly there and intel is now having problems stepping up its game because they had become lazy. This is why nvidia should not be happy with tiny steps forward if a great leap is possible. AMD might present a competitive gpu in the next few years and then nvidia should either be already a (big) step ahead or should have at least a silver bullet hidden in the lab to immediately answer a threat.

You know that would be a cool story if true. Nvidia has been delivering performance unlike the cpu segment where amd has currently, but just to catch up overall. If nviidia was just giving us a plus 5 percent every gen then I’d agree with you. Sometimes they do have a low refresh gen, but some gens like the 10x0 series are landmarks.

About drivers... not struggling repeatedly with anyone’s. Not saying they are perfect, but not a tragedy by any measure. Like the some 1060 models post, some love to project the issue as something much greater.

BIGtrouble77 wrote on May 4, 2018, 23:30:
I couldn't believe the apologists that came out last time I criticized this program. Nvidia is not a good steward to PC gaming.

Lol they aren’t good. No, we’ve just thrived with them the past 10+ years. They are a big Corp that does big Corp things, news at 11.

As for the program, I guess the partners and market have spoken for now.

Well the GPP didn’t happen overnight. It probably was in progress before Vega was released, as a countermeasure to a possible true contender...but it turns out AMD didn’t have anything. Nvidia’s likely very close to announcing their next big thing, while it feels like AMD blew their load on Vega. GPP as an insurance of a sort is no longer needed. Besides, didn’t Asus already announce its two separate gaming lines? That’s likely already deeply cost-embedded into the manufacturing, so the damage is done.

None of this will make me consider an AMD card. My top-end purchase every couple years will be fed to the infinitely hungry VR machine, while its castoffs go into my mortal gaming rig. AMD simply doesn’t have the muscle that machine demands.

NVIDIA creates cutting-edge technologies for gamers.

NVIDIA apologizes for the typo. That was of course meant to read

NVIDIA creates cutting-edge technologies for miners.

I disagree with muscular about the AMD drivers. Nvid has this rep for having "perfect drivers" while AMD has "crap drivers". But in reality they're both 50/50. I can't tell you how many times I've had to roll back nVid drivers because of crashes, flickering, not all VRAM being utilized, or other weird and by any standards "totally unacceptable" shit to the nVid fanboy, but they still have this rep like they're godlike. Reminds me of how people think Valve is the best company for gaming and defend it to the death. The truth is always a bit murkier.

One thing came to my mind: Of course, nvidia might fall into the same trap that intel fell into. intel did not work enough on innovating its cpus because of lack of competition. When AMD presented Ryzen, intel was still ruling but the competition was suddenly there and intel is now having problems stepping up its game because they had become lazy. This is why nvidia should not be happy with tiny steps forward if a great leap is possible. AMD might present a competitive gpu in the next few years and then nvidia should either be already a (big) step ahead or should have at least a silver bullet hidden in the lab to immediately answer a threat.

El Pit wrote on May 5, 2018, 01:43:
Of course they cancelled it. They have nothing to fear - there simply is no competition in the GPU market. AMD has released a great CPU with the Ryzen but their GPUs are overheating and underperforming at the same time. So why should nvidia not just cancel GPP instead of "fighting for it". They rule nevertheless.

By that logic, they never needed it in the first place.

Anyone with a couple of functioning brain cells could predict that word of such slimy tactics -would- eventually get out and raise questions (and possibly official investigations as well). So either nVidia's legal team was utterly braindead, or you may be missing something when you say they had nothing to gain from implementing those anti-competitive contracts.

Of course they cancelled it. They have nothing to fear - there simply is no competition in the GPU market. AMD has released a great CPU with the Ryzen but their GPUs are overheating and underperforming at the same time. So why should nvidia not just cancel GPP instead of "fighting for it". They rule nevertheless.

BIGtrouble77 wrote on May 4, 2018, 23:30:
I couldn't believe the apologists that came out last time I criticized this program. Nvidia is not a good steward to PC gaming.

Who is?
Pretty much every corporation is scummy in some way.
I still rather take their products than lower performing ones that produce artifacts in not so well known games.
I wish there was a good alternative. One where I dont have to pay $300 extra if I want something like GSync in my monitor.
There isnt.
Maybe Intel will be some day, but we already know their support and their drivers are even worse than that of AMD.

I couldn't believe the apologists that came out last time I criticized this program. Nvidia is not a good steward to PC gaming.

Pure PR move to try and avoid any investigation into it IMO.

The partner program was shady for sure, it might be rebranded and come back, it might not.

but GAMEWORKS still lives and thrives and that is a bigger threat to the end product that we gamers play.

This isn't about me thinking about my next hardware purchase, this is about the framerate that my games experience today.

RedEye9 wrote on May 4, 2018, 20:15:
The "fake" news will eventually catch up with you.
On a down note GPP hasn't really been dropped, just rebranded.
Meet NOE (Nvidia or Else) and new rules apply for AIBs similar to the rules for Fight Club.
The first rule being 'You do not talk about NoE'.

Well if they rebranding still continues and/or expands there does not need to be talk about it, it will be obvious enough.

Pepe wrote on May 4, 2018, 20:13:
Because the alternative is lower performing hardware at even more ridiculous prices?

At least AMD's drivers seem to be in better shape these days.


In any case glad to be rid of that GPP bullshit.

Agreed. I've been burned too many times by the alternatives to ever want to go elsewhere willingly though.

This comment was edited on May 4, 2018, 21:31.