Question Let's talk tough turkey - what if mining more-or-less "never" subsides? Strategies for getting GPUs?

[VirtualLarry]

Let's look at this picture semi-realistically. While earnings for mining ETH may take a hit in July due to EIP-1559, other up-and-coming coins such as Ravencoin (KAWPOW on NH), and Conflux (Octopus on NH) may "sustain" the mining boom. Also, BTC and ETC are up WAY higher than they were in 2017, and highly unlikely to drop down to "unprofitable" levels again. Not to mention, actual silicon and component / substrate supply shortages means that, at least in the near term of the next few years, GPU mfg is unlikely to keep up with gamer demand, nevermind mining. And the rise of "botting and scalping" - when attempting to purchase the few GPUs that come up, you're most likely not even competing with humans for those cards.

 

[moonbogg]

Maybe this will push game devs to be more efficient in their coding. Go back to the 2000-2010 era. Games still looked decently good, and required a GPU in the <1GB range. Now you have games requiring 10GB+, but is that really justified? I'm sure devs can use lot of shortcuts to offload lot of stuff to the GPU that could instead just be done in a more efficient way code wise.

I've always considered it a racket designed to sell new GPUs.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I've always considered it a racket designed to sell new GPUs.

I think it's more a question of diminishing returns. Some effects are very ressource intensive, but don't add that much quality. Kind of like when you run at high vs. ultra, the gains in picture quality are minimal, but require a lot more processing power. Eventually, those effects move down to lower settings, and the cycle starts again with new. Same with textures. 4K textures require an awful lot of space, even when compressed. That's the reason for ballooning amounts of memory on cards.

I'm sure you could do some additional optimisation. How much, I'm not sure. I don't have that much experience in the game engine development.

 

[misuspita]

Imo, if the GPU market does not rezolves its supply issues, then I think in the long run APU's with a powerful gpu would be the way forward. Multi chiplet cpu + gpu plus on-board memory.

That and probably a mounting pressure for a more efficient way of coding games. I'm no expert, but I think it's obvious there is an enormous amount of bloating because lazy devs. The compute power has grown so rapidly in the last years and has let them become more complacent.

 

[NickelPlate]

It's hard to conceive such a supply deficit for that long. Manufacturers are just plain stupid if they're not scrambling right now to meet the demand ASAP. Even though profit margins are sky high on what they can make atm, and they may be fat and happy, they're literally hemorrhaging cash in the form of lost sales during this crisis by not being able to keep up.

That said, I've actually thought about this possibility. If it comes to the point where I need a new GPU or other hardware (and can't get one) to play the stuff I like at my preferred resolution and settings then I'll either move to console/mobile gaming or just spend my time on any of numerous other hobbies or just read more books. I simply refuse to pay these ridiculous elevated prices due to scalpers, mining, bots etc.

 

[Artorias]

I really don't understand the end game here with all these new coins.

This is nothing but the 21st century equivalent of the Tulip bubble where everyone is speculating that a few of them will reach Bitcoin levels of acceptance, no different than buying a lottery ticket.

Ridiculous waste of energy and resources that provides nothing of real value at the cost of the enviroment.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I really don't understand the end game here with all these new coins.

This is nothing but the 21st century equivalent of the Tulip bubble where everyone is speculating that a few of them will reach Bitcoin levels of acceptance, no different than buying a lottery ticket.

Ridiculous waste of energy and resources that provides nothing of real value at the cost of the enviroment.

I look it like those “virtual” pets from 2000(ish). You have your machine work on a coin then you ogle at having the coin.

 

[7beauties]

I'd spend my money on other stuff.

In fact, this whole mining/shortage/pricing situation over the last 12-18 months has changed me a lot........from being a computer enthusiast/early adopter to someone who has really lost interest in something that I've loved doing for the last 27 years.

Hell, the next time I actually need to replace my PC, I might even do something unheard of (at least by me).......buy a prebuilt Dell or something similar instead of building my own. I just refuse to pay $1k for a low midrange GPU (or $500 for a motherboard). Homey don't play that.

I wanted to upgrade my PC this Spring but that plan is on hold for now. I refuse to spend $2K+ for an RTX 3080 that is supposed to cost $700. I suppose this is because of scalpers, miners, and a worldwide chip shortage. But my PC, though a little old, still plays games very well. I just wish I could prepay for an RTX 3080 when Newegg, Best Buy, and Microcenter replenish inventory but all of them told me no.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I was thinking I need a monitor upgrade this year however I am not upping my pixel count to find out my current card is not up to the task.
I’ll wait until next gen or if I get lucky enough to score a reasonably priced card.

 

[CP5670]

I've always considered it a racket designed to sell new GPUs.

I don't think game graphics have improved much in the last 5--6 years. We have RT, larger textures and 4K as a standard resolution, but that's about it. I replayed Crysis 3 recently (from 2013) and it looks just as good as modern games, and uses only 3GB vram.

 

[moonbogg]

I don't think game graphics have improved much in the last 5--6 years. We have RT, larger textures and 4K as a standard resolution, but that's about it. I replayed Crysis 3 recently (from 2013) and it looks just as good as modern games, and uses only 3GB vram.

I've noticed that too. There doesn't seem to be an excuse for filling up an 8GB frame buffer except to pretend like your game is cutting edge or to force GPU upgrades. Many old games look amazing and like you said work with 2 to 3 GB of Vram. Same thing applies to COD games requiring ridiculous hard drive space. They could easily optimize, but they have their reasons for not doing so. I speculate they want to take up as much hard drive space as possible to limit the chances of gamers having other games installed on their systems. This simply increases the likelihood that someone will play COD more often and purchase more microtransactions. 1TB drives are common, so they make a game that needs 500GB. If 2TB drives become cheap and common, they will make a game that requires 1TB of space. They just keep ballooning it as required.

 

[VirtualLarry]

There doesn't seem to be an excuse for filling up an 8GB frame buffer except to pretend like your game is cutting edge or to force GPU upgrades.

I speculate they want to take up as much hard drive space as possible to limit the chances of gamers having other games installed on their systems.

The way it's meant to be played?

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Same thing applies to COD games requiring ridiculous hard drive space. They could easily optimize, but they have their reasons for not doing so.

Has anyone done some investigation as to what those massive installs actually contain? I mean, even if you use 8K textures all trough, I'm having a hard time imagining what takes up 209GB. F.x. Cyberpunk 2077 "only" takes up 60-odd GB, and looks pretty good.

The way it's meant to be played?

No. The way we're meant to be played™

 

[VirtualLarry]

[GraphicallyChallenged][YT]

Another scare video, regarding Chia (storage mining).

 

[Leeea]

Another scare video, regarding Chia (storage mining).

I have said this before, and I feel I need to repeat:

All cryptocurrency should be legally banned.


until then, might as well destroy our societies for our own personal gain. Everyone else is doing it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have said this before, and I feel I need to repeat:

All cryptocurrency should be legally banned.


until then, might as well destroy our societies for our own personal gain. Everyone else is doing it.

So then, you would be OK with banning "the cloud"? Microsoft Azure - BANNED! Amazon AWS / S3 - BANNED!

After all, services like those are the largest consumer of larger HDDs. All Chia is is doing that at a personal, decentralized scale.

To say nothing of the business efficiencies gained for smaller firms by moving their operations to "the cloud".

And you would just knee-jerk, outright ban that. Why? Because someone is making money somewhere off of their purchased PC parts?

 

[Leeea]

So then, you would be OK with banning "the cloud"? Microsoft Azure - BANNED! Amazon AWS / S3 - BANNED!

After all, services like those are the largest consumer of larger HDDs. All Chia is is doing that at a personal, decentralized scale.

To say nothing of the business efficiencies gained for smaller firms by moving their operations to "the cloud".

And you would just knee-jerk, outright ban that. Why? Because someone is making money somewhere off of their purchased PC parts?

There is an important difference between "the cloud" and cryptocurrency.

The Cloud enables societal advancement and is a net benefit for all of us, allowing for the more efficient storage and processing of data.



Cryptocurrency just enables criminal activity, massive waste of valuable resources, environmental destruction, and hazardous/glutinous levels of speculation. And is thereby is a net negative. It would be a societal benefit to outlaw cryptocurrency and to attach harsh penalties to the intentional production, use, and possession of it. No differently then we treat meth for example.

 

[CP5670]

Has anyone done some investigation as to what those massive installs actually contain? I mean, even if you use 8K textures all trough, I'm having a hard time imagining what takes up 209GB. F.x. Cyberpunk 2077 "only" takes up 60-odd GB, and looks pretty good.

It may be large textures, but many old games with texture mods have equally good textures and use a small fraction of the vram/space. I usually delete anything over 50-70GB once I'm done playing it, or move it to a slow storage drive.

The biggest vram hogs I've seen are VR games like FS2020 and HL:Alyx, which can go beyond 20GB at high supersampling resolution. Among flatscreen games, COD BOCW uses 16-18GB with the official texture pack.

 

[Leeea]

The biggest vram hogs I've seen are VR games like FS2020 and HL:Alyx, which can go beyond 20GB at high supersampling resolution. Among flatscreen games, COD BOCW uses 16-18GB with the official texture pack.

Speculation:
High quantities of vram are most likely necessary to reduce frame stuttering when the user spins their head. Likely all of assets in the area are loaded into vram regardless of them being used, so high lag-free frame rate can be maintained when the user rotates their view port and suddenly needs said assets.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

It may be large textures, but many old games with texture mods have equally good textures and use a small fraction of the vram/space.

Exactly. I mean picture data takes up a good deal of space, but unless it's stored as RAW files, there should be some limits at least. 200GB+ is just weird.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I have a feeling this development is going to just make programmers more lazy

Microsoft's DirectStorage tech will support PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 SSDs

Microsoft have announced that their upcoming DirectStorage tech will be supported by both PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 SSDs - great…

www.rockpapershotgun.com

 

[Steltek]

Cryptocurrency just enables criminal activity, massive waste of valuable resources, environmental destruction, and hazardous/glutinous levels of speculation. And is thereby is a net negative. It would be a societal benefit to outlaw cryptocurrency and to attach harsh penalties to the intentional production, use, and possession of it. No differently then we treat meth for example.

I totally agree with this view. Cryptocurrency provides nothing beneficial that can't be done more efficiently in other ways with far less resources.

Plus, miners shouldn't delude themselves - the 900lb gorilla is looming. Major US government regulation IS going to happen to crypto - it is only a matter of time. As part of regulation, there will be a requirement that extremely detailed tracking records be kept establishing the real owners of crypto funds and exactly what they are doing with crypto transfers, just like they do today with real currency and fund transfers. This will cause a major drop in the profitability of crypto because somebody will have to pay to design and operate a system to do it, and everybody involved in crypto will have to keep those records. Cryptofund owners who are US Citizens will have to report ALL foreign activity just like they do now for bank accounts under FATCA (which, anybody who has lived overseas for a long time can tell you is a major drag).

I'm not entirely convinced that the government won't just do stepped regulation with the end intent of literally regulating it away (if only to minimize the effect on the economy). And, if crypto crashes like the subprime mortgages did and damages the economy, it'll be outlawed as quickly as Congress can write up the bill to ban it.

 

[Artorias]

I've noticed that too. There doesn't seem to be an excuse for filling up an 8GB frame buffer except to pretend like your game is cutting edge or to force GPU upgrades. Many old games look amazing and like you said work with 2 to 3 GB of Vram. Same thing applies to COD games requiring ridiculous hard drive space. They could easily optimize, but they have their reasons for not doing so. I speculate they want to take up as much hard drive space as possible to limit the chances of gamers having other games installed on their systems. This simply increases the likelihood that someone will play COD more often and purchase more microtransactions. 1TB drives are common, so they make a game that needs 500GB. If 2TB drives become cheap and common, they will make a game that requires 1TB of space. They just keep ballooning it as required.

This is so true. I was shocked when playing The Witcher 3 and noticed how little VRAM and memory was used, same with GTAV as well.

Developers have gotten way too lazy because of increase storage space, fast SSD drives, and vast amounts of VRAM.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I've noticed that too. There doesn't seem to be an excuse for filling up an 8GB frame buffer except to pretend like your game is cutting edge or to force GPU upgrades. Many old games look amazing and like you said work with 2 to 3 GB of Vram. Same thing applies to COD games requiring ridiculous hard drive space. They could easily optimize, but they have their reasons for not doing so. I speculate they want to take up as much hard drive space as possible to limit the chances of gamers having other games installed on their systems. This simply increases the likelihood that someone will play COD more often and purchase more microtransactions. 1TB drives are common, so they make a game that needs 500GB. If 2TB drives become cheap and common, they will make a game that requires 1TB of space. They just keep ballooning it as required.

-File this under "conspiracy that makes just way too much sense". As ole Cobain once said "Just cause you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you".

So then, you would be OK with banning "the cloud"? Microsoft Azure - BANNED! Amazon AWS / S3 - BANNED!

After all, services like those are the largest consumer of larger HDDs. All Chia is is doing that at a personal, decentralized scale.

To say nothing of the business efficiencies gained for smaller firms by moving their operations to "the cloud".

And you would just knee-jerk, outright ban that. Why? Because someone is making money somewhere off of their purchased PC parts?

-Somethjng funny is going on with all the "Chinese" miner purchases etc. China has clearly and unambiguously shown that it does not brook any sort of dissent or freethink from its citizens. China wants to make the Yuan a new reserve currency for the world. But suddenly they're ok with huge mining operations for a black market currency right under their noses? How does that make sense?

Unless there is some serious skeezyness at play there (cards are being purchased by chinese intel agencies for computing power / miners are working in concert with the chinese govt to cause financial instability or to leverage coins to make shady transactions) I would actually expect the strongest crackdown on crypto to start with China, not the old fuddy-duddys that run the US.

 

[Leeea]

I would actually expect the strongest crackdown on crypto to start with China, not the old fuddy-duddys that run the US.

https://www.goodreturns.in/classroo...macedonia/articlecontent-pf18557-1208687.html

The first was in December 2013, when the People's Bank of China decided to prohibit Bitcoin due to its links to illegal drug and gun trafficking.

Regulation effectively banned cryptocurrency exchanges or trading platforms in September 2017, with 173 platforms shutting down by July 2018.

Non-state approved cryptocurrency has long been banned in China.