7 ms·

Nvidia Playing with Fire

140 points by x0054 9y ago

namlem 9y ago
Does this violate any EU laws? It's blatantly anti-competitive, but the US doesn't seem to care about maintaining a healthy, competitive market.
- jakeogh 9y ago
  Allowing politicians so heavily regulate business owners has put the EU where it is: in big trouble. It's going to continue to break up. Poland and Hungry are probably next.
Larrikin 9y ago
Site seems to only be readable on mobile if you force PC mode display. Otherwise if you try to read pass the abstract the article gets replaced with a message to download their app.
- 1123581321 9y ago
  iOS users can bypass this with Reader mode (and long pressing the Reader icon lets you permanently set it for SA.)
- asdsa5325 9y ago
  Reader mode on Firefox bypasses it (and displays it as one page).
- madez 9y ago
  "Privacy Browser" from F-Droid shows the text just fine.
- seanp2k2 9y ago
  It's also 8 pages so they can show a different ad on each page. The content might be OK, but it's the same slimy tactic that Facebook listicle sites use to boost "page views" and ad views. To me, this massively devalues the content.
  - soared 9y ago
    Other sites use identical strategies except they refresh an ad slot every 15 seconds. The 8 page thing is either bad/weird web design or serves another purpose.
- jakeogh 9y ago
  reason n^x to disable JS (I get a nice single page without it)
userbinator 9y ago
GPU companies seem to be notoriously closed and in general secretive about their products; nVidia is only one of the more prominent current examples, but AMD/ATI wasn't that nice in the past either. AFAIK Intel was the first to release detailed specs on its GPUs. Ideally, one should be able to go to their websites and download full documentation (and drivers with source) on any of their products, as well as actually order the bare GPUs chips. Instead, thanks to their desire to control the entire manufacturing and distribution chain, it's a convoluted NDA-filled process. Personally, I don't really get it; why would a company put all these barriers in place to would-be customers of their products, and thus restrict their revenue? I'm almost willing to bet that there would be many more buying and using their GPUs if they left the market more open. Microchip is one prominent example of the "other way" --- full documentation for their microcontrollers, and even direct ordering from the website. They are very successful. Unfortunately no GPU manufacturer seems to be doing this.
- wtallis 9y ago
  NVidia and ATI/AMD experienced more than a decade as a duopoly where everyone who wanted a powerful graphics chip bought one from one of those two companies. Their only big growth opportunities were to expand the number of gamers. Open specs don't help much with that. In the meantime, computer graphics has long been a patent minefield, and Hollywood has been pressuring the chip makers to play along with their DRM schemes. Both of those are strong incentives to not be fully open.
  - userbinator 9y ago
    Their only big growth opportunities were to expand the number of gamers. Open specs don't help much with that. It would increase the number of companies who could produce their own designs and thus diversity the market; and GPGPU might've come sooner if the documentation was far more widely available.
    - wtallis 9y ago
      > It would increase the number of companies who could produce their own designs Their own designs for competing GPUs, or their own designs for graphics cards incorporating NVidia and ATI GPUs? There's never been a shortage of the latter, and there's never been an incentive for NVidia or ATI to help enable the former. I don't think GPGPU would have happened much earlier, but I do think open hardware specs would have drastically changed the evolution of GPGPU tooling. There would have been upstream backends for GCC and LLVM before closed frameworks like CUDA could have gotten a foothold. But none of that was going to happen until the GPUs were actually capable of running general purpose code.
twoodfin 9y ago
This seems like no big deal. Nvidia creates a preferred partner co-branding program, and insists that an OEM’s half of the branding effort be Nvidia-specific, presumably so Nvidia isn’t spending marketing dollars promoting OEM brands that include AMD GPUs.
- nrb 9y ago
  This program goes beyond branding efforts, according to the report[1] the partner program includes: - high-effort engineering engagements - early tech engagement - launch partner status - game bundling - sales rebate programs - social media and PR support - marketing reports - Marketing Development Funds (MDF) Conditionally including MDF as part of this program is behavior similar to what caused the government action against Intel by the FTC: "The FTC settlement applies to Central Processing Units, Graphics Processing Units and chipsets and prohibits Intel from using threats, bundled prices, or other offers to exclude or hamper competition or otherwise unreasonably inhibit the sale of competitive CPUs or GPUs. The settlement also prohibits Intel from deceiving computer manufacturers about the performance of non-Intel CPUs or GPUs."[2] 1: https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/03/08/geforce_partner_program_impacts_consumer_choice/ https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/03/08/geforce_partner_p... 2: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2010/08/ftc-settles-charges-anticompetitive-conduct-against-intel https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2010/08/ftc-s...
  - rasz 9y ago
    Yes, but Intel still didnt pay the fine (in EU) and keeps doing the same old under new clothes. As a reseller you regularly get extraordinary deals from Intel. For example for every highend CPU + mobo combo sold intel "gifts" you an SSD = hidden heavy rebate on expensive CPU, had this one at least couple of times.
    - simion314 9y ago
      It is not over, Intel appealed so it dragged things along for years, I hope they get what they deserve. The main problem was not the gifts or discounts for selling Intel CPU, there was conditions like do not sell any AMD or less then 5% AMD.
asdsa5325 9y ago
Note that this is perspective from an investor, not a tech head, developer, etc.
suresk 9y ago
Between this and the "no GeForce usage in datacenters" thing, I'm really starting to dislike NVidia. I was hoping AMD would be able to be more competitive with them on both the gaming and deep learning fronts, but manufacturers already seem to be going along with this which could hurt AMD even more.
- snuxoll 9y ago
  NVidia has been pretty crappy for a while now, they've made some exceptional products but they've also been complete dicks to gamers at the same time (see: GameWorks, along with their general history of implementing driver hacks to improve performance in games while reducing correctness). I was really hoping AMD could be more competitive this generation too, I had only used AMD GPU's since 2011 when I built my first gaming system from scratch (as opposed to the cobbled up upgrades I had when I was still in middle/high-school). My R9 290 was looking long in the tooth, Vega failed to impress and the RX 580 was barely an upgrade (more VRAM, lower power, and due to cryptomining horrendously overpriced) - I ended up getting an ASUS Strix 1080Ti. All of us should hope that AMD at least catches up with Navi, the current dominance of NVidia in the GPU market (both for gaming and the datacenter) is bad for everyone - even if you're loyal to them for some reason no real competition doesn't give them much reason to keep innovating.
  - Zardoz84 9y ago
    I grab a RX580 with a nice offert on black Friday. The best GPU that I brought on a long time. And works flawless on Linux.
    - madengr 9y ago
      I did too, then sold it 2 months later on eBay. Horrible windows drivers. A 1060 works flawlessly. Never buy an AMD product after that experience.
  - llukas 9y ago
    Please stop propagating FUD: "proprietary RTX tech when there's no way they weren't involved or informed in the development of DirectX Raytracing" Just looking here and searching for NVIDIA: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/directx/2018/03/19/announcing-microsoft-directx-raytracing/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/directx/2018/03/19/announci... yields: "And, our friends at EPIC, with collaboration from ILMxLAB and NVIDIA, have also put together a stunning technology demo with some characters you may recognize." Which was rendered with DirectX Raytracing using RTX hardware. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3ue35ago3Y&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3ue35ago3Y&feature=youtu.be
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
yarg 9y ago
> In the past this strategy backfired for Intel (INTC) and the same may be the fate of Nvidia. It sure as shit didn't backfire for Intel - they settled with AMD for $1,000,000,000. For this price they completely hobbled AMD's ability to sell the Athlon 64, which hobbled profits (both directly and in terms of long-term branch image), which ultimately hobbled R&D. AMD never fully recovered - and sold their foundries in order to survive. Intel, on the other hand, got full control over the pricing of pretty much the entire x86 market for over a decade - it was well worth what they settled for.
- rasz 9y ago
  Lets not forget another >$1B EU fine which they still didnt pay to this day (neither did Microsoft). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-06/intel-gets-boost-in-1-26-billion-fight-as-case-sent-for-review https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-06/intel-get...
  - ianai 9y ago
    Probably only forcing them to dissolve into separate entities would work. Sadly, that’s probably not possible with today’s global companies.
  - singularity2001 9y ago
    how do they get away with not paying?
    - VladTheImplier 9y ago
      Different legislations. The EU has no real power over those companies. Basically they said please be nice, please pay us 1B.
      - navaati 9y ago
        Have they no assets on EU soil that can be seized from them ?
yalogin 9y ago
How good is the automotive business for Nvidia? Now and in the long run.
snvzz 9y ago
So, what NVIDIA is saying is: All your gaming brands do now belong to us. Or else.
zaarn 9y ago
The GPP is pretty much as anti-competitive as it gets. "Sell our GPUs as gamer or else you might not get any GPUs" is a big threat to the vendors. I will no longer recommend or buy Nvidia hardware for anything and I hope reviewers will start to not review NV hardware over this. It's a real dick move.
sir-alien 9y ago
Well I for one will certainly avoid any product brand that is now part of the GPP. It is great getting discounts from things like Intel but like the age old saying, if it's too good to be true it probably is. And this definitely got exposed with the recent serious vulnerabilities in all modern Intel x86 CPUs. In the attempt to get ever faster and make ever more sales, they had to lower quality. Pretty much the same path with Nvidia in my opinion.
smitherfield 9y ago
>However, OEM computer manufacturers are a whole different story altogether. This is where AMD might get hurt by GPP. You see, GPP doesn't only apply to AIB manufacturers, it also applies to OEMs such as Dell, Apple, Lenovo or HP. Perhaps in theory (emphasis on the perhaps, IANAL and neither is the author), but not in practice. Nvidia has a great deal of power over ATI, Asus etc. They have no power over Dell, much less Apple. Nvidia needs Dell and Apple far, far more than Dell or Apple needs Nvidia (they don't). Nvidia and AMD are selling, if not identical products, then near enough for government work. If Dell decided to drop Nvidia from all their product lines, the impact on Dell would be negligible at worst, but it would be a catastrophe for Nvidia (while AMD would be making out like Scrooge McDuck). Apple? Nvidia sends Apple the corporate equivalent of drunken post-breakup apology voicemails (releasing Mac drivers for cards that aren't offered on Macs). Nvidia's ability to enforce branding guidelines on Dell is nil. If Dell decided they'd rather brand "Nvidia" cards as "Dell GraphicsMaster 6000 SUX," Nvidia would have to roll with it.
- JarlUlvi 9y ago
  >Nvidia and AMD are selling, if not identical products, then near enough for government work. This is an incredibly ignorant statement. While they both sell GPUs for consumer, and business (Quadro/Fire) AMD sells semi-custom CPUs, and has merged CPUs & GPUs into APUs. NVDA sells SOC, and AI focused hardware in addition to GPUs. The GPUs have huge differences between them, particularly with the newer APUs which are more, or less, customized for OEMs. Summary: they overlap on GPUs, but their businesses are very different elsewhere.

140 points by x0054 9y ago

Does this violate any EU laws? It's blatantly anti-competitive, but the US doesn't seem to care about maintaining a healthy, competitive market.

jakeogh 9y ago
Allowing politicians so heavily regulate business owners has put the EU where it is: in big trouble. It's going to continue to break up. Poland and Hungry are probably next.

Larrikin 9y ago

Site seems to only be readable on mobile if you force PC mode display. Otherwise if you try to read pass the abstract the article gets replaced with a message to download their app.

1123581321 9y ago
iOS users can bypass this with Reader mode (and long pressing the Reader icon lets you permanently set it for SA.)
asdsa5325 9y ago
Reader mode on Firefox bypasses it (and displays it as one page).
madez 9y ago
"Privacy Browser" from F-Droid shows the text just fine.
seanp2k2 9y ago
It's also 8 pages so they can show a different ad on each page. The content might be OK, but it's the same slimy tactic that Facebook listicle sites use to boost "page views" and ad views. To me, this massively devalues the content.
- soared 9y ago
  Other sites use identical strategies except they refresh an ad slot every 15 seconds. The 8 page thing is either bad/weird web design or serves another purpose.
jakeogh 9y ago
reason n^x to disable JS (I get a nice single page without it)

userbinator 9y ago

GPU companies seem to be notoriously closed and in general secretive about their products; nVidia is only one of the more prominent current examples, but AMD/ATI wasn't that nice in the past either. AFAIK Intel was the first to release detailed specs on its GPUs. Ideally, one should be able to go to their websites and download full documentation (and drivers with source) on any of their products, as well as actually order the bare GPUs chips. Instead, thanks to their desire to control the entire manufacturing and distribution chain, it's a convoluted NDA-filled process. Personally, I don't really get it; why would a company put all these barriers in place to would-be customers of their products, and thus restrict their revenue? I'm almost willing to bet that there would be many more buying and using their GPUs if they left the market more open. Microchip is one prominent example of the "other way" --- full documentation for their microcontrollers, and even direct ordering from the website. They are very successful. Unfortunately no GPU manufacturer seems to be doing this.

wtallis 9y ago
NVidia and ATI/AMD experienced more than a decade as a duopoly where everyone who wanted a powerful graphics chip bought one from one of those two companies. Their only big growth opportunities were to expand the number of gamers. Open specs don't help much with that. In the meantime, computer graphics has long been a patent minefield, and Hollywood has been pressuring the chip makers to play along with their DRM schemes. Both of those are strong incentives to not be fully open.
- userbinator 9y ago
  Their only big growth opportunities were to expand the number of gamers. Open specs don't help much with that. It would increase the number of companies who could produce their own designs and thus diversity the market; and GPGPU might've come sooner if the documentation was far more widely available.
  - wtallis 9y ago
    > It would increase the number of companies who could produce their own designs Their own designs for competing GPUs, or their own designs for graphics cards incorporating NVidia and ATI GPUs? There's never been a shortage of the latter, and there's never been an incentive for NVidia or ATI to help enable the former. I don't think GPGPU would have happened much earlier, but I do think open hardware specs would have drastically changed the evolution of GPGPU tooling. There would have been upstream backends for GCC and LLVM before closed frameworks like CUDA could have gotten a foothold. But none of that was going to happen until the GPUs were actually capable of running general purpose code.

twoodfin 9y ago

This seems like no big deal. Nvidia creates a preferred partner co-branding program, and insists that an OEM’s half of the branding effort be Nvidia-specific, presumably so Nvidia isn’t spending marketing dollars promoting OEM brands that include AMD GPUs.

nrb 9y ago
This program goes beyond branding efforts, according to the report[1] the partner program includes: - high-effort engineering engagements - early tech engagement - launch partner status - game bundling - sales rebate programs - social media and PR support - marketing reports - Marketing Development Funds (MDF) Conditionally including MDF as part of this program is behavior similar to what caused the government action against Intel by the FTC: "The FTC settlement applies to Central Processing Units, Graphics Processing Units and chipsets and prohibits Intel from using threats, bundled prices, or other offers to exclude or hamper competition or otherwise unreasonably inhibit the sale of competitive CPUs or GPUs. The settlement also prohibits Intel from deceiving computer manufacturers about the performance of non-Intel CPUs or GPUs."[2] 1: https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/03/08/geforce_partner_program_impacts_consumer_choice/ https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/03/08/geforce_partner_p... 2: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2010/08/ftc-settles-charges-anticompetitive-conduct-against-intel https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2010/08/ftc-s...
- rasz 9y ago
  Yes, but Intel still didnt pay the fine (in EU) and keeps doing the same old under new clothes. As a reseller you regularly get extraordinary deals from Intel. For example for every highend CPU + mobo combo sold intel "gifts" you an SSD = hidden heavy rebate on expensive CPU, had this one at least couple of times.
  - simion314 9y ago
    It is not over, Intel appealed so it dragged things along for years, I hope they get what they deserve. The main problem was not the gifts or discounts for selling Intel CPU, there was conditions like do not sell any AMD or less then 5% AMD.

asdsa5325 9y ago

Note that this is perspective from an investor, not a tech head, developer, etc.

suresk 9y ago

Between this and the "no GeForce usage in datacenters" thing, I'm really starting to dislike NVidia. I was hoping AMD would be able to be more competitive with them on both the gaming and deep learning fronts, but manufacturers already seem to be going along with this which could hurt AMD even more.

snuxoll 9y ago
NVidia has been pretty crappy for a while now, they've made some exceptional products but they've also been complete dicks to gamers at the same time (see: GameWorks, along with their general history of implementing driver hacks to improve performance in games while reducing correctness). I was really hoping AMD could be more competitive this generation too, I had only used AMD GPU's since 2011 when I built my first gaming system from scratch (as opposed to the cobbled up upgrades I had when I was still in middle/high-school). My R9 290 was looking long in the tooth, Vega failed to impress and the RX 580 was barely an upgrade (more VRAM, lower power, and due to cryptomining horrendously overpriced) - I ended up getting an ASUS Strix 1080Ti. All of us should hope that AMD at least catches up with Navi, the current dominance of NVidia in the GPU market (both for gaming and the datacenter) is bad for everyone - even if you're loyal to them for some reason no real competition doesn't give them much reason to keep innovating.
- Zardoz84 9y ago
  I grab a RX580 with a nice offert on black Friday. The best GPU that I brought on a long time. And works flawless on Linux.
  - madengr 9y ago
    I did too, then sold it 2 months later on eBay. Horrible windows drivers. A 1060 works flawlessly. Never buy an AMD product after that experience.
- llukas 9y ago
  Please stop propagating FUD: "proprietary RTX tech when there's no way they weren't involved or informed in the development of DirectX Raytracing" Just looking here and searching for NVIDIA: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/directx/2018/03/19/announcing-microsoft-directx-raytracing/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/directx/2018/03/19/announci... yields: "And, our friends at EPIC, with collaboration from ILMxLAB and NVIDIA, have also put together a stunning technology demo with some characters you may recognize." Which was rendered with DirectX Raytracing using RTX hardware. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3ue35ago3Y&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3ue35ago3Y&feature=youtu.be

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

yarg 9y ago

> In the past this strategy backfired for Intel (INTC) and the same may be the fate of Nvidia. It sure as shit didn't backfire for Intel - they settled with AMD for $1,000,000,000. For this price they completely hobbled AMD's ability to sell the Athlon 64, which hobbled profits (both directly and in terms of long-term branch image), which ultimately hobbled R&D. AMD never fully recovered - and sold their foundries in order to survive. Intel, on the other hand, got full control over the pricing of pretty much the entire x86 market for over a decade - it was well worth what they settled for.

rasz 9y ago
Lets not forget another >$1B EU fine which they still didnt pay to this day (neither did Microsoft). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-06/intel-gets-boost-in-1-26-billion-fight-as-case-sent-for-review https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-06/intel-get...
- ianai 9y ago
  Probably only forcing them to dissolve into separate entities would work. Sadly, that’s probably not possible with today’s global companies.
- singularity2001 9y ago
  how do they get away with not paying?
  - VladTheImplier 9y ago
    Different legislations. The EU has no real power over those companies. Basically they said please be nice, please pay us 1B.
    - navaati 9y ago
      Have they no assets on EU soil that can be seized from them ?

yalogin 9y ago

How good is the automotive business for Nvidia? Now and in the long run.

snvzz 9y ago

So, what NVIDIA is saying is: All your gaming brands do now belong to us. Or else.

zaarn 9y ago

The GPP is pretty much as anti-competitive as it gets. "Sell our GPUs as gamer or else you might not get any GPUs" is a big threat to the vendors. I will no longer recommend or buy Nvidia hardware for anything and I hope reviewers will start to not review NV hardware over this. It's a real dick move.

sir-alien 9y ago

Well I for one will certainly avoid any product brand that is now part of the GPP. It is great getting discounts from things like Intel but like the age old saying, if it's too good to be true it probably is. And this definitely got exposed with the recent serious vulnerabilities in all modern Intel x86 CPUs. In the attempt to get ever faster and make ever more sales, they had to lower quality. Pretty much the same path with Nvidia in my opinion.

smitherfield 9y ago

>However, OEM computer manufacturers are a whole different story altogether. This is where AMD might get hurt by GPP. You see, GPP doesn't only apply to AIB manufacturers, it also applies to OEMs such as Dell, Apple, Lenovo or HP. Perhaps in theory (emphasis on the perhaps, IANAL and neither is the author), but not in practice. Nvidia has a great deal of power over ATI, Asus etc. They have no power over Dell, much less Apple. Nvidia needs Dell and Apple far, far more than Dell or Apple needs Nvidia (they don't). Nvidia and AMD are selling, if not identical products, then near enough for government work. If Dell decided to drop Nvidia from all their product lines, the impact on Dell would be negligible at worst, but it would be a catastrophe for Nvidia (while AMD would be making out like Scrooge McDuck). Apple? Nvidia sends Apple the corporate equivalent of drunken post-breakup apology voicemails (releasing Mac drivers for cards that aren't offered on Macs). Nvidia's ability to enforce branding guidelines on Dell is nil. If Dell decided they'd rather brand "Nvidia" cards as "Dell GraphicsMaster 6000 SUX," Nvidia would have to roll with it.

JarlUlvi 9y ago
>Nvidia and AMD are selling, if not identical products, then near enough for government work. This is an incredibly ignorant statement. While they both sell GPUs for consumer, and business (Quadro/Fire) AMD sells semi-custom CPUs, and has merged CPUs & GPUs into APUs. NVDA sells SOC, and AI focused hardware in addition to GPUs. The GPUs have huge differences between them, particularly with the newer APUs which are more, or less, customized for OEMs. Summary: they overlap on GPUs, but their businesses are very different elsewhere.