5 ms·

This is why we need open source drivers. Now they are crippling cards for crypto mining, in the future there might be a whole list of other software features th

This is why we need open source drivers. Now they are crippling cards for crypto mining, in the future there might be a whole list of other software features that require a paid unlock or even monthly subscription to use the full potential of your own hardware.

rq1 6y ago
I think it’s done through firmware.
- qqii 6y ago
  Here's a source: > According to Bryan Del Rizzo, director of global PR for GeForce, more things are working behind the driver. > According to Mr. Del Rizzo: "It's not just a driver thing. There is a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter." https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-anti-mining-feature-goes-beyond-driver-version-could-expand-to-more-skus https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-a...
  - tibbydudeza 6y ago
    They must be using an eFUSE to differentiate between a gamer and miner GPU , would not make sense to have differing SKU's.
    - qqii 6y ago
      It's likely they have other subtle differences too. That doesn't mean they can't be worked around. Mining cards could still produce a display output with Looking Glass style software. Gaming cards could still mine using modded drivers and firmware or a change in mining algorithm.
kevingadd 6y ago
There are already a bunch of other cases like this. For example, the Windows GeForce drivers have been for years (if not decades) loaded with a bunch of shady OpenGL heuristics to punish you if you do stuff that looks like enterprise/industrial rendering (AutoCAD, etc). For an ordinary game developer this means cheap operations like texture readback will go from taking 1ms to 16ms (bumping your framerate down). The same stuff is consistently fast in Direct3D because enterprise/industrial workloads don't use it. NVENC for hardware video encoding is also artificially limited on consumer cards, which forces you to buy quadros for scenarios where you want to do multi streaming.

rq1 6y ago

I think it’s done through firmware.

qqii 6y ago
Here's a source: > According to Bryan Del Rizzo, director of global PR for GeForce, more things are working behind the driver. > According to Mr. Del Rizzo: "It's not just a driver thing. There is a secure handshake between the driver, the RTX 3060 silicon, and the BIOS (firmware) that prevents removal of the hash rate limiter." https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-anti-mining-feature-goes-beyond-driver-version-could-expand-to-more-skus https://www.techpowerup.com/278712/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-a...
- tibbydudeza 6y ago
  They must be using an eFUSE to differentiate between a gamer and miner GPU , would not make sense to have differing SKU's.
  - qqii 6y ago
    It's likely they have other subtle differences too. That doesn't mean they can't be worked around. Mining cards could still produce a display output with Looking Glass style software. Gaming cards could still mine using modded drivers and firmware or a change in mining algorithm.

kevingadd 6y ago

There are already a bunch of other cases like this. For example, the Windows GeForce drivers have been for years (if not decades) loaded with a bunch of shady OpenGL heuristics to punish you if you do stuff that looks like enterprise/industrial rendering (AutoCAD, etc). For an ordinary game developer this means cheap operations like texture readback will go from taking 1ms to 16ms (bumping your framerate down). The same stuff is consistently fast in Direct3D because enterprise/industrial workloads don't use it. NVENC for hardware video encoding is also artificially limited on consumer cards, which forces you to buy quadros for scenarios where you want to do multi streaming.