10 ms·

Many many people use consumer CPUs for gaming servers.

embedding-shape 4mo ago
So reading between the lines, you're saying it's bad for AMD to disable undocumented features because people still might have bought them for those undocumented features, particularly for gaming servers?
- nemomarx 4mo ago
  You shouldn't be remotely disabling hardware features in my opinion at all. It's not really like changing an API or something, this is like an update removing something from your car or another appliance years after you bought it.
  - embedding-shape 4mo ago
    Yeah, basically you'd trade uncertainty for the ability to remotely enable/disable hardware features not ready at launch I understand, which totally makes sense as a position, I probably agree with you. I think from AMD's side they like the option of being able to remotely enable things though, so new software updates in the future could be major releases enabling functionality that wasn't quite ready at launch. But, I suppose the uncertainty is the tradeoff here.
    - fn-mote 4mo ago
      How hypothetical is this situation? Even if you have the ability to remotely enable new features: 1. You shouldn’t use the same ability to disable existing features. 2. You shouldn’t enable them, either! It should be opt-in. Any kind of change has the potential to break something. Just don’t be changing my hardware without me initiating the change.
      - embedding-shape 4mo ago
        Overall I agree with you, and aim for the same, as a professional user I can't really have my environment and hardware change automatically, I really despise that too! > Just don’t be changing my hardware without me initiating the change In this case it seems to have been disabled in future firmware, so "you" did initiate the change, as you did an firmware upgrade that included the change. Still, shitty to sneak it in, I agree, but the feature wouldn't literally be there one day then not the next, requires human initiation at least.
  - fc417fc802 4mo ago
    > You shouldn't be remotely disabling hardware features I don't know what current case law is but I think that ought to be explicitly illegal. A physical product should be required to maintain the features that it had when it was purchased. Anything else is clearly cheating the consumer.
    - adgjlsfhk1 4mo ago
      Arguably it's a CFAA violation, but that's not a law that will ever be used against a company.
- endgame 4mo ago
  Yes.
- ChocolateGod 4mo ago
  I can't even think of what benefit memory encryption has for gaming servers?
  - vel0city 4mo ago
    IIRC, this memory encryption function can let a hypervisor tell the platform to use different encryption keys for different virtual machines. So even if somehow a compromised VM managed to read data from a neighboring VM theoretically they'd get garbled, encrypted data.
    - porridgeraisin 4mo ago
      That is not in this one. That is only the datacenter one(SEV) This one (SME) is a single machine wide key and it doesn't have integrity protection either.
      - vel0city 4mo ago
        Ah ok, thanks for the clarification!
- margalabargala 4mo ago
  Yes. > particularly for gaming servers Not "particularly" but that's one example.
porridgeraisin 4mo ago
And? do you worry about the gaming server owner's neighbour breaking in, freezing the ram, quickly transferring it to another machine and reading it off?

So reading between the lines, you're saying it's bad for AMD to disable undocumented features because people still might have bought them for those undocumented features, particularly for gaming servers?

nemomarx 4mo ago
You shouldn't be remotely disabling hardware features in my opinion at all. It's not really like changing an API or something, this is like an update removing something from your car or another appliance years after you bought it.
- embedding-shape 4mo ago
  Yeah, basically you'd trade uncertainty for the ability to remotely enable/disable hardware features not ready at launch I understand, which totally makes sense as a position, I probably agree with you. I think from AMD's side they like the option of being able to remotely enable things though, so new software updates in the future could be major releases enabling functionality that wasn't quite ready at launch. But, I suppose the uncertainty is the tradeoff here.
  - fn-mote 4mo ago
    How hypothetical is this situation? Even if you have the ability to remotely enable new features: 1. You shouldn’t use the same ability to disable existing features. 2. You shouldn’t enable them, either! It should be opt-in. Any kind of change has the potential to break something. Just don’t be changing my hardware without me initiating the change.
    - embedding-shape 4mo ago
      Overall I agree with you, and aim for the same, as a professional user I can't really have my environment and hardware change automatically, I really despise that too! > Just don’t be changing my hardware without me initiating the change In this case it seems to have been disabled in future firmware, so "you" did initiate the change, as you did an firmware upgrade that included the change. Still, shitty to sneak it in, I agree, but the feature wouldn't literally be there one day then not the next, requires human initiation at least.
- fc417fc802 4mo ago
  > You shouldn't be remotely disabling hardware features I don't know what current case law is but I think that ought to be explicitly illegal. A physical product should be required to maintain the features that it had when it was purchased. Anything else is clearly cheating the consumer.
  - adgjlsfhk1 4mo ago
    Arguably it's a CFAA violation, but that's not a law that will ever be used against a company.
endgame 4mo ago
Yes.
ChocolateGod 4mo ago
I can't even think of what benefit memory encryption has for gaming servers?
- vel0city 4mo ago
  IIRC, this memory encryption function can let a hypervisor tell the platform to use different encryption keys for different virtual machines. So even if somehow a compromised VM managed to read data from a neighboring VM theoretically they'd get garbled, encrypted data.
  - porridgeraisin 4mo ago
    That is not in this one. That is only the datacenter one(SEV) This one (SME) is a single machine wide key and it doesn't have integrity protection either.
    - vel0city 4mo ago
      Ah ok, thanks for the clarification!
margalabargala 4mo ago
Yes. > particularly for gaming servers Not "particularly" but that's one example.

porridgeraisin 4mo ago

And? do you worry about the gaming server owner's neighbour breaking in, freezing the ram, quickly transferring it to another machine and reading it off?