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Comment by PedroBatista | Hacker News Reader

This tango NVIDIA is dancing will continue as long as ( local ) AI doesn't reach plateau where even most enthusiasts are happy with the AI model they have, because when it comes to games, other than a few streamers and rich kids, nobody will run to buy this, even AAA games are dying and the appetite for running them with the latest and greatest graphics has mostly disappeared ( given the cost ).

From a gaming perspective, technicality is not anything like the ending days of Voodoo cards, but somehow it reminds me of the same feeling.

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True, but also AI could be the reason why games would need more powerful GPUs in the future (but not yet). For example LLMs for NPC dialogs, or the wilder things like running the whole game inside a neural network, or running an AI style filter over the output of the regular game engines.

https://futurism.com/doom-running-on-neural-network

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udPY5rQVoW0

https://x.com/VaigueMan/status/1836802465133437056

    For example LLMs for NPC dialogs

I've been thinking about this for a while; like how feasible it might be.

What's cool about this is that (unlike so much generative AI) is that a game based around this would not be cutting writers out of the loop.

I'm imagining a game where the writer(s) produce backstories for the characters, and all sorts of dialogue they might possibly say. And then the LLM is sort of remixing that stuff in real time to produce novel dialogue and behaviors.

Done well, I think it could be pretty seamless and compelling...

I mean, Nvidia ended up buying 3dfx and using some of their SLI tech for a while. But then it turns out DLSS and frame generation were much better ways at increasing FPS and quality.

PC gaming was always a niche market relative to the consoles, and it will probably remain so. But also, it's never looked better, had such a great selection (especially indie games), or been this affordable (between Gamepass, GeForce Now, and various publisher subs). For like $30/mo you can play many of the latest amazing games on max graphics without owning a GPU at all.

I hope, like servers, more and more of this moves to the cloud. It doesn't make sense to run much of this workload locally when they can be more efficiently managed and shared in data centers anyway, with better power and cooling management than most home PCs could have.

>Nvidia ended up buying 3dfx and using some of their SLI tech for a while

The SLI Nvidia used had nothing to do with the tech from 3df besides the initials and the general idea of the concept, especially since the way the Nvidia GPUs worked at the time Nvidia dropped SLI was totally different than the way 3dfx's 3d accelerators worked.

Ah OK, thanks for the correction!

> PC gaming was always a niche market relative to the consoles, and it will probably remain so.

The difference is not that huge though. Supposedly 43:57 by revenue:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-pc-vs-console-g...

According to other stats:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/292460/video-game-consum....

PC is even bigger.

And this is by revenue, I would guess that on average PC games might be significantly cheaper? Meaning that more people actually play them.

Or it might just be skewed by some highly addictive/competitive in Asia etc. (where IIRC console gaming was never that big outside of Japan).

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