NEW Nvidia Drivers: GeForce WHQL 516.94 - Nvidia has issued a security warning for it's GPU drivers on 4/8/2022)

@MSFSRonS well, remember, Intel owns their own fabs, so if they want to make chips for their own products, naturally it’s their right to do just that. But to the best of my knowledge, they don’t currently offer a GPU that’s stout enough for MSFS usage. Sure, it might work, but it’s not going to be anything like what AMD and Nvidia offer. And beyond that, I’m pretty sure they weren’t making chips for them anyway.

With all that said, I would expect they’re concentrating more on their x86 products, and possible some imbedded processors that most of us (most certainly including me) have never even heard of, than anything else. They’ve got 11th Gen x86 going out now, and 12th Gen by the end of the year- and that one might interest me, if it can offer a significant boost for MSFS… but by significant, I’m not talking 5%, I’m talking more along the lines of 50%. That will have me reaching for my wallet.

That’s my $0.02.

From:

Intel’s Xe-HPG architecture employs energy-efficient processing blocks from the Xe-LP architecture, high frequency optimizations developed for Xe-HP/Xe-HPC GPUs for data centers and supercomputers, high-bandwidth internal interconnections, hardware-accelerated ray-tracing support, and a GDDR6-powered memory subsystem. The DG2 family GPUs are set to be manufactured at TSMC and are projected to hit the market in late 2021 or early 2022.

At present, Intel’s highest-performance discrete GPU is based on the Xe-LP architecture and features 96 EUs. Therefore, an Xe-HPG-powered graphics processor with 512 EUs will offer significantly higher performance than Intel’s existing standalone GPU. Rumor has it that the performance of Intel’s graphics processor with 512 EUs will be close to that of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080.

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I work in an industry that purchases various microchips at both the silicon wafer and finished goods level.

The Semiconductor shortage is absolutely real!

It used to be when purchasing, I might see a typical 4-6 week vendor lead time for most items (custom parts might take up to 8-12 weeks), today is a completely different story… Now I have to plan a minimum 4-8 months ahead for most items and in some cases an astounding 16 months!

Trying to manage available inventory and customers needs has become something of a balancing act since the start of COVID :upside_down_face:

P.S. Yes COVID has a part to play in the shortage, but there are many factors that came together to create the perfect storm!

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Screw those Asian chip manufacturers. Let’s go back to vacuum tubes and water cooled radiators! Should only take about 1,000,000 diodes and a 5.7KW power supply… :sweat_smile:

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I still think that they could/should have seen the future need for more chip manufacturing.

I have just tried MSFS 2020 with the 466.63 drivers, (the ones with bloat ware removed) and installed an update to the simulator that was released on 31st May. With my i72600K and GTX 1070, the performance over Chicago from Meigs with the pay-ware Meigs scenery installed and third-party city enhancements, the performance was surprisingly smooth with 1080P high settings yielding up-to 50 FPS. I was using the C152. I tried the same A/C and settings from Macosim EGCC and the experience was awful. Stuttering and FPS averaging around 30FPS. Serious stuttering when panning with TrackIR. Overall, I would say the performance of the driver is probably good. The poor performance may be due to the Maccosim add-on airport, I need to spend a lot of time testing. The real weather out-side is too good to miss…Charles

The only problem with that theory Ron is that the 'Rona wasn’t something that was predictable. Sure, you could have put it on the list as inevitable “someday”, but there was no way to know that “someday” would be early 2020.

It did have at least one good side effect, though, and that’s the trend towards telecommuting, which I’ve been an advocate of for decades. I’m not sure it was worth the price, though.

@TheAviator3506, what sort of “bloatware” are we talking about here?

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I know they can legitimately blame covid for the situation, but what they can’t excuse away is marketing another variant of the cards (the 3080ti) that just makes the situation worse whilst they can’t fulfil existing orders. That’s where, for me, this turns into they are making their own problems.

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Safe to update drivers? I had to rollback to get better performance

But THEY don’t have any problem. They are selling the cards at any price they ask. They don’t care if miners or gamers buy them. They are making more money than ever. As long a people buy them, they will sell them and continue to raise the price until it starts to kill off sales.

I mean they are creating their own perception problems - and they clearly don’t care.

Oh, but they do. Having nothing to sell is not a viable business strategy. And they may be making hay right now, but they better do it while the sun is shining, because that will come to an end. Cybercurrencies are so grossly overpriced, that even Stevie Wonder can see the crash coming. Not a question of if, just when, and when it does, GPU prices may fall by 50% or more (possibly way more) because of it.

Time will tell the story.

G-Force Experience, Shadow Play, NV updater, nView, 3D Vision, Optimus support. USB C-driver are a few of the options. HD Audio too, I never have any need for this.

BRGDS.

Charles

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I agree 100% that they do not care. As long as the demand for their product is high, they control the situation. We as consumers have 2 choices, Nvidia or AMD and they both are playing the same cash grab game.

Someone mentioned having no product to sell, but I believe that is not the case, but rather demand is higher than supply, and they are taking advantage of it. Hell, I would too if I were them.

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I look forward to the day when disgusting people who do this…

…are desperately trying to recover their bitcoin losses by selling their rgb fans

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@TheAviator3506 Quite a few on that list I don’t use either. But what are the practical advantages?

Perhaps, but prior to COVID, the semiconductor marked was in a bit of a lull, if not a slightly downward trend.

Existing FAB capacity was holding court (if barely)… Brining new FAB’s online & increasing capacity is crazy expensive business. Unless there’s a clear need - it’s not going to happen.

Now of course, all the big chip suppliers are scrambling to add capacity and build new factories, but it will take time.

The reality is most economists expected the technology market to tank during COVID - blinded by the thought that people would be out of work and not want to spend $$$ on TV’s, Car’s, Computers, Phones, etc…

… Well we all know how that worked out!

Gordon, this might be of interest to you…

Charles

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Kevy, the author says this, ‘I decided to make a utility to help make the modification and installation process more bearable’. The file size is reduced and there are fewer background processes, (at least that’s what I believe).

I am just experimenting with the slimmed down driver, I have used one of these drivers before but stick to the unaltered, ‘fat drivers’. The dedicated forum for the Nvidia Driver Slimming Utility is perhaps where you can go to find out more about this subject. I think this driver and tool is probably for the hardened ‘gamers’ out there. BRGDS. Charles