• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Nvidia doesn't want to just dominate the graphics card market, it wants to own it

Caporegime
Joined
24 Sep 2008
Posts
38,284
Location
Essex innit!
When AMD rolled out the Radeon R9 Fury X and R9 Fury graphics cards in June and July respectively it appeared the company might regain some lost ground and battle Nvidia once again for desktop GPU supremacy. Based on Nvidia’s latest quarterly earnings report, however, it may be a long time before that happens—and Nvidia's moving quickly to roll out new features that encourage GeForce buyers to stay in the GeForce ecosystem for the long haul.

In August, Jon Peddie Research estimated that Nvidia owned 81.9 percent of the add-in graphics card market during the second quarter of 2015. After Nvidia’s latest earnings report those market share numbers may very well increase again. Team Green’s GPU business is doing better than ever, increasing by 12 percent compared to the year previous, hitting a new record for the company.

The long game

But as staggering AMD gears up for what could be a bigger battle in 2016—more on that later—Nvidia's fortifying its position by increasing GeForce's usefulness and making it harder, or at least less appealing, to switch over to Radeon graphics cards.

In mid-December, Nvidia will lock all its Game-Ready drivers behind the GeForce Experience (GFE) software. That means gamers looking to optimize their system with the latest drivers tweaked for new top-tier titles will have to be registered users of GFE.

nvidia game ready
That is just the first volley, however. The company wants to transform GFE from a basic desktop utility to a gaming hub where Nvidia has direct contact with its customers—thus the mandatory registration. GFE will soon be a hub for news, hardware giveaways, and early access codes for hot games on top of the place where you turn on ShadowPlay and use Nvidia's GameStream technology.

Nvidia's also made a clear effort to entice game developers into embracing its fancy GameWorks middleware effects in 2015, so that titles offer optimized or enhanced graphics effects that (typically) perform better on Nvidia GPUs. These include features like PhysX for game physics, and FaceWorks, HairWorks, and WaveWorks for more realistic in-game graphics.

Then there’s GeForce Now, Nvidia’s take on cloud game streaming that allows you to play a graphics intensive games on sub-par hardware, with the heavy computing done by the server. The catch is GeForce Now only works with Nvidia Shield devices such as the Shield Android TV and Shield tablet, thus encouraging more people who want a Netflix-for-games-like streaming experience to try a Shield device.

If the program's ever expanded to embrace GeForce-equipped PCs, too, it's easy to see how this could be a hit with gamers on a budget. GeForce Now streams modern games like Witcher 3 at up to 1080p at 60 frames per second, which is far better than entry-level cards like the GTX 950 can muster natively, and you can play all 70-plus supported PC titles as part of your $8 per month subscription.

What's more, one of GFE's major tabs is dedicated to streaming games from your PC to your Shield devices.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3001...-graphics-card-market-it-wants-to-own-it.html

The whole article is very interesting and really surprised to see an estimated ownership of 81.9% market share in favour of Nvidia.

Read the whole article before commenting please, as it is a good read.
 
PCworld paid for article plugging Nvidia shocker, the same site that has a 970 outperforming nearly everything else, not worth reading the whole article tbph.

They're even promotting the closed driver rollout - hilariously brilliant.
 
A good read, nvidia do need to be careful with this whole locking drivers behind gfe. Personally I like and use gfe and many of its features, but installing it shouldn't be forced upon those just looking for the latest driver. I have no doubt the drivers will get pulled from gfe and uploaded else where as a stand alone, but it's an inconvenience you shouldn't have to face.
 
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3001...-graphics-card-market-it-wants-to-own-it.html

The whole article is very interesting and really surprised to see an estimated ownership of 81.9% market share in favour of Nvidia.

Read the whole article before commenting please, as it is a good read.

Really good article. It's exciting times being an Nvidia owner. Personally I dont like there being no competition but its been that way for a long time now and I've seen no downside. So, onwards and upwards as they say :)
 
A good read, nvidia do need to be careful with this whole locking drivers behind gfe. Personally I like and use gfe and many of its features, but installing it shouldn't be forced upon those just looking for the latest driver. I have no doubt the drivers will get pulled from gfe and uploaded else where as a stand alone, but it's an inconvenience you shouldn't have to face.

Totally agreed and whilst me and you like GFE, not everyone does and I do feel that it could backfire on a few users who don't want it.

Really good article. It's exciting times being an Nvidia owner. Personally I dont like there being no competition but its been that way for a long time now and I've seen no downside. So, onwards and upwards as they say :)

I also don't want the competition dead and with the new crimson thing coming, hopefully it will bring some good additions to make AMD more attractive.
 
Load of rubbish. Wonder how much Nvidia paid for this article, usual pcworld drivel.

As usual the Nvidia bods in here praise it and take it for the gospel.
 
I do not like the idea of having to install GFE if you do not want it. But I think for the general user it maybe a help as I bet there are a lot of causal PC users that are running out of date drivers so I can see a benefit there.

It would be nice to have the option though, it is not good to railroad people down the one route.
 
GeForce Experience hiding drivers behind a mandatory registration? WTH?

Nvidia can go and bend one if they think that is acceptable.

I will happily obtain and download the same drivers from the usual places as a first resort.
 
I also don't want the competition dead and with the new crimson thing coming, hopefully it will bring some good additions to make AMD more attractive.

The crimson thing brings nothing but an updated GUI. It will look nice but its still ran by AMD.

I'm looking forward to GFE. My shield should be with me soon so having everything all under one roof in regards to streaming to that, updating drivers etc sounds pretty handy and invaluable.
 
I just want a graphics card to run my game,not some "AMD" or "Nvidia" experience which seems more like they are trying to make the gaming PC more like a console,to attract more console players,just like Valve are trying to do. In the end we are only going to end up with the PC being an upgradeable console. Sigh.
 
Load of rubbish. Wonder how much Nvidia paid for this article, usual pcworld drivel.

As usual the Nvidia bods in here praise it and take it for the gospel.

Not sure I'm seeing that. Even those that like GFE have criticised this approach.
 
I just want a graphics card to run my game,not some "AMD" or "Nvidia" experience which seems more like they are trying to make the gaming PC more like a console,to attract more console players,just like Valve are trying to do. In the end we are only going to end up with the PC being an upgradeable console. Sigh.

The assumption here seems to be that creating new tools equals removing the capability to customise. Making things easier for new users means dumbing down the experience for experienced users. Thats not the way I see it, adding things adds options, it doesn't really remove them as people like Guru3D will just keep adding mirrors for game ready drivers and WHQL will still be available via the Nvidia site.

Nvidia are trying to make things easier for more people to get in to PC gaming... I struggle to see that as a bad thing when we all know how to get around it if we want to.
Having said that, GE has made great strides over the last year and I have no issues with having it on my PC going forwards.
 
Last edited:
The whole article is very interesting and really surprised to see an estimated ownership of 81.9% market share in favour of Nvidia.

Steam disagrees. "Estimated ownership of 81.9%" - sounds like they pulled that out of their behind.

The crimson thing brings nothing but an updated GUI. It will look nice but its still ran by AMD.

Yes it does bring an updated UI which is needed as the current layout of terribly dated. And so what if it's done by AMD? Their recent Win10 drivers have been nothing should have fantastic, better than Nvidia's dare i say.

Not sure I'm seeing that. Even those that like GFE have criticised this approach.

I have my opinions on pcworld as they usually favour Nvidia, i do agree that moving drivers exclusively to GFE is nothing short of idiotic.
 
Last edited:
The assumption here seems to be that creating new tools equals removing the capability to customise. Making things easier for new users means dumbing down the experience for experienced users. Thats not the way I see it, adding things adds options, it doesn't really remove them as people like Guru3D will just keep adding mirrors for game ready drivers and WHQL will still be available via the Nvidia site.

Nvidia are trying to make things easier for more people to get in to PC gaming... I struggle to see that as a bad thing when we all know how to get around it if we want to.
Having said that, GE has made great strides over the last year and I have no issues with having it on my PC going forwards.

Just as long as they log into Nvidia's servers, and watch Guru get a cease and desist or just not make the driver available outside GFE.

Nvidia, and AMD have a system to make it easy for console noobs to setup their PC right now, its everyone's choice whether or not one uses it.
this is Nvidia forcing you to use it so you can't ignore the bloat and addware they plan on cramming into it.

This is the sort of crap Apple do.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom