GeForce RTX 3060 Ethereum Mining Restrictions Have Been Broken(videocardz.com)
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GeForce RTX 3060 Ethereum Mining Restrictions Have Been Broken
https://videocardz.com/newz/pc-watch-geforce-rtx-3060-ethereum-mining-restrictions-have-been-broken
313 comments
There's also the fact that a few days ago Nvidia released a signed driver that disabled the restrictions [1] _by accident_. But now that the signed driver is out, anyone can just revert to that at any time and mine whatever they want.
Fantastic failure to a flawed endeavour.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/16/22333544/nvidia-rtx-3060-...
Fantastic failure to a flawed endeavour.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/16/22333544/nvidia-rtx-3060-...
My take on this is that Nvidia knew fine well that their code would be broken. And in short order too.
I reckon this was just lip-service to consumers, and possibly their investors, that they're "doing something about those bad cryptominers that are making us loads of money".
Plus, whenever something is marketed as unbreakable, I picture guys reading it saying "Oh really? Challenge accepted!"
I reckon this was just lip-service to consumers, and possibly their investors, that they're "doing something about those bad cryptominers that are making us loads of money".
Plus, whenever something is marketed as unbreakable, I picture guys reading it saying "Oh really? Challenge accepted!"
These miners are really getting on my nerves: not only they are polluting the planet (1% of electricity in 2018 was for cryptomining), but are driving off the budgets of whole deep learning practitioners
So, does anyone have any technical details on how this works? Both what the block was in the first place and how it was defeated?
I imagine it has something to do with how Etherum is mostly integer math and boolean operations for hashing, while gaming workloads tend to be floating point, but I'm just guessing.
Another factor in the background: the pandemic has caused a worldwide fab capacity shortage. Lots of manufacturers are running around with their hair on fire trying to book fab slots. Even car production is being held up due to IC shortages.
I imagine it has something to do with how Etherum is mostly integer math and boolean operations for hashing, while gaming workloads tend to be floating point, but I'm just guessing.
Another factor in the background: the pandemic has caused a worldwide fab capacity shortage. Lots of manufacturers are running around with their hair on fire trying to book fab slots. Even car production is being held up due to IC shortages.
Hopefully they give up on the idea for future cards. NVIDIA shouldn't decide what I can do with my GPU.
These mining restrictions are... interesting, given that Ethereum is about to move towards staking rather soon anyway ..
My god, this whole thing went pear shaped so fast, it's incredible. I bet this launch will be taught in B-schools as a lesson for would be marketers.
Nvidia seemed to be doing the right thing at first, taking the concerns of their most enthusiastic customers seriously and doing something about it. Given how badly the company usually treats their customers, it seemed like a nice gesture.
Then the Internet trolls came out and accused the company of just giving the issue lip service, since it was obviously just a software fix, it wouldn't really stop the big crypto farms from using the cards. Nvidia is evil, as per normal.
Then the company responds with a lie, that it's actually a hardware implementation. No one believed it, but that's their story. Nvidia is trying to do the right thing.
Then all the gamers - most of whom aren't even in the market for a RTX 3060 - start flipping out about how the resale of the cards is going to be lower because they're all nerfed. So by charging full price for the card anyways, Nvidia is actually ripping them off!! Nvidia is evil again.
Then this screwups happens and everyone now is screeching about how they knew it all along and Nvidia is actually lying about EVERYTHING!! Maybe they're creating artificial shortages in the first place! It's all a conspiracy man!!
I don't think I've ever seen an reasonable idea like this go tits up so fast. Remember when Netflix announced Quickster and it bit them in the ass so hard they had to cancel the whole spinoff? This is what this reminds me of: Good intentions badly implemented.
Nvidia seemed to be doing the right thing at first, taking the concerns of their most enthusiastic customers seriously and doing something about it. Given how badly the company usually treats their customers, it seemed like a nice gesture.
Then the Internet trolls came out and accused the company of just giving the issue lip service, since it was obviously just a software fix, it wouldn't really stop the big crypto farms from using the cards. Nvidia is evil, as per normal.
Then the company responds with a lie, that it's actually a hardware implementation. No one believed it, but that's their story. Nvidia is trying to do the right thing.
Then all the gamers - most of whom aren't even in the market for a RTX 3060 - start flipping out about how the resale of the cards is going to be lower because they're all nerfed. So by charging full price for the card anyways, Nvidia is actually ripping them off!! Nvidia is evil again.
Then this screwups happens and everyone now is screeching about how they knew it all along and Nvidia is actually lying about EVERYTHING!! Maybe they're creating artificial shortages in the first place! It's all a conspiracy man!!
I don't think I've ever seen an reasonable idea like this go tits up so fast. Remember when Netflix announced Quickster and it bit them in the ass so hard they had to cancel the whole spinoff? This is what this reminds me of: Good intentions badly implemented.
I'm not too surprised. I think it's in Nvidia best interest both to claim that the hash limit is unbreakable, but at the same time also make it breackable
In my opinion they set their prices too low and have not invested enough in fabs. The demand now way exceeds their capability to manufacture and unfortunately the only way to "restart" is to set prices to a level that will allow building the capacity to satisfy the demand at lower price point. They can try doing those PR tricks, but they'll just waste even more money without addressing the problem.
Can anyone enlighten and explain why there were restrictions in the first place?
Ahh the old "lets make it look like a mistake and release a driver that unlocks the mining restrictions".
Maybe I'm old and cynical but does anyone actually think this was an error on NVIDIA part? Their goal is to sell as much GPU as they can, their shareholders wouldn't want it any other way. My opinion is it was a convenient mistake that will sell a lot more cards.
Maybe I'm old and cynical but does anyone actually think this was an error on NVIDIA part? Their goal is to sell as much GPU as they can, their shareholders wouldn't want it any other way. My opinion is it was a convenient mistake that will sell a lot more cards.
If you wanted to really limit it to gamers, why not partner with steam/origin/etc and have them pass out tokens to buyers for use with vendors based on previous gameplay history.
This of course requires vendors to also play with this scheme, which I'm not sure NVIDIA has the clout to ensure that point-of-sale people can enforce this.
This of course requires vendors to also play with this scheme, which I'm not sure NVIDIA has the clout to ensure that point-of-sale people can enforce this.
I wish I could reply with a nuanced take, but I can't. Ban these cryptocurrency pyramid schemes already. https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html
This could drive the bigger question of the feasibility of hardware imposed restrictions.
Exactly as predicted the day the NVidia announcement came out.
And a good thing too.
And a good thing too.
Not quite the 3 days after release predicted in the original thread, but impressive and entirely unsurprising nonetheless.
I think it’s safe to assume that PC gaming is dead for the immediate future or until Ethereum moves away from mining
No one could have seen that coming... No one!
That took longer than I thought it would.
cool cool cool. I never wanted a new video card anyways.
New idea: Break the cards.
A gamer doesn't need mathematical perfection. 99% of gamers wouldn't care if a card game rendered something slightly off, a pixel or two out of place on a 8k screen. A slight mathematical error wouldn't be noticed. But that same math error would destroy any mining efforts. So I propose that, rather than feeble attempts at software-based DRM, that Nvidea actually break the cards. Add in a tiny math error that gamers won't care about but that will render the cards useless for anything requiring exact calculation.
This would of course be very difficult to design.
A gamer doesn't need mathematical perfection. 99% of gamers wouldn't care if a card game rendered something slightly off, a pixel or two out of place on a 8k screen. A slight mathematical error wouldn't be noticed. But that same math error would destroy any mining efforts. So I propose that, rather than feeble attempts at software-based DRM, that Nvidea actually break the cards. Add in a tiny math error that gamers won't care about but that will render the cards useless for anything requiring exact calculation.
This would of course be very difficult to design.
Funny how it turned out to just be a driver thing.
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/16/22333544/nvidia-rtx-3060-...