Nvidia CEO: "We can't do computer graphics anymore without artificial intelligence"

Gee, we've had over a half century of computer graphics at this point. However, suddenly when a technology arises that requires obscene amount of GPU's to generate a results a GPU manufacturer is here to tell us that all computer graphics without that new technology is dead for... reasons. I cannot see any see any connections between these points.

What do you mean "suddenly"? I was running path tracers back in 1994. It's just that they took minutes to hours to generate a 480p image.
The argument is that we've gotten to the point where new rendering features rely on a lot more path tracing and light simulation that used to not be feasible in real time. Pair that with the fact that displays have gone from 1080p60 vsync to 4K at arbitrarily high framerates and... yeah, I don't think you realize how much additional processing power we're requesting.
But the good news is if you were happy with 1080p60 you can absolutely render modern games like that in a modern GPU without needing any upscaling.
- I think you just need to look at the PS5 Pro as proof that more GPU power doesn't translate linearly to better picture quality.
  The PS5 Pro has a 67% beefier GPU than the standard PS5 - with a price to match - yet can anyone say the end result is 67% better? Is it even 10% better?
  We've been hitting diminishing returns on raw rasterising for years now, a different approach is definitely needed.
- Yeah, there's a reason any movie attempting 3D CG with any budget at all has used path tracing for years. It's objectively massively higher quality.
  You don't need upscaling or denoising (the "AI" they're talking about) to do raster stuff, but realistic lighting does a hugely better job, regardless of the art style you're talking about. It's not just photorealism, either. Look at all Disney's animated stuff. Stuff like Moana and Elemental aren't photorealistic and aren't trying to be, but they're still massively enhanced visually by improving the realism of the behavior of light, because that's what our eyes understand. It takes a lot of math to handle all those volumetric shots through water and glass in a way that looks good.
Devils advocate: Splatting, dlss, neural codecs to name a few things that will change the way we make games
- DLSS doesn’t work that well. I’m not looking forward to AI replacing artist’s work.
- Ray tracing actually will directly change the way games are made. A lot of time is spent by artists placing light sources and baking light maps to realistically light scenery - with ray tracing, you get that realism "for free".
  DF did a really interesting video on the purely path traced version of Metro: Exodus and as part of that, the artists talked about how much easier and faster it was to build that version.
I think what he means is that AI is needed to keep making substantial improvements in graphic quality, and he phrased it badly. Your interpretation kind of presumes he's not only lying, but that he thinks we're all idiots. Given that he's not running for office as a Republican, I think that's a very flawed assumption.
And I don't get why they would use it for graphics instead of using an AI coprocessor to do interesting stuff in games, like generating dialogue, complex missions, smarter NPCs, maps, etc.
You could build worlds where stuff happens that isn't just governed by randomly doing stuff based on triggers.
- Oh, now you're wrong. AI upscaling is demonstrably more accurate than plain old TAA, which is what we used to use in the previous generation. I am NOT offloading compelling NPC dialogue to a crappy chatbot. Every demo I've seen for that application has been absolutely terrible.
- Because as complex and hard to decipher as it is, all AI does is inference. Doing inference with graphics is something that has been perfected through decades and is worked on heavily.
  Quests and dialogues rely more on the creative thinking of writers, having a satisfying side quest is quite hard and leaving a text generator engine that task is a huge pitfall. It has it's use in generating some bulk texts that can then be proofread, but generating text live? Hell no. Plus, what about voice acting? Will you also steal actors voices so that the garbage text generated is said by "not scarlet johansson" v3? If you think AI will generate smarter behaviours your definition of smart and mine really differ. Will AI be able to rig animations and infer correct rig positions so that the NPC features line up with what they are saying? Mocap and voice acting is done heavily in big productions to get that.

RIP the future of high end computer graphics. 1972 to 2024. You had a good run.

This feels like its establishing a precedent for widespread adoption/implementation of AI into consumer devices. Manufactured consent.

"We compute one pixel... we hallucinate, if you will, the other 32."

Between this and things like Sora, we are doomed to drown in illusions of our own creation.

If the visuals are performant and consistent, why do we care? I have always been baffled by the obsession with "real pixels" in some benchmarks and user commentary.
- AI upscales are so immediately obvious and look like shit. Frame "generation" too. Not sour grapes, my card supports FSR and fluid motion frames, I just hate them and they are turned off.

The brute forcing of AI into anything goes into the next stage.

Good thing I don’t care that much about graphics since I’ve been a teenager.

the premise seems flawed, i think.

i feel what he's saying is: we suck optimizing gfx performance now because gamers deem ai upscale quality as passable

this feels opposite to what the ps poll says that gamers enable performance mode more because the priority is more stable frames than shiny anti aliasing/post processing.

I don't see how that's the case. Most people prefer more fps over image quality, so minor artifacting from DLSS is preferable to the game running much slower with cleaner image quality. That is consistent with the PS data (which wasn't a poll, to my understanding).
I also dispute the other assumption, that "we suck at optimizing performance". The difference between now and the days of the 1080Ti when you could just max out games and call it a day, is that we're targeting 4K at 120fps and up, as opposed to every game maxing out at 1080p60. There is no target for performance on PC anymore, every game can be cranked higher. We are still using CounterStrike for performance benchmarks, running at 400-1000fps. There will never be a set performance target again.
If anything, optimization now is sublime. It's insane that you can run most AAA games on both a Steam Deck and a 4090 out of the same set of drivers and executables. That is unheard of. Back in the day the types of games you could run on both a laptop and a gaming PC looked like WoW instead of Crysis. We've gotten so much better at scalability.
- Most people prefer more fps over image quality, so minor artifacting from DLSS is preferable to the game running much slower with cleaner image quality.
  I don't think we're not much different in this portion. AI upscale is passable enough that gamers will choose it. If presented with a better, non-artifacting option, gamers will choose that since the goal is performance and not AI. If the stat is from PS data, and not from a poll, I think it just strengthens that users want performance more.
  There will never be a set performance target again.
  It's not that there's no set performance target. The difference is merely one, on the CounterStrike era, vs. many, now. Now, there's more performance targets for PC than Counter Strike days. Games just can't keep up. Saying "there will never be a set performance target" is just washing hands when a publishers/ directors won't set directions and priorities which performance point to prioritize.
  It might be that your point is optimizing for scalability, and that is fine too.

Chasing graphics has lead to directions nobody could predict and I'm glad I don't play these games.

What's up with the biker jacket?

Techbros
It's a stupid gimmick like Steve Jobs' turtleneck.
His version of a weighted blankie.

Oh here he is again, talking AI AI AI.... Their stock value is already so high it will take over 50 years for it's value to match it's current price.

I been playing old games on private servers. Its been nice.

Star Wars Galaxies or PSO?
- Star Wars Galaxies private servers are not a good experience. They don't allow two players from the same IP, so if you live with someone you want to play with you have to tell them, then send them pictures of BOTH copies of the discs and you and the other person's hands. They hide behind "preventing gold farmers" but like, who is actually going to be a gold farmer in a private server, and who actually cares if they did? The other 25 players in the server?
  Nah, I'm good.
  City of Heroes has been golden by comparison.
- Tell me of these PSO private servers you speak of.
- Unfortunately PSU, as all my friends veto'd me for PSO first. But PSOBB is next, and hopefully by then Team Clementine will have released their PSO2 Original.

We can't do the profitable thing without the more expensive and even more lucrative thing, please, think of our monopoly.

Yes you can. Easily. You're sitting on the infrastructure to do it.

Pre-built.

I never run the upscaling it looks and feels so bad.

We're at that point in Brazil where everything behind the screens is devastated and wrecked for profit, and now if you want to see any sign of nature you need a graphics card.

But that's in California, where anything natural is on fire or is sliding across Malibu into the ocean.

So just a preview unless these people are stopped.

computer graphics has existed for quite long. It seemed possible to do just last year.

Sounds like a skill issue.

I don't know enough, but it sounds like Unix kernel will need a new way to separately give access to TPUs.

Lol, I'm so happy I went with AMD.

I mean... OK, but AMD just revealed a new set of AI-powered upscaling libraries along with Sony for the PSPro and is on record saying they're backing out of high end gaming hardware to pivot to data center hardware, so... I hope you have more reasons than this, because I don't think they disagree.
- I do. Linux support is the big one. Nvidia has had their arm twisted and they still only barely changed their approach to their Linux driver.
And yet maybe just don't sell your soul to any company?
- I don't.
Great, so now all games require AI-upscaling you're left out of any ability to play them
- You mean AAA titles. AAA titles are mostly not worth playing. All "graphical fidelity" no substance.