Afterburner project may be dead, according to Alexey “Unwinder” Nicolaychuk.
Due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the most popular overclocking tool for modern graphics cards is experiencing licencing issues. Companies such as MSI are unable to fulfil their obligations under the agreement signed with the developer due to sanctions. Alexey, who is based in Russia, is now carrying on with the project without the assistance of MSI.
The project has been dormant for over 11 months, according to the developer. As he explains, the current political situation prevents MSI from fulfilling their obligations. Alexey is now the sole supporter of the project in his spare time.
Alexey, regarding MSI Afterburner support, Guru3D is the source.
MSI Afterburner is a popular tool for discrete GPU overclocking. The software is a spiritual successor to the RivaTuner software, which was previously used for GPU overclocking. It may be difficult for users to find an alternative that supports all of the major GPU vendors natively. Most manufacturers now include their own monitoring and simple overclocking software, which also controls GPU functionality like lighting control or fan speeds. MSI has a similar tool called MSI Center.
What’s more, MSI is still officially listing the software for newly released GPUs, including the RTX 4070 Ti. Because the software is so popular, scammers are attempting to take advantage of it by releasing cloned apps that contain malware. MSI is well aware of this fact and continues to state that the software’s official source is still MSI’s own website. The following tweet was sent in November, many months after failing to meet Afterburner licencing requirements:
Afterburner is mentioned by MSI. MSI provided the data.
The only good news is that because RTSS (RivaTuner Statistic Server) is not an MSI tool, it is not subject to sanctions. Alexey fully supports this statistics and overlay software and will continue to do so in the future. However, third-party software that uses RTSS should be unaffected.
Alexey confirms that he will continue to support the Afterburner project in his spare time, but not in the way that many of us would like. It is important to note that the sanctions may include not only monetary compensation but also access to prerelease hardware, effectively halting or preventing development.
Source: Guru3D Forums
Images: VideoCardz
