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A popular GPU tool, MSI Afterburner, is seemingly under threat, although despite the controversy which has just bubbled up around the app, MSI assures us that there are no plans to ditch the utility (which is used for overclocking and more besides).
Tech Powerup originally picked up this story, finding a post from the developer of Afterburner, Alexey Nicolaychuk, known as âUnwinderâ in the Guru3D forums, in which he posted a message about giving up on the app.
In a thread about an issue with Afterburner, Nicolaychuk replied to say âMSI Afterburner project is probably deadâ, and when questioned on that statement, further elaborated that âwar and politics are the reasons.â
He continued: âI didnât mention it in MSI Afterburner development news thread, but the project is semi abandoned by company during quite a long time already ⌠Iâll try to continue supporting it myself while I have some free time, but will probably need to drop it and switch to something else, allowing me to pay my bills.â (sic)
The root problem here is that Nicolaychuk is a Russian citizen, and following the invasion of Ukraine, MSI stopped his payments, leaving him to work on the project under his own steam throughout 2022 with no pay coming through, a situation he became increasingly disillusioned with. He says elsewhere: âI have a feeling that Iâm just beating a dead horse and waste energy on something that is no longer needed by company.â (sic)
PC Gamer further reports that MSI did indeed confirm that âpayments had been put on hold due to the RU/UA war and the economic regulations that entailedâ, but the company insists that Afterburner is not dead or abandoned.
MSI told PC Gamer: âWe fully intend to continue with MSI Afterburner. MSI have been working on a solution and expect it to be resolved soon.â
[HEADING=1]Analysis: Hopeful signs a solution might be reached[/HEADING]
What kind of solution could that be? Well, thereâs a clue elsewhere, as Tech Powerup noticed that a Wccftech writer passed on an update from MSI via a tweet, in which the company said: âOur product marketing & accounting team are dealing with this problem now. Due to the war, our payment couldnât transfer to the authorâs bank account successfully. We are still keeping in touch with him and figuring out how to solve this.â
If there isnât a financial resolution forthcoming in terms of being able to pay the existing developer, itâs possible that MSI might look for other angles â like a different dev, perhaps? Weâll just have to keep watching this space, because it sounds like despite Nicolaychukâs assertions, MSI doesnât want the project to be killed off.
Thatâs hardly surprising, as Afterburner is a popular tool that can be used for overclocking as we mentioned, but also other GPU trickery like undervolting â making the graphics card slurp less juice, and indeed make less noise (something that RTX 4090 owners have been very interested in since the card came out).
Here at TechRadar we also find Afterburner very useful for benchmarking games which donât have their own built-in benchmark run. Hereâs hoping that MSI holds true to its statement here, and that a solution is found swiftly enough, now that more of a fuss is being kicked up across the net about this.
Continue readingâŚ
Tech Powerup originally picked up this story, finding a post from the developer of Afterburner, Alexey Nicolaychuk, known as âUnwinderâ in the Guru3D forums, in which he posted a message about giving up on the app.
In a thread about an issue with Afterburner, Nicolaychuk replied to say âMSI Afterburner project is probably deadâ, and when questioned on that statement, further elaborated that âwar and politics are the reasons.â
He continued: âI didnât mention it in MSI Afterburner development news thread, but the project is semi abandoned by company during quite a long time already ⌠Iâll try to continue supporting it myself while I have some free time, but will probably need to drop it and switch to something else, allowing me to pay my bills.â (sic)
The root problem here is that Nicolaychuk is a Russian citizen, and following the invasion of Ukraine, MSI stopped his payments, leaving him to work on the project under his own steam throughout 2022 with no pay coming through, a situation he became increasingly disillusioned with. He says elsewhere: âI have a feeling that Iâm just beating a dead horse and waste energy on something that is no longer needed by company.â (sic)
PC Gamer further reports that MSI did indeed confirm that âpayments had been put on hold due to the RU/UA war and the economic regulations that entailedâ, but the company insists that Afterburner is not dead or abandoned.
MSI told PC Gamer: âWe fully intend to continue with MSI Afterburner. MSI have been working on a solution and expect it to be resolved soon.â
[HEADING=1]Analysis: Hopeful signs a solution might be reached[/HEADING]
What kind of solution could that be? Well, thereâs a clue elsewhere, as Tech Powerup noticed that a Wccftech writer passed on an update from MSI via a tweet, in which the company said: âOur product marketing & accounting team are dealing with this problem now. Due to the war, our payment couldnât transfer to the authorâs bank account successfully. We are still keeping in touch with him and figuring out how to solve this.â
If there isnât a financial resolution forthcoming in terms of being able to pay the existing developer, itâs possible that MSI might look for other angles â like a different dev, perhaps? Weâll just have to keep watching this space, because it sounds like despite Nicolaychukâs assertions, MSI doesnât want the project to be killed off.
Thatâs hardly surprising, as Afterburner is a popular tool that can be used for overclocking as we mentioned, but also other GPU trickery like undervolting â making the graphics card slurp less juice, and indeed make less noise (something that RTX 4090 owners have been very interested in since the card came out).
Here at TechRadar we also find Afterburner very useful for benchmarking games which donât have their own built-in benchmark run. Hereâs hoping that MSI holds true to its statement here, and that a solution is found swiftly enough, now that more of a fuss is being kicked up across the net about this.
Continue readingâŚ