What's New in May: Enhanced DDoS Attacks, Linux 6.9 and Utility for CS2

May has come to an end, and we’ve prepared a roundup of the most exciting news of the past month, in case you missed it.

The rivalry between Nvidia, Intel, and AMD continues to gain momentum, with Nvidia holding 90% of the GPU market share. Without getting too far away from the big names, AMD unveiled the Radeon Anti-Lag 2 utility, explicitly designed for Counter-Strike 2 and promising smoother and more responsive gameplay.

On the software side, the Linux 6.9 release includes a number of new features and enhancements to improve the user experience. In other news, an AI assistant has been added to the Docker documentation for those looking to get started with containerization, providing users with advanced support and guidance.

Finally, Valve has taken the initiative in answering game developers' pressing questions about Steam, providing valuable insight and clarification.

Check out the digest for details!

Intel and AMD vs. NVIDIA in the Server GPU Market

According to Nikkei Asian Review, citing IoT Analytics, Nvidia currently has a 90% share of the server GPU market. In 2023, Nvidia generated a record $47.5 billion in revenue from its data center business.

While Nvidia's revenue tripled for the third consecutive quarter, competitors Intel and AMD are fighting hard to catch up and challenge Nvidia's dominance.

Both companies are actively developing AI-related processors and the "inferencing" technologies needed to run AI models. Nvidia's competitors see opportunities in the growing demand for AI capabilities from data centers and enterprise customers. AMD and Intel are working with major manufacturers to build AI-enabled PCs.

AMD is targeting the data center market in particular, generating $6.5 billion in revenue in 2023, while Intel generated $15.5 billion from the data center and AI segment last year.

While AMD isn't making specific GPU promises, Intel has pledged to deliver chips for more than 100 million AI computers by 2025, including more than 40 million in 2024.

We can expect Intel and AMD to impress with new products, as they are serious about squeezing Nvidia's market share.

While you wait for new products, you can try a dedicated server with a GPU from is*hosting. With NVIDIA® NVS™ 310 or NVIDIA Quadro T1000 4 GB GDDR6, you can work efficiently on any project.

New Method Boosts DDoS Attacks by 20,000 Times

As you set up your servers, you should be aware of a new attack that exploits vulnerabilities in DNS systems to amplify and direct massive amounts of traffic to targeted systems.

DNSBomb is a new type of denial-of-service (DoS) attack that exploits Domain Name System (DNS) requests and responses. It amplifies the attack by using features of various DNS mechanisms, such as timeout, request aggregation, and fast response return.

The attack begins with a slow stream of forged DNS requests. The requests are processed to significantly increase the size of the network packets. The enlarged network packets are then held before being unleashed on the target system in a massive pulse of DNS traffic.

In small DNSBomb tests, peak bursts of 8.7 Gbps were achieved with a bandwidth gain of more than 20,000 times. Controlled attacks resulted in complete packet loss or degradation of service for connections such as TCP, UDP, and QUIC.

It is known that any system or mechanism, such as DNS and CDN, can potentially be used to create such pulsed DoS traffic.

AMD Introduced Radeon Anti-Lag 2 Utility for Counter-Strike 2

AMD has introduced an enhanced version of its Radeon Anti-Lag latency reduction technology called Anti-Lag 2. Unlike the original driver-based Anti-Lag, version 2 integrates directly into games to deliver lower input latency.

The first version of Anti-Lag was released in 2019 as part of the Adrenalin driver for Radeon graphics cards. In 2023, AMD introduced Anti-Lag Plus, an update to a utility to reduce lag in games. However, the utility used a modification to the game source code, and Valve reported blocking users with the driver installed. So, AMD had to disable Anti-Lag Plus for a while.

Anti-Lag 2 was implemented as a technical preview in Counter-Strike 2 in cooperation with Valve. Testing has shown that the utility provides an average 37% reduction in input lag compared to running the game without it and a 95% reduction compared to the original Anti-Lag. The driver preview and update for Counter-Strike 2 Anti-Lag 2 work by better aligning CPU and GPU frames in both the driver and game code.

AMD plans to release an SDK for Anti-Lag 2 so that other developers can integrate it and expand its availability to more games.

Linux 6.9 Release

Linus Torvalds has announced the release of Linux 6.9, the latest stable release of the Linux kernel. It contains more than 15,000 changes made by more than 2,100 developers.

The Linux 6.9 kernel includes important updates for the latest Intel and AMD hardware. It adds support for Intel Core Ultra Meteor Lake and FRED chips, and AMD users will appreciate improved P-state management for Ryzen processors. RDNA3+ support and initial RDNA4 support in the AMDGPU driver have also enhanced graphics capabilities. Intel's open-source Xe DRM graphics driver is also included.

Under the hood, Linux 6.9 optimizes Intel hybrid processors with redesigned x86 topology code. It also speeds up builds by allowing GCC to better optimize data access. Thanks to the included Intel Fastboot feature and larger fonts on 4K displays, users will experience faster boot times. Power management has also been improved with updated on-the-fly power consumption models.

Despite some unresolved regression fixes, the release process went smoothly, and Torvalds himself expects to start working on Linux 6.10 soon, as he already has several requests to consider, thanks to the “early birds.”

AI Assistant Appeared in the Docker Documentation

Docker documentation can be confusing, exhausting, and intimidating, especially for new users. Docker has introduced an artificial intelligence-based assistant that improves documentation searches and helps users find the information they need more quickly.

On the Docker website, you can now find a chatbot that can provide a brief but sufficient snippet of documentation when you ask a question. The assistant uses RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) to understand questions and contextual details to provide accurate answers. It pulls information from over 1000 pages of Docker documentation. What's especially handy is that the bot can answer questions in different languages to increase accessibility.

The new AI assistant helps with tasks such as debugging, gathering information from multiple sources, and providing contextual help on code examples. In addition, the machine learning model can generate files and answers based on multiple pages of documentation.

Valve Answers Questions From Game Developers About Steam

The Steam team has already held several Q&A sessions for developers in 2024. But that is no reason to stop asking questions! Based on the results of in-person and online meetings, Steam has compiled a list of the most frequently asked questions from developers.

• For instance, how does visibility work on Steam?

You can't pay to display your game from the homepage or any other page. You can't buy advertising or special promotions. Instead, the platform focuses on showing your game to users who might be interested in it without advertising. Promoting games on Steam is completely free for developers. Thanks to the platform's automatic mechanisms, many games are shown to players, and the Steam team itself watches games become hits in their own right.

• Another common question is whether there's a best way to promote a game on Steam.

The answer is pretty straightforward. Your game is the best promotional tool on Steam. How you develop the game and what kind of community you gather will help you decide how to promote it. Steam's global reach, marketing tools, and features are really useful in this case.

If you're interested in learning more about game development or want to know more about the industry, you can find lots of helpful information on the Steamworks Development YouTube channel.

Have a great month, and see you in the next is*hosting digest!