MSI Afterburner Developer Hasn't been Paid for a Year, Product Development in Limbo

[btarunr]

MSI Afterburner is arguably the most popular graphics card overclocking utility that everyone from gamers to professional overclockers swear by. It is used across graphics card brands, and helps you tune up both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. While you enjoy Afterburner with your new-generation GeForce RTX 40-series "Ada" and Radeon RX 7000 series RDNA3 GPUs that were released in 2022, do remember that Afterburner's developer hasn't been paid a penny for it.

MSI Afterburner is developed by Russian national Alexey Nicolaychuk, who goes by the name Unwinder across tech forums. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early-2022, MSI stopped payments to Unwinder citing "political reasons." Unwinder had been independently (read: without payment) supporting Afterburner out of personal interest throughout 2022 in hopes that MSI would figure out a way to pay him. Interestingly, MSI PC hardware continued to be sold in the Russian market throughout 2022. Despite continuing to develop Afterburner throughout 2022 without payment, MSI hasn't resolved its payments. In a community post, Unwinder announced that he is finally calling it quits, and is halting development of the app. This development ensures that the app works reliably with new GPUs as they're being launched, fixes bugs, and patches security issues.

War and politics are the reasons. I didn't mention it in MSI Afterburner development news thread, but the project is semi abandoned by company during quite a long time already. Actually we're approaching one year mark since the day when MSI stopped performing their obligations under Afterburner license agreement due to "politic situation". I tried to continue performing my obligations and worked on the project on my own during the last 11 months, but it resulted in nothing but disappointment; I have a feeling that I'm just beating a dead horse and waste energy on something that is no longer needed by company. Anyway I'll 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.

MSI Afterburner is an important tool used not just for its overclocking features and monitoring on the app's UI, but the in-game overlay feature (ability to have GPU and other real-time stats overlaid on top of game streams). Discontinuation of Afterburner could potentially affect millions of game streamers that rely on this feature. Unwinder clarified that he will continue to support RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the backend component that makes Afterburner overlay work.

The discontinuation of Afterburner would place the whole graphics card overclocking field in jeopardy. The second most popular app, EVGA Precision X has effectively been discontinued, with the company's exit from the graphics card business; and now the Unwinder-developed Afterburner stares at an uncertain future, too. MSI's reasons for not paying Unwinder are debatable. There are several civilian payment channels to Russia still open. There are also neutral countries like India, which have direct settlement of Russian Rubles without involving US Dollars or SWIFT. MSI India, for example, sells graphics cards for Indian Rupees, and uses Indian banks that can settle Russian Ruble payments to Unwinder on behalf of MSI. Perfectly legal ways to pay Unwinder exist. Unwinder and Afterburner are two precious jewels for the DIY PC enthusiast community, and we hope MSI can sort this out, pay Unwinder his arrears for 2022, and fund continued development of Afterburner.

Update 15:53 UTC: MSI in a statement to Hassan Mujtaba of Wcctech says:

Our product marketing & accounting team are dealing with this problem now. Due to the war, our payment couldn't transfer to the author's bank account successfully. We are still keeping in touch with him and figuring out how to solve this

We will be periodically checking with Unwinder on whether he has been paid.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[TheDeeGee]

I'd say stop making updates then, let MSI feel it.

We all know the majority of the Russians can't be held responsible for what's going on, MSI is being stupid.

That said, overclocking in 2023 is overrated anyways.

 

[agent_x007]

Overclocking yes, but undervolting is not.

 

[mclaren85]

I don't understand why MSI relies heavily in one person? Don't they have a software department in Taiwan?

 

[thewan]

Before anyone starts suggesting donations, patreons, kofis ,etc, note that the dev has licensing agreement with MSI. While MSI has not kept up with the agreement on their side, it doesn't mean the dev can just take the source code, let alone the name MSI Afterburner which is what everyone recognizes, and just start publishing it on his own. Accepting payments from other sources would be against the licensing agreement from his side. That will make him be on the wrong side of the law and will allow MSI to bring him to court. The only thing he could do now is stop developing it.

 

[Argyr]

Palit, PNY or some other smaller AIB should just snatch this guy and create a new Afterburner for immense marketing profit.

 

[igralec84]

Not sure how popular it is with AMD cards, i always had problems with it, but for Nvidia cards it's very useful, now mostly for undervolting like said above. Maybe Nvidia could integrate something in GFE although i know a lot of people don't use it.

 

[sLowEnd]

I don't understand why MSI relies heavily in one person? Don't they have a software department in Taiwan?

Because before it was MSI Afterburner, it was Rivatuner. Rivatuner's a program that was developed by the one guy in the article who's currently not getting paid. MSI just paid the guy years ago to slap their name on it.

 

[bug]

While this is unfortunate, I don't see why Unwinder hasn't set up an offshore account/company to continue getting paid. What was MSI supposed to do, run the blockade?

 

[dj-electric]

All of this feels a bit crazy to read, especially after following Unwinder and this project for so many years.

 

[Deleted member 185088]

It's sad, MSI afterburner is great especially for nVidia cards.
Hopefully MSI stops their stupidity and pays it's dues, or he creates similar thing elsewhere where he can get paid and supported by the community.

 

[bug]

It's sad, MSI afterburner is great especially for nVidia cards.
Hopefully MSI stops their stupidity and pays it's dues, or he creates similar thing elsewhere where he can get paid and supported by the community.

He can't be paid in Russia anymore, it's as simple as that. There's nothing stupid going on at MSI.

 

[N3utro]

Alexey Nicolaychuk seems like a good guy by reading this story, a skilled and fair professionnal. Shame on MSI to do this. There are 150 million russians in Russia, and only 1 of them is responsible for the war. Breaking a contract just because the dev is russian is just racism. Alexey should sell the app to another company if MSI wont pay for it.

 

[R-T-B]

Before anyone starts suggesting donations, patreons, kofis ,etc, note that the dev has licensing agreement with MSI. While MSI has not kept up with the agreement on their side, it doesn't mean the dev can just take the source code, let alone the name MSI Afterburner which is what everyone recognizes, and just start publishing it on his own. Accepting payments from other sources would be against the licensing agreement from his side. That will make him be on the wrong side of the law and will allow MSI to bring him to court. The only thing he could do now is stop developing it.

It's more like MSI has licensed rivatuner, which is the devs product. So yes he can.

 

[Chomiq]

He can't be paid in Russia anymore, it's as simple as that. There's nothing stupid going on at MSI.

Yet they're still doing business in Russia.

 

[bug]

Yet they're still doing business in Russia.

MSI's business is different from Unwinder's contract.

 

[Ferrum Master]

MSI's reasons for not paying Unwinder are debatable.

No it is not, thus we have to end here.

I wonder why he ain't mobilized to serve his nation also. Maybe not yet.

 

[Nostras]

While this is unfortunate, I don't see why Unwinder hasn't set up an offshore account/company to continue getting paid. What was MSI supposed to do, run the blockade?

I feel like if MSI had some genuine interest in this they would've come to some kind of agreement on how to do this. This is an easy cop-out.

 

[spnidel]

hell yeah, that will show him! make him go kill putin personally!
we're doing it, MSIsters!

 

[b1k3rdude]

Well lots of tech channel and people, myself included use afterburner. WTF are MSI playing at.

If the dev wants to fork development I would quite happiy dontate

 

[bug]

I feel like if MSI had some genuine interest in this they would've come to some kind of agreement on how to do this. This is an easy cop-out.

The easy way was for Unwinder to set up camp outside of Russia. And by that I mean a PO box in Cyprus or something like that. One year later, he didn't do it. He's been screwed by EVGA before, it would seem he wasn't annoyed enough to change anything in the meantime.

 

[b1k3rdude]

He's been screwed by EVGA before, it would seem he wasn't annoyed enough to change anything in the meantime.

Er one person against a large company, think about it. But I assume you are refering to EVGA clone of afterburner..?

 

[bug]

No it is not, thus we have to end here.

I wonder why he ain't mobilized to serve his nation also. Maybe not yet.

Considering RivaTuner came out 25 years ago, he's probably over age by now. Unless he wrote it when he was 10.

 

[Yraggul666]

Really now, MSI?
First the prev gen hardware for AMD and now this?
Pay the man what you owe him.

 

[TheDeeGee]

Overclocking yes, but undervolting is not.

Undervolting should get it's own little app, just aimed at that.

Call it Riva Volting or something ^^