News AMD says PhysX will die

Thanks for the reply Tim. As you and Chris covered, PhysX and Havok are open but not open, the main distinction is that they are not free and need to be licensed. DX11 and even OpenCL aren't technically open either as they have Microsoft/Khronos overseeing their development, but they are free. If AMD means "free" when they say "open", then their apprehension in adopting PhysX becomes more transparent.

See this is my main issue with the tone of your interview. You seem to acknowledge many of the business decisions behind AMD's refusal to back PhysX, yet you fail to condemn it. Let's call it for what it is, by hiding behind this Havok smokescreen AMD is punishing the supporters of their products and the PC gaming industry in general because they lacked the foresight and cash to pull the trigger on Ageia years ago. It might be a matter of principle, but it sure isn't a noble or altruistic one.

To me, asking Godfrey (and the appropriate Nvidia counterpart) these questions point-blank would've made for a more interesting article. Its quite obvious there is no technical, software or proprietary obstacle blocking AMD hardware from supporting CUDA and PhysX, so it comes down to politics, as you've said.

From what I've read all the competing standards are C based and compatible, with a bit of work. I've already linked to articles showing Nvidia plans for CUDA to fully support both OpenCL and DirectX11. Given the past history of proprietary APIs and DirectX (again EAX and even the various software physics implementations) I'm pretty sure all the necessary wrappers and extensions needed to make PhysX compatible with DX11 will be in place by the time its launched. At which point I'm sure AMD will suddenly do an about-face and proclaim DX11 Compute Physics as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Except another 8-9 months and another development cycle will have passed and retarded universal physics implementation in games.

I agree with you that gameplay with PhysX may not be interactive and dynamic if Nvidia is the only one supporting PhysX, but that doesn't mean they won't be more compelling. I guess its more semantics than anything else, but better visuals and realistic interactions are always going to make games more immersive and compelling than without.

One example that I'm sure not all readers will remember is with the original Wing Commander and himem.sys with greater than 640KB RAM. Sure that extra memory didn't do anything in terms of changing gameplay, but the interactive hand/joystick and the HUD portraits certainly made the game more compelling. Similarly with the Speech Packs with a Sound Blaster......I didn't get any additional dialogue but actually hearing the voices definitely made the experience more enjoyable. And those upgrades cost around $500! PhysX is free if you have a CUDA capable GPU!

So yes, it will take some time before PhysX will noticeably impact gameplay if the installed user-base doesn't have capable hardware, but you've acknowledged Nvidia does already an impressive base of nearly 100m parts and ~60% of discrete GPUs. Even if AMD signed on tomorrow your lowest common denominator would be pre-GF8 and pre-R600 cards that wouldn't be able to accelerate physics.

In the meantime we can only wonder how much better games could be if dynamic and interactive physics were enabled. For example, some of those Mirror's Edge demos with flags/tarps flying and buildings and ledges would make for a perfect opportunity to jump off the side, grab hold, shoot the flag and let gravity tear the flag and drop you to the next platform below. Or perhaps rappel through the glass into the office below like they do in the movies a la Matrix. Obviously this can't be integrated into gameplay if ATI owners don't see a flag, jump to grab onto nothing and plummet horribly to their death. I could see a compromise though where ATI owners can run up to the edge, press some generic interact button like "F" which would trigger a pre-rendered cut scene that shows them navigating the edge. In the meantime I suppose we'll have to settle for interactive eye-candy, which is still certainly better than the software physics we see now.

I'll certainly look forward to any updates and thanks for reading if you made it this far!

 

PhysX is at best the number two player in this field. By recognizing Havok as the industry leader and going that direction INSTEAD of taking the NV way out and simply buying what was available so they could keep all the branding and marketing rights for themselves is pretty compeling evidence there is at least a little altruism going on here.

Add to that the fact that ATI was working with Havok before AMD bought them but AMD continues the Havok relationship in the face of the most well known and longest lasting hardware rivalry in the PC industry I think it demonstrates they are going with what they really believe is the best solution.

Copmare that attitude with NV's historical approach to this sort of thing. They tried to hold Intel hostage for SLI chipsets and got their proverbial asses handed to them. It wasn't until they saw so much of their market share slip away on the chipset side they finally wized up and sold their chipsets/tech for a more reasonable price. Just another case of NV starts caring about the consumer when their wallet gets hurt. Definitely no altruism there.

The very first Godfrey quote from this article seems to show you didn't read the article. He clearly states AMD will support OpenCL and DX11.

Ugh. If I hear any more buzz about this stupid game I'm just going to throw up. Yes, it's a cute idea. Yes, it will be fun to play for a while. yes, there will be more copies included in a bundle then will EVER sell at retail (at least for the PC). It's really nothing more than a twitch finger, pince of persia knock off with better graphics.

Take CS for example. It looks like crap and doesn't take advantage of any fancy hardware abilities with cool sounding names but there are still ridiculous numbers of people playing it on machines that can actually run Far Cry 2 maxed out. WHY?

Gameplay. They like the way the game plays. Monopoly is still pretty fun to play and certainly doesn't require physics of any sort. Why do people play it? It's fun to play.

Until physics can be something that all developers can BOTH code AND use to have an impact on the game there just isn't enough market to make this conversation even worth having. This whole thing is just a short lived data point if they can't make that happen.

So if you were going to make a wager on wheter PhysX or Havok will win try to remember that it's NV against the world. The world, BTW, includes Intel.

 

Actually PhysX has no competition when it comes to physics beyond CPU acceleration. The good news for Nvidia is that their GPUs can and will always run on every CPU out there, and therefore, they will always benefit from Havok as well.

Not sure why you think Havok is the clear leader when it yields no advantage, but as I've already noted, PhysX is widely used in the same capacity, as are various other software physics engines:

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_home.html
http://www.havok.com/content/blogcategory/29/73/

You can see both engines are quite popular and heavily utilized in both PC and console titles.

Considering Nvidia has produced more in 10 months than ATI/AMD/Havok have in 2 years shows you just how little effort they have put into making hardware accelerated physics a reality.

Well there's no doubt they held onto SLI licensing to protect their chipset business, but the difference is, they actually added value and a viable alternative. The same cannot be said of AMD's position on GPU physics.

No, I did read the article. And it also happens that CUDA and PhysX will fully support OpenCL and DX11 as well. So while Brook+ doesn't support CUDA now, it will when once OpenCL and DX11 are released, which will give ATI parts access to PhysX as well. The point is that AMD isn't making any effort now for very different reasons than the ones they're giving.

No matter what you think of the game, it will without a doubt be better on a machine with a CUDA PhysX capable machine. Nvidia is adding value to your gaming experience for free.

And many of those gamers prefer CS:S to 1.4. WHY?

Gameplay certainly has its place, but you lose a lot of your target audience when you're referring to people who spend $300-$600 annually on PC graphics card updates.

Again, there is no advantage to Intel's solution, it will run on both AMD and Intel CPUs and both will run Nvidia GPUs. PhysX is already well established with both software and hardware acceleration and I fully expect it to continue gaining momentum, especially given Nvidia controls a majority of the discrete GPU market. That's not to say DX11 and Havok won't have their place, they'll just be co-existing but will all be cross-compatible. The only thing AMD is doing now is trying to slow the development and adoption rate, but there's no doubt GPU accelerated physics is the next big thing for PC gaming.

 

Are you saying that AMD GPUs won't run on some CPUs?

One way to gauge it is how many titles run each solution. Havok has a significant lead over PhysX. Until NV came along and bailed PhysX out the number of titles they were adding was decreasing. now that NV is on the scene they are spending considerable effort and money to get PhysX back into the game.

Since you brought up the development timeline earlier we could use that to gauge the relative position of each company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageia , Ageia was founded in 2002 and Havok in 1998 , http://www.havok.com/content/blogcategory/20/37/ .

You could also use the number of platforms supported by Ageia. Those four would be Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and PC. Compared to the number of platforms supported by Havok which is 8 and are Wii™, PLAYSTATION®3, PLAYSTATION®2, PSP™, Xbox™, Xbox 360™, GameCube™, and the PC. That would be right about twice as many.

As a side note, NV didn't even bother to show the trademark and copyright symbols when they listed their supported platforms. They did, however, take the time to put them in for thier own trademarked and copyrighted things.


As for the other stuff. Duh. Of course physics allows developers to make games look better. But you should not be using this as a premice for justifying the same old crap we've all come to know and love from the green Kool-Aid drinking crowd in Santa Clara. Until there is something that works across the board for everyone there is very little point in anyone going on about it. Nothing will ever come of it.

There are only three players in this game AMD, Intel and NV. Two out of the three agree on the engine and they all agree on the implementation (despite your attempt to get people to think otherwise by implying AMD doesn't support OpenCL and DX11).

AMD just released a FREE video transcoder and it crushes CUDA's performance. CRUSHES IT. Yes there are some minor issues. It took BadaboomAlongDingDong months to get their stuff right and they just got upstaged by AMD right out of the gate. It's only going to get worse. Rather than derailing this thread into an argument over how minor the issues are I would simply invite everyone to try AMD's solution and compare it to Badaboom's solution. That's assuming you're willing to spend $30 to do that.

This is what's important to understand about this. It's going to get worse for NVIDIA and not for AMD. AMD has chosen a technology to support FIRST on the basis of its ability to perform and SECOND on its ability to succeed commercially. NVIDIA on the other had chose PhysX FIRST on their availability (at no point has Havok been up for sale becuase they were failing so miserably) and SECOND because they believe they can market the software into a commercial success regardless of its ability to actualy perform.

 

I should add that I own both AMD-based and NV-based cards. I have more than one PC and I typically buy whatever I felt like represented the best value to me at the time. So don't go thinking I'm just some AMD fanboi blathering on about nothing. I would very much like to see physics hit the mainstream gaming segment as much as anyone. But I don't see the need to rush into this with a disfunctional plan that has the SOLE design of revenue generation.

I have yet to see any motivation from NV in this whole PhysX debacle that really represents any good faith attempt to take any action on any product just because it's the right thing to do. Nothing.

They didn't even extend the CUDA coverage down to the 8xxx series of cards until reviews and news people caught them with thier hand in the cookie jar. It was just some code chages required to make it work and NV purposefully withheld those changes.

Why you ask? Well to get people to upgrade their card from something like an 8600GT to a 9500GT or maybe go from an 8800GT to a 9800GT. What's that you say? Those are all the same cards on the inside (respectively)? Sure they are.

What's funny is that no self respecting computer enthusiast/human being would recommend to someone else they upgrade from an 8800GT to a 9800GT. But NV did. Well, only if you want to get PhysX and CUDA. Well, at least until they got caught.

Again.

 

Actually its quite clear that you are. There's far too much propaganda and inconsistencies in your postings to correct on a point-by-point basis. In any case I didn't post here to trade jabs with someone who can barely maintain coherent thought, so believe what you will.

 

Yay. I win.

LOL

 

Sure you do.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_8.06.12_whql.html

The driver states clearly only 3 parts were supported, so it was no secret at all. Nvidia often does that for new drivers for new parts before they validate older parts. All 8-series and higher parts supported PhysX in the next driver release.

Transcoding is nice, but its certainly a secondary consideration to features that improve your gaming experience. Oh, and how much does AVIVO crush Badaboom in Vista 64?

Also I've said nothing that would indicate AMD GPUs won't support OpenCL or DirectX 11 or that they can't run on both Intel and AMD CPUs. In fact I've stated quite the opposite.

Its obvious that you're more interested in disinformation and peripheral noise than the actual topic being discussed, so again, believe what you will.

 

This was the statement that I was refering to specifically. Saying that AMD would do an about face concerning DX11 means to me that they don't support the idea now. Since Godfrey Chang clearly said just the opposite I'm a bit confused.

I am unaware of any inconsistencies in any of my posts. I am not so arrogant as to think I can’t be wrong and I’m brave enough to admit my errors after I learn better. Please feel free to point out the inconsistencies and provide any supporting information so that I won’t continue to be wrong if that is in fact the case.

 

What? There might be a few drivers out there which are Geforce 9 series only. But this only a testing/QA thing. There are drivers out there which only support the Geforce 8/200 series as well. Nvidia has been talking about GPU physX for the Geforce 8/9/GT200 cards since they bought Aegia back in febuary. They never were dishonest about which cards would support it. It simply took more time to get all cards QA'd for PhysX. The 9800GTX for instance came out with PhysX support first because it was one of the first cards to go through QA. But the entire time Nvidia was saying that "ALL" DX10 GPUS from them would support PhysX. Never once did they allude only the Geforce 9 series would support it and the 8 series would not.


Regards

Chris

SLIZONE Administrator
Nvidia User Group Member

 

You're correct on that. However the delivery was misleading IMO. It was all a mishmash of G80 vs. G92 and then which cards could and could not do it followed by not all functionality worked on all cards in a given group... It was all very confusing. In fact, I'm still not sure if it works on a G80 or not.

But in the end I'll give you that and rephrase to the above.

 

No it wasnt. If anything was misleading it was the fault of the editors. Nvidia was extremely clear about the way PhysX would roll out. It was very clearly painted out to editors that 9800GTX + was the first card to go through PhysX QA testing for the purposes of reviewers using it and talking about PhysX on the 9800GTX + reviews The big issue was getting the PhysX driver out in a product review timeframe. Further G92 cards were enabled in the not to distant future. And the G80 series a month after.


Regards
Chris


SLIZONE Administrator
Nvidia User Group Member

 

I wonder why Valve think that PhysX is a waste of development time at the minute? Maybe because they have invested a lot of time and effort into performance scaling across a range of hardware and don't see any benefit in coding a bit of eye candy for a minority of their end users. Their hardware surveys make interesting reading too http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

46% with a DX10 capable card (but less than 22% of these running vista), compared to nearly 60% with a multi-core cpu. Assuming that around 2/3rds of the DX10 cards are Nvidia cards, that's still only around 1 in 3 users who will benefit from GPU based Physics at the present time.

 

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-114856-p-6.html

This was your response to the following question:

This conversation took place a month after Editor's Day and four months after the PhysX announcement.

I'm not saying that you said anything incorrect or less than factual. But it is confusing considering how clear NVIDIA's messaging was about what would be covered. Bear in mind I'm not talking about now. I'm talking about what was going on back then. Even you, someone very well connected (ostensibly) to NV didn't really know how things were playing out.

You also didn't have anything to say when he completely contradicted you by saying there were plenty of PhysX games on the market when you said there currently weren't any PhysX supported games available. I was at Editor's Day too and heard them say they would be supporting the existing stuff and that the new stuff would run on existing Ageia PPUs as well.

That's the kind of thing that allows confusion to proliferate.

 

There's some more history to the whole physics debacle that is also interesting. NV started out on board with Havok very close to the same time ATI did.

NV announces here-
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/03/20/nvidia_havok_gpu_physics/

ATI announces here-
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/06/06/ati_gpu_physics_pitch/

Despite the meaningless argument over who was there first, they were both on board.

What wasn't meaningless was that fact the ATI hardware was, again, outperforming NV hardware. Don't worry, wait a bit and it will swing the other way. This time it took quite a while longer for that to happen. Actually, concerning physics, it isn't clear yet whether or not NV has actually taken that title. At any rate....

For those that continue to want AMD to support PhysX and CUDA I'm still asking why no one is asking why NV won't support Havok. Especially considering they used to do so. It's where they both started.

AMD still supports Havok and NV bailed even though they didn't have to do so. Had they not, AMD and NV could have both been working to get developers to start including Havok physics in their code and we would likely be having a very different argument right now.

From my point of view, Havok is supported by more games already as evidenced by counting the number of titles both companies claim. They've been doing it longer and better than Ageia and it exists on more platforms than PhysX.

NV has decided that rather than being part of the solution they will create a problem. In return they get all the branding and marketing rights and just ignore the inferiority of the product.

As usual, AMD/ATI just accepts this marketing coup. But this time I'm not going to fault them too much. The reality of physics is such that, until there is a single method for getting the job done, no developers are going to do anything really significant with it. So AMD plods along quietly.

Which is kind of cool in a marketing sorrt of way. Here we are going on about NV over a non-subject but at least we're talking about NV. Given the current state of their hardware that's exactly what they need to happen if they are going to slow down their loss of market share to AMD.

AMD on the other hand isn't saying anything because there isn't much to say. Yet. Rather than confusing everyone with meaningless drivel about products that don't exist they just shut up.

 

Virtua. That was regarding how older games that were PPU compatible would be ported to GPU compatibility or if they would at all.. And it was a mistake on my part when I listed certain games that worked and didn't. It has nothing to do with driver rollout for GPU PhysX support. UT3 was the first "Game" that they supported with a GPU PhysX driver in a very early driver stage. Even now with a full fledged and working GPU PhysX driver. Not everything that was made with the PPU in mind works with GPU physX. Some of it has been ported over. Some of it hasn't been. GPU PhysX was something that most developers intended to program for in the future. Again this is something Nvidia heavily emphasized to editors.. But it had nothing to do with the actual fact that all their presentations and documents said the 9800GTX would be the first to roll out with drivers. with Geforce 8 series shortly after.

You are really grasping at straws here. You've literally started talking about something entirely different to the subject at hand. You make something out of nothing. PhysX was a freebie for any Nvidia user who currently owned an Nvidia card. And has remained so since. You are rambling like a politician and changing your argument and points as you see fit. The fact that Nvidia was busy on a product launch((which is common for any company during a product launch)) doesn't mean they didnt adequately prepare reviewers and editors alike. Yes. I made mistake. It wont be the first or last time I do it either. But judging from your comments about editors day. It sounds to me like you were the one who got really confused.

Have I touched a nerve here? Nvidia "Did" say they would be supporting "Some" games that were PhysX capable. UT3/GRAW. I said there were no current PhysX games available ((I was speaking of GPU PhysX games as I didnt follow the PPU scene very closely))They never said that all games would be supported. I followed the ones NVidia was promoting. I never followed the PPU before. When Nvidia demod its PhysX support at editors day. They specificallyshowed Future" games such a football game, a marine specs game, ect. If you were at editors day then you'd know this. I admit I did not follow PPU games closely because I never intended on owning a PPU. I also admitted I made a mistake. Let it go. I have no interest in exchanging jabs with you. For someone without bias you seem to be going out of your way show how Nvidia has done harm with PhysX. Everything I said here is exactly what I said in the nvnews thread. Which you have posted here way out of context.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=114856&page=9

Your right. They have nothing to talk about right now. All this DX11/OpenCL/Havok talk is nothing but smoke and mirrors to hide their actual lack of product.

Oh they seem to have no problem running their mouth about PhysX. AMD is not the innocent bystander you are making them out to be,


I'm pretty much done conversing with you. Your rambling are incoherent at best. And you appear to have a serious axe to grind. I'm not interested in trading posts with you for the rest of the week until this thread eventually and probably gets locked.


Regards
Chris

SLIZONE Administrator
Nvidia User Group Member.

 

Nah, it's all good. We can have a difference of opinion and still get along and it's not my intent to start any kind of flame war or anything silly like that.

I agree with you that NV has not misrepresented the facts of what they were doing or what their intent was or is. The issue that I have is that they allow too many assumptions or incorrect information to float around and do very little to set anyone straight out in the community.

That's just a judgement call on my part. The only reason I referenced what you said in a different forum was an example of how this sort of thing takes place and how they indirectly direct it. It's great marketing and it really works.

You're an SLIZONE admin and are known to be very active in the community. That's a great thing. But for NV to leave you out of half of their plans i.e. you didn't have the answer and couldn't get it in a reasonable amount of time produced an inaccurate post.

I agree the particular content of that post wasn't of any major importance and it's just some guys talking. I also used that as an example because it doesn't make you look bad and I don't want you to think I'm going after you (which I'm not). It's just an example.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my posts. I spent a fair amount of time researching a few things that were originally opinions that i had to let go of because I found out they weren't true as well as a couple things I wasn't aware of. So all around it's another good learning experience for me.

That is always a pleasure.

 

Gosh .. Is it not obvious that physX is Nvidia's cross-over product to DX11 and AMD doesn't have one. Nvidia will benefit from physX as long as DX11 is out, then we'll all just quietly bury these things and go with DX11 as we're all in Bill's leash. At least PC gamers are. It's just not happening without M$ and vista/win7. There's just no point debating beyond the obvious. These days nearly all games run DX, as openGL is too slow to keep up and all hardware is designed for DX in the first place anyway. On that note, M$ might (will) as well dictate how the API works and NV/AMD engineers go quietly to work and produce the hardware design to the spec M$ gave. Ooh, but NV/ATI have had [insert amount] much influence on DX spec. So? It's still M$'s product and those other guys cant design nor sell any hardware unless it complies with M$.

Mayby physX has life as a PS3 specific API in the future, it's fitting as it has an Nvidia GPU too. 360 SDK will be upgraded to include the DX11 physics for easier porting.

I dont really see where havok is going to fall in all of this. Mayby it faces an integration into intel hardware and is only an SSE style extension to functionality in future intel CPUs and GPUs.

 

Tim, the problem is, there are too many nVidiot fanboys here so you should take their words as a grain of salt. Their main intention is to mock AMD whenever they have opportunities so please don't listen to what they say.

Chizow, you're a loser man~ ATI HD 4000 had beaten your nVidia graphics card, can't you live with it man? Stop saying negative about AMD, you better do something positive with your nVidia camp. If you're a loser, act like a loser, because if you don't, you'll looks more and more of a losers. I'm sick of your rant about AMD.

 

A lot of good points have been made in these posts but calling someone a loser for having a preference over one product or another is just ignorant. They are both good companies making competitive cards. I have had cards from each which have all worked well. I admit there are somethings that i like and don't like from each but you gotta take the good with the bad. Wise up chocobollz and respect others.