News AMD says PhysX will die

For me after thoughts that become pretty because of physX is pointless I want something involves interaction, like say you have to shoot a certain barrel made from a certain material to make it hit something else or whatever and having physic play a role in the weight of the item and the condition of how it was shot and so forth to make the game more interactive should be the focus and thats why it needs to be in an open source so that its not limited, right now like other have said its simply just eye candy and provides no real use or need as the games already look pretty great even without the eye candy physics. So until its cross platform capable. physics wont be made into the being part of the story and just a turn on/off pretty feature. ~_~

 

Tim did you attend round table meetings in 2007? In where they discussed the way they try to get developers to implement new features into games?

Be back later.

Chris

 

edit: comment retracted dont need to fuel any fires lol

 

Tim have you read any previous writings about the subject of PhysX? Much of what you have written and what Godfrey Cheng has said is actually a step backward from previous articles. I think at this point its very clear that AMD/ATI is willing to say and do anything to impede the adoption of PhysX as a standard. Why is obvious, because they have nothing in the way of accelerated PhysX and they probably don't want to directly support their rival's IP.

This particular passage to me seems completely off. From all indications I've read, PhysX is not exclusive to Nvidia hardware, ATI/AMD has simply refused to get behind it. If ATI/AMD is refusing to get behind it "as a matter of principle" then the blame lies solely with them. Nvidia has a working PhysX API that developers are actually implementing and AMD/ATI has nothing. They have a PR blurb about a CPU-based physics engine and thats it.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38392/118/
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2324555,00.asp
http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/602205/nvidia-offers-physx-support-to-amd--ati.html

All sources seem to indicate Nvidia has extended the olive branch numerous times but AMD/ATI has either ignored all dialogue or actively blocked CUDA/PhysX development on their parts.

Also, I completely disagree with your assessment that Nvidia will struggle with PhysX implementation if they go on their own. NV owns some 60-65% of the discrete GPU market and at PhysX debut they estimated some 70 million CUDA-capable GPU install base. That's more than all current-gen consoles combined. Another proprietary API that has done pretty well over the years is EAX and Creative's SoundBlaster cards despite a much smaller market share that has only diminished over the years.

Lastly, PhysX and CUDA are an open standard and will completely support both OpenCL and DX11. This is where I actually agree with you. I know for sure AMD/ATI is just blowing smoke buying time until DX11 when compute shaders become standard and they'll get access to GPU-accelerated physics for free.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10870&Itemid=1
http://en.expreview.com/2008/12/11/roadmap-indicates-cuda-30-in-q4-2009.html
"CUDA has integrated OpenCL 1.0 standard support, and is about to add DirectX 11 Compute Shader support. As an integration of OpenCL and DX11 computing, CUDA offers the best GPU computing choice for developers"

I look forward to a follow-up if you manage to get a response from Nvidia! Cheers!

 

OMG bit-tech daring to report the questioning of the need for physics (or is that physX) over gameplay! Hang them now!

FFS, the one trick pony that is PhysX NEEDS to be questioned and queried, as it currently doesn't offer any solution to around 30-40% of gamers that use Ati cards (or whatever the current figure is). Physics effects should be unobtrusive in a game, but add to the experience, and that should be available to ALL players. Until there is a solution that is universal and a matter of ticking a box, then what incentive is there for developers to concentrate on gameplay?

"I wasnt nearly as impressed with it as I was PhysX. Seeing Glass shattering." ooo, shiny

 

I've listened to plenty of industry insiders talk on the subject of PhysX - we've also written plenty about the subject as well. It is open, but not open and Havok isn't open either.

AMD doesn't want to adopt it on principle, not because it is bad technology. Just imagine an ATI graphics card box with an Nvidia CUDA/PhysX logo on it. Yeah, it's not going to happen and like you say it would put the game right into Nvidia's hand.

I've heard conflicting stories from both sides. Nvidia says yes we have offered it but AMD doesn't want it, while AMD says yes and talks progressed far enough for us to get our engineers involved before Nvidia then pulled back. The truth will be somewhere in the middle I imagine.

You could argue that neither is to blame in some respects because while AMD Stream is similar to CUDA, it's not the same, which makes it hard for AMD to do the port (I'm hypothesizing here) because it doesn't have intricate knowledge in the workings of CUDA (and the Nvidia driver). On the other side, there wasn't an open standard compute language until just the other day so Nvidia couldn't open it out. However, what concerns me is the commentary from Nvidia when I ask whether there are plans to port PhysX to OpenCL. Not for AMD really, more for the developers. You know, the guys that keep this industry ticking over with content.

Please don't misunderstand me - Nvidia has a PhysX API that developers are adopting and that is A Good Thing. All that I have asked for is it to be 'opened up' so that we can actually start to do more than just pretty effects that have no real impact on gameplay. Roy Taylor said in an interview with me that "Physics is gameplay" - everything I am seeing from the PhysX implementations is anything but gameplay (see here: http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2008/09/25/roy-taylor-on-physics-ai-making-games-fun/1). It's just fancy effects that have no impact on the way you play the game. Call me a sceptic, but when I'm promised something, that's what I expect - I'm just doing my job.

If Nvidia goes alone, PhysX will never be more than fancy graphical effects that don't actually make the game any better. They make it prettier. I will be playing Mirror's Edge on an Nvidia card because it looks prettier, not because it makes the game any more compelling. There are more than 100 million CUDA enabled GPUs. Of those, I estimate no more than 40 million are able to accelerate PhysX to an acceptable level. Nvidia sold between 20-30 million 8800 GTs - the rest of that 40 million is made up of anything faster than an 8800 GTS.

PhysX is very easily portable to OpenCL because OCL actually isn't too far from CUDA. CUDA is open in the sense that you can download the specification, but it is not open because no other hardware vendor supports it or contributed to its development. The question is whether Nvidia wants PhysX to be a checkbox feature on its graphics cards that may disappear or whether Nvidia wants PhysX to be the industry's leading physics API in five or more years. PhysX has nothing to do with the hardware or with CUDA in fact - you've already seen Nvidia port it from the PPU to CUDA and there's nothing stopping Nvidia porting it to OpenCL or DirectX 11 Compute.

Based on a recent email thread I've had with Microsoft's David Blythe (one of the chief architects on DirectX), DX11 Compute support isn't fully enabled on any current SM4.x GPU (regardless of whether it's CUDA or Stream compatible) - a subset of DX11 Compute will be exposed to DX10 GPUs accessing the DX11 Compute Shader. I'll have some more details on this tomorrow all being well when I get around to collaborating the information I've obtained from various sources.

Anyway, it's almost 2am here and I should have been in bed hours ago.

Tim

 

Tim this is what bothers me the most. They dont want to adopt it on "principle"? Well either way thats a loss to AMD users. Also it completely the opposite of what they are saying. "Its Nvidia only". The most glaring point to me is that AMD isn't being up front or honest about this. And is making claims ((and has been for a while)) about Nvidia is blocking them off.

Honestly. I dont see how they can support their biggest competitor. Aka Havok/Intel. And then not support PhysX based on principle. I just don't buy it.

Regards
Chris

SLIZONE Administrator
Nvida User Group Member.

 

probably because from the beginning when Intel bought Havok stated that it was going to remain free and open to all platforms where as when nVidia got a hold of physX only made claims of support for their cards only from the beginning and later for PR reasons probably then changed their tune but at the start is was all about nvidia support and no mention of being open.

 

I honestly have no idea why Chris - I often get the "Nvidia is buying out development studios" argument when I talk to AMD. Nvidia does this, Nvidia does that, Nvidia is evil, etc. It's frustrating... I don't like politics... I prefer to focus on the technology myself because that's what makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. If there was one thing I wanted to see happen in the graphics industry over the next 6 to 12 months, it would be for the industry to adopt a ubiquitous physics API and that's all that gamers should want too. That way, developers can actually start to make some progression on the things that we should all really be caring about - the games.

It took the graphics industry six years to get behind a graphics API properly (DX7 was around the time when those who didn't adopt started to fall away IIRC) and I seriously hope it doesn't take six years for the industry to decide which physics API is the winning horse. Sigh.

 

Havok is not an open standard. To say Havok is open and PhysX isn't is just a twist of the facts. Intel owns Havok. And will license it. AMD licensed Havok.

Agree with you completely here.

 

Currently, neither PhysX nor Havok are open standards - they both have to be licensed (that's what EA/2K have just done according to Nvidia's own PRs, right?). Hopefully, the industry will get past that at some point though and realise that openness prevails in the long run.

 

Yes PhysX is licensed to EA/2K. I was just disputing that Havok was more "open" than PhysX. Since neither are "open" standards. But are able to be licensed by Nvidia/Intel.

Regards
Chris

SLIZONE Administrator
Nvida User Group.

 

Nail on the head. Even with the not so good economy here in the U.S.; In my little pc repair shop, we are starting to see more and more customers purchasing retail video cards for us to install in their pc's. Even a couple small business clients are upgrading their machines to run 3-D architectual or (autocad) of some sort. Where as most of my advise is based on what real functions they use the pc's for, and system requirements of the programs they want, prices on video cards are at a great place right now and I can recommend in confidence.

For the gamers that come in, and their parents; it is much harder to offer advise on the top end of the cards. The biggest reason, is they are willing to spend top dollar on the big performance cards; but they don't want to be left out of the next big tech that drops in 3 months according to the rumours out on the net. Core clocks or memory frequencies that are so close to each other that they wouldn't be able to tell the difference if I installed both and let them play it is not the concern. PhysX enabled or Cuda are bigger changes then adding 15hz to the clock in my opinion.

 

The same can be said about DX10, available since 2007. How many games are now using the FULL potential of DX10? 2 or 3 games? Both AMD and Nvidia support it, yet its full use can be counted on one hand.

So how can AMD say Nvidia's Physics, just a couple of months old, is not used in games. And say DX11 and OpenCL is it. DX11 and OpenCL are not even used now and wont until maybe 2012. And we all know what happens in 2012. So it is to late anyway...

 

A quick point about why Physx won't die: It's built into the Wii, PS 3 and Xbox 360.

Just look at Gears Of War 2 for example. That's a genuine example of where Physx is going.

Also some other fairly major titles:
City of Villains
Mass Effect
Gothic 3
Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War
Heavy Rain
Unreal Tournament 3

And however many other Unreal Engine 3 games there are to come.

Suggesting that Physx is just going to die is a joke in its self. DX10 has barely been taken on board by most people, due to generalised shock and horror over Vista, so who even cares about DX11 yet? Most people just want to keep on using DX 9 and Windows XP for stability and simplicity's sake. If anything, Physx has made the right move by being accessible on the consoles, the place where games can drive its usage forwards faster than PCs.

At the moment, as previously noted, in-game physics are more just a novelty than anything else, however, Physx is building a user base worthy of note, which will draw more attention. This is not to say that Havok will die either, or any such. Havok has double the number of games using it as Physx, but has been around for donkey's years.

 

dont both nvidia and ATi cards support OpenCL now?
surely the obvious answer is to do physx, havok and whatever other physics engine a developer might want to use in OpenCL and be done with it?

 

I can only hope that it's true about AMD not supporting PhysX on principle. It would truly be refreshing to have a company have some principles. In fact, this would be in keeping with the way AMD and ATI do/have been doing business for some time.

PhysX will definitely succeed in the short term but I'm more dubious about the long term. It is very expensive to pay for development houses to use your software. TWIMTBP has been buying titles for a long time and I get the distinct impression the up-to-now almost bottomless pit of money they've been drawing on to press AMD out of the picture is running low.

Here's another way to look at it. NV is providing support for PhysX to developers on TWIMTPB titles. Which titles that use PhysX are NOT part of TWIMTBP? Even if AMD was to support PhysX you wouldn't be able to see them market it on those titles because NV doesn't allow it. That's right. Titles that are part of TWIMTBP are not allowed to do any marketing with AMD.

NV doesn't want AMD supporting PhysX. Especially now that AMD is crushing NV in the price to performance game. Ok, so NV has released a new driver that brings them back into the game. It also adds a bunch of problems that didn't previously exist. Also, if just changing the driver can add (however dubiously) that much performance, what is to prevent AMD from tweaking their drivers as well and restoring themselves to the top seat?

There have been arguments all over the internet about console vs. PC for gaming. One thing is for sure, we are seeing more and more titles that go both ways. I don't see any consoles that use an NV-based CPU. Any Physics solution that can dynamically take advantage of BOTH the CPU and the GPU is going to be superior to one that doesn't. Would anyone care to describe how PhysX runs on both an AMD and Intel CPU?

I have no doubt that NV MUST continue to buy developers just to keep Havok out as much as they can. PhysX just isn't that compelling from a technology standpoint when compared to Havok.

The bottom line is that until there is something that both AMD and NV can use, no games will run physics for more than eye candy in any important title. As was said earlier here, physics can’t be an integral part of the game if every player can’t do it. Actually what that means is that every multiplayer player. Sure, single player games like Oblivion might be able to survive but why would they want to eliminate almost half of the people that could potentially play their game by requiring PhysX?

And when is NV going to try to support Havok? Why do people expect AMD to support NV software but don’t expect NV to support what AMD is using? Asking developers to code two ways isn’t really the best idea but it’s better than making them choose between two. It’s not personal, it’s just business.

I’d also like to see a review of the two technologies- Havok and PhysX. Each one is to some degree being touted as the best one. But which one is actually best? What if there isn’t a best one? What if one is better at some things than the other? Why couldn’t developers use BOTH and be able to write their code in the way that works best for them? By them I mean us, the gamers.

 

It makes clear sense for AMD to work with Intel on developing CPU based Physics in the short term, as they are both trying to sell the benefit of multi-core CPU's to the masses. Getting crossfire support included as standard on Intel chipset motherboards is also a bonus for AMD/Ati (at least until larrabee makes an appearance).

 

That's what I'm pushing for... and I still haven't had the right answer from either Red or Green.

 

agreed I am hoping for this as well.