PhysX on ATI effort gets helping hand from NVIDIA

Eran Badit of NGOHQ.com has already made some considerable progress getting PhysX to run on AMD hardware, and it looks like he's now getting a helping hand from a somewhat unexpected source, with NVIDIA itself reportedly giving the project its blessing. Apparently, NVIDIA has even gone so far as to invite Badit to join its developer program, which gives him access to documentation, SDKs and, most importantly, direct access to hardware and NVIDIA engineers, a move that Badit describes as "impressive, inspiring and motivating." Badit is decidedly less impressed by AMD, however, which has apparently been unwilling to provide with any hardware or support for the project. That stubborn stance, he surmises, can only be due to AMD's backing of Intel's Havok physics engine, which NVIDIA would no doubt like to have out of the picture (hence its willingness to help here).

[Via TG Daily]

[Ike Turner @ Jul 8th 2008 12:22PM]

Am I the only one who thinks that this whole stuff is fake...?

[apread @ Jul 8th 2008 12:31PM]

yes

[nerdtalker @ Jul 8th 2008 12:45PM]

Fake? What's fake about it?

If you have an ATI card, go get the modified drivers and software and run 3dmark vantage yourself. Anandtech, THG, all the major benchmark sites have already covered how compatible ATI cards all run PhysX now.

But fake? Please, don't be absurd.

[pathogen @ Jul 8th 2008 12:47PM]

Probably not. I imagine there's people who look at everything on the internet with the same well deserved credulity.

I for one, want to believe though.

[Pimp @ Jul 8th 2008 12:50PM]

Link???

[w00t @ Jul 8th 2008 1:00PM]

Wait a minute this isn't youtube!

[iofthestorm @ Jul 8th 2008 2:15PM]

Link to the modded drivers please? I'd like to try them out for fun, although they're likely to only remove

[j h @ Jul 8th 2008 3:56PM]

WTF is going on here??!?!? AMD backing Intel?? I'm an AMD shareholder. That's like my cousin stealing my girlfriend. I'm selling.

[Wwhat @ Jul 9th 2008 7:41AM]

We'll help you, just sign here for the requirements of using our secret hardware details, at the X right under 'nvidia gets control of software created using this closed information', yeah there. In fact why don't you come and work for us and stop tweaking AMD drivers altogether? We'll give you a cookie!

About AMD/intel, why do you think intel chipsets support crossfire if they didn't have a nice relationship ontop of their bickering one?

[Matt @ Jul 8th 2008 1:25PM]

Nvidia is just plain better than ATI/AMD. They always have been. Every time I give an ATI product a shot (usually on the advice of critic reviews by Anandtech, Toms Hardware, and the like) I wind up horribly disappointed. Here's their chance to show the world that they really do care about the end user. Having a single cross-hardware physics standard would be the best thing the happen to gaming since 3DFX released the first Monster 3D video add-on card. Competing standards will only ensure that developers ignore physics acceleration altogether. Good job on not being complete dicks, Nvidia. My hat is sincerely off to you. ATI, will you please just get with the program or die.

[Dutchess @ Jul 8th 2008 1:49PM]

Nvidia was not better than Ati during the 9700/9800 days and they are not now. When the 4780 X2 hits it a pretty sure bet it will be the clear number one. Know your gfx card history. They tend to lead in cycles. With one leading for 1-2 years.

[z0phi3l @ Jul 8th 2008 2:28PM]

@ Dutchess

And yet I will only use nVidia cards in my computers, want to know why? Because every ATI card I've used over the years have been crap, and their drivers are even bigger crap.

It's one thing to have the [i]currently[/i] best hardware, but if the user can't [i]use[/i] it appropriately, then the hardware is a waste.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Jul 9th 2008 7:43AM]

> every ATI card I've used over the years have been crap, and their drivers are even bigger crap.

This is very unfortunate truth of ATI of past years.

As they have started playing catch up with nVidia, they stopped paying attention to quality (copied from nVidia). And essentially only reason to buy their cards disappeared.

[Wwhat @ Jul 10th 2008 10:08AM]

I've been in ATI driver hell, but only after staying in nvidia driver hell, so really, there is no difference, all hardware )not just graphics) seems to have five times the capabilities than what their drivers do with it, and driver coders seems to dedicate half their time in making things incompatible/buggy.
What's really painful is when they don't even add connections for capabilities of chips, like motherboard monitoring chips that internally can monitor 5 fans or thermal sensors and they only expose 3 connectors, or sound codec chips of which they simply don't connect pins to save less than a penny, it's all a bit saddening
Another example regarding sound codecs is that some realtek ones have the capability to receive signals from stereo microphones and use that to cleverly remove any echo and stray sounds by making it directional, it's all there in hardware but as good as nobody makes a connector for 2 mics and nobody enables it in software for the user (I think only 1 notebook manufacturer did).
And there's tons of hardware that suffers from this phenomena of lacking support.

[Donielle @ Jul 8th 2008 12:25PM]

Naw I don't think it's fake it's a great way to snuff out the competers but that's just me

[j h @ Jul 8th 2008 4:03PM]

AMD should have NEVER bought ATI. AMD & NVIDIA, MAYBE, but not ATI. Damn it.

[Paul6 @ Jul 8th 2008 5:51PM]

but they both were 3 letters starting with 'A'. it was just too yummy to pass up despite practicality.

[initialxy @ Jul 8th 2008 12:33PM]

it's probably a marketing strategy to expand the PhysX usage and avoid nasty competitions. PhysX still needs recognitions from game developers. If video cards from both companies can support PhysX, it can finally start to fly.

[404 @ Jul 8th 2008 1:44PM]

Very true, plus if Nvidia help out then everyone will think Nvidia are awesome and puts pressure on AMD. If AMD don't help people will think they are stingy sods who won't help out their own customers, while if they do the people at Havok will go nuts.

Well played Nvidia methinks.

[Elora HRanma @ Jul 9th 2008 7:59AM]

"But Bender, you are the most technologically advanced robot in the whole island"

Sorry, I had to do that. No hard feelings ;)

[dan2600 @ Jul 8th 2008 12:59PM]

While yes, you can write an API to handle physics better, in the end,
if games were programmed to take more advantage of multi-processors
they would have no need for a PPU.


"newton" physics really arn't that complex for a CPU to handle, its
just the amount of data that becomes an issue.

I for one think the Havok engines physics are pretty piss poor and
look like everything is made of marshmallows, so if physx looks more realistic i don't really care if it does it on a chip or not, I just want it to look good.

[thedesolate1 @ Jul 8th 2008 12:59PM]

Damn Nvidia is REALLY trying to stick it to Intel. I love competition. Lets enjoy the show... :)

[thedesolate1 @ Jul 8th 2008 12:59PM]

Damn Nvidia is REALLY trying to stick it to Intel. I love competition. Lets enjoy the show... :)

[thedesolate1 @ Jul 8th 2008 1:03PM]

Argh! comment system needs a new engine too....

[erislover @ Jul 8th 2008 1:05PM]

I don't pretend to understand the wranglings of big businesses, but I don't quite get how AMD, a competitor of Intel, incidentally happens to back that particular physics engine, unless it just so happens to be the superior choice. Granted, the engine was just recently (2007) purchased by Intel, so there was most likely momentum for the project which was prohibitively expensive to abandon, even if it means that AMD and Intel are, effectively, bedfellows here.

But with ATI now a subsidiary of AMD, it seems there's nowhere to go, anyway. Either AMD gets in bed with Intel, or ATI gets in bed with NVIDIA. Hmm.

Life is too hard to figure out. Back to TF2.

[Laughing Man @ Jul 8th 2008 8:45PM]

I don't trust this move by nVidia. It seems like there are trying to help a guy provide support for technology they owe exclusive rights too. This move would basically make the PhysX card, that is still sold by the way, a pointless and obsolete tech. That would under mind....well nVidia.

Either this is a trick to get that guy under nVidia contract and make it illegal for him to complete this little project, or their hatred of Intel has gone too far. Either way it goes, I think that AMD should help this guy as well and boast support for both PhysX and Havok. AMD should use this as an opportunity to get everyone in the end.

[Dave @ Jul 8th 2008 1:22PM]

I wonder how good NVidia would be about helping out with ATI support of PhysX if Havoc were out of the picture?

[pulverz @ Jul 8th 2008 2:51PM]

I think it's pretty wild that nVidia has gone so far to help this guy out - it's neat to see a big ol' company kinda open its doors, so to speak, to welcome outside help with something like this.

Though slightly off topic, since I'm heavily invested in nVidia hardware (two 8800GTX's... *sigh* ) I'm more eager to see _full_ support for PhysX on the rest of nVidia's hardware.

I know it's coming, but knowing the potential that I'm sitting on, I find it ironic that support for ATI's hardware has come before nVidia is finished supporting their own hardware!

Just my two cents, at any rate, mad props to the guy behind all this, way to stir the pot! ;-)

!

[Wwhat @ Jul 10th 2008 10:14AM]

Good point on the 'support for ATI before older nvidia HW', mind you it's a lot easier to make something for a chip that has double precision math in hardware than trying to make something work on hardware lacking certain important aspects.
Just remember it's about games, and your SLI will run most all games pretty fast, and the number of games with physics is small, even UT only uses it on special levels that you can live without.
If I were you I'd be more hopeful for support for CUDA in general applications to work for you rather than PhysX.

[ShadowKain @ Jul 8th 2008 3:44PM]

Dear ATI,

We be stealing your home boys, becuase you dont't seem to show them any love. Oh and :P you Intel while we're at it!

Love,

Nvidia

[Dale @ Jul 8th 2008 5:02PM]

This entire thing is a hot tranny mess. Heaven forbid they all work together and develop a standard.

[Wwhat @ Jul 9th 2008 7:52AM]

They won't because ATI is moving in a different direction from Nvidia, ATI is going for voxel/raytracing and probably is in the background tweaking the havok thing for that (voxels/raytracing allow for complete deformable terrain which would mean the physics thing would fit right in), nvidia seems to go for a more traditional approach where you work with separate objects fancied up by the graphics/shaders, for now.
Who will win is anybody's guess, ATI/AMD often thinks up good stuff that then the industry doesn't pick up, but intel also seems to think raytracing is the future of gamesgraphics too so with intel and AMD together I'd see the move actually going in the direction of a voxel-with-raytracing-elements future.

All this is my personal analysis from information I gathered from the internet and might be wrong though, especially since they are secretive as hell and the more their view diverge the more secretive they get.

[Technex @ Jul 8th 2008 5:10PM]

But I love Nvidia and Intel :(.

[crazy1 @ Jul 8th 2008 6:23PM]

Hmm, 300plus games with HAVOK, MAYBE 3 with PhysX support.

Not super hard to figure out who's won already really. This guy porting it is wasting his time.

[Wwhat @ Jul 9th 2008 8:03AM]

The havok supported titles thing is a bit of a cheat though since as I recall they had 2 different physics things , one was for 'real' physics that was supposed to go for GPU support, released around the time that ageia started to make itself noticed and that required a separate license from the older physics thing havok had (used in HL2), which is what most of those titles they mention used.
The number of games they signed up for that newer havok physics thing is probably much less than the counting their press releases mention of both licenses together.

[Alex @ Jul 8th 2008 9:03PM]

The word is "undermined" not "under mind".

I think nVidia will support this guy whole heartedly until havok is out of the picture. The share of the market they'll lose by allowing customers to use PhysX on AMD now is smaller than the share they'll lose if Havok becomes the industry standard. The smart move would be to support this guy until PhysX is the industry standard and then prevent it from working with a future generation of AMD cards. That way from that point on people are forced to use nVidia cards for physics acceleration, and there's no alternative.

Its as if someone modded a PS3 to run xBox360 games. Sony would support it until the xBox went outta business and then prevent it again.

[Elora HRanma @ Jul 9th 2008 7:55AM]

They won't veto PhysX working on future ATI cards, should PhysX become the standard. They would get crazy benefits from all developers licensing their engine, no matter what graphics manufacturer leaded the market.
The PS3/360 example is not equivalent.