I found it very funny. Every time Richard Huddy makes a speech, fans simply believe in every single word he said as if he is the god, without a single question.
Seriously, who are the developers he spoke with? Names? Quotes? What about a short youtube feeds? How much are they being paid? What exactly are they being paid for? Who exactly is paying them?
Sorry, but Physics isn't what ATI is strong at. At best they claimed to support something that is open source, meaning they don't need to pay a dime for it and don't held any responsibility.
Havok physics isn't bad, but the problem is, there isn't a lot of templates or API to make things easier. Seriously, what does physics have anything to do with Pac-Man? Oh wait, Pac-Man isn't good anymore. Wait, what makes game age? What is the differences between Doom and Doom 3? Starcraft and Starcraft 2?
If you ever youtube SC2, you will know that the gameplay is identical to SC, so what makes it new? Well SC2's graphics is by far the best graphics compare to older real-time strategy game.
So are programmers being paid to make SC2? Of course. It also fully support 3D and has lots of physics. Guess what, it uses havok. Why not PhysX? well they don't want to limit their potential of graphics by vendors, which is okay. In fact, it runs on OpenGL, meaning it isn't platform specific. The cool thing is, it runs on Dx9. While every things are good, how long did it take to develop the game? lol, 5+ years. Starcraft was released March 1998.
So what is Dx10, Dx11 and Tessellation? Well all function points were there in Dx9, at least there were possible in Dx9. Anything that can be done by Dx11 and be done with OpenCL/GL. So why the DirectX label. What about Mac user?
Of course most people don't care because MS dominated the OS market. From time to time there are some free OS like unix, linux, redhat, and ubuntu. They are free, but it isn't a secret how difficult to use it. Bugs and limitations are something that user understand and tolerate on something that is free. Of course there are programmers who can fix it for themselves and then there is google-fu.
If you ever try to make your own game, then you will know the pain. No, a game like Pac-Man won't sell. A game like Doom won't sell. Anything that doesn't require mid-high end PC simply won't sell. So how can I create a game that does require those?
Game Engine saves the day. Unfortunately, other than PhysX there are no other premade tools for physics. Yes Havok is free, but how do you use it? Call ATI and ask? PhysX on the other hand is easier, they have premade "interactive papers and objects" and Nvidia actually send guys/gals to assist on that and other matters. Guess what, I can borrow some of the pre-existing code and then add a new stuff in it, and bamp a new game.
While people may believe that PhysX is nothing but flying paper and the TWIMTBP is used to make ATI look bad. However, the fact is, many games won't be able to come to live before it ran out of resources without it. Using those Game Engine requires you to pay up at the time of publish, but not TWIMTBP.
Ownership means control and responsibility. MS owns and control Dx. MS can alter whatever they want and then give it a new name and won't share it with other OS, but at the same game MS needs to make sure that it works and works better than others to keep it alive. Same thing with PhysX.
If Nvidia never have something proprietary to them, then there probably won't be programs like TWIMTBP. Without TWIMTBP, then many games will never come to live. In fact, if Nvidia's hardware isn't needed, then there won't be Nvidia. Who is at lost here? US, WHO LIKES TO PLAY GAMES!!!
Just like Nvidia, ATI put a hardware tessellation unit with their card to counter PhysX, had "Get in the Game" to counter TWIMTBP and stream to counter CUDA. There were games that uses tessellation many years ago, ATI did the same thing. The difference is, ATI failed at the time and tessellation went under the table.
Richard Huddy mislead a lot of people. Open standard is good, but that doesn't mean free. Stream don't run off Nvidia hardware as CUDA don't run off ATI. Stream and CUDA more or less does the same thing but with a different standard, which only one will survive. Was ATI as good as you think? If ATI is willing to follow the standard made by Nvidia, then ATI user can enjoy PhysX and probably CUDA too. Nvidia brought Aegis for PhysX, ATI brought nothing. Freeware doesn't mean ATI. Open source doesn't mean ATI. ATI is cheap on those stuff so they can make cheaper video cards. This really isn't rocket science.
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