AMD's Richard Huddy on DirectX 11, Eyefinity, and the competition

[SirPauly]

Because ATI don't support PhysX. PhysX is being treated as an addon while some games require physics to function. You can't create a game that only works with Nvidia cards right?

Excuse me but I have to call it a load of horsecrap... Nvidia REFUSES TO LICENSE IT TO ATI, read the interview: Huddy clearly stated Nvidia lies about being open publicly but gave them the middle finger when they reached out.

To be honest once Intel and AMD release their respective CPUGPU-Fusion products (supposedly in 2-3 years) it becomes irrelevant thus PhysX will go titsup immediately unless Nvidia suddenly changes attitude.

imho,

It's amazing how you dismiss the word of nVidia but believe the word of AMD when the truth is probably some where in the middle.

Why would AMD desire to license PhysX when it is built upon Cuda?

They wouldn't. So, what if AMD contacted nVidia to see if they could work together or AMD would do the work to port PhysX to OpenCL -- sort of what AMD did to port Havok to OpenCL. If agreed, they would license PhysX with these changes.

nVidia said, " no, you must use Cuda and agree to our license - if not go whistle." And Amd claims that nVidia doesn't desire to license PhysX to AMD.

This has logic to me but just raw speculation

 

[T2k]

imho,

It's amazing how you dismiss the word of nVidia but believe the word of AMD when the truth is probably some where in the middle.

Why would AMD desire to license PhysX when it is built upon Cuda?

ROFL - nuff said... :awe::awe::awe:

 

[SirPauly]

ROFL - nuff said... :awe::awe::awe:

It's actually not funny because I don't dismiss them both and don't take what they both say as the end-all-be-all. Usually the truth is in the middle when they're two sides being so one sided and extreme.

Answer the question - don't dodge it:

Why would AMD desire to license PhysX when it is built upon Cuda in your opinion?

 

[T2k]

That was the funny part: it's not "built upon CUDA", never been - it was simply ported over after they bought up AGEIA.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Seriously asking: do you have some reading comprehension problems? :\

Havok, by default, is HARDWARE-NEUTRAL - thus ALL HAVOK GAMES supports ATI. Which game decides to do it on GPU and which on CPU is up to them. It is not PhysX with some crappy 'you-have-to-do-it-this-way-or-the-highway' Nvidia mentality nor it is disabled or crippled any way if runs on the CPU, unlike PhysX.

Which part of this you are unable to grasp?

Keep trolling...I take it just as seriously as AMD/ATi (in 2006) stating that they would have GPU-physics....that year.

You can try and derail all you can, try and twist my words and top it of with a red herring, the facts are:

There is NO AMD/ATI gpu-physics acceleration aound.

That you try and troll otherwise (WTF does CPU havok have to do with GPU's`?) is your problem.

 

[SirPauly]

That was the funny part: it's not "built upon CUDA", never been - it was simply ported over after they bought up AGEIA.

Dodging the question again I see, hehe!

 

[SirPauly]

Keep trolling...I take it just as seriously as AMD/ATi (in 2006) stating that they would have GPU-physics....that year.

You can try and derail all you can, try and twist my words and top it of with a red herring, the facts are:

There is NO AMD/ATI gpu-physics acceleration aound.

That you try and troll otherwise (WTF does CPU havok have to do with GPU's`?) is your problem.

Those were the good old days with Havok FX and both nVidia and ATI were working with Havok to try to bring GPU Physics to games. The humble beginnings of GPU Physics and was so excited back then too about the prospects.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Those were the good old days with Havok FX and both nVidia and ATI were working with Havok to try to bring GPU Physics to games. The humble beginnings of GPU Physics and was so excited back then too about the prospects.

I was too...now I just hope and prey AMD will finally get their act together.

And is quite funny this talk TK2 has been on about "ATi" and "Havok"

Havok, by default, is HARDWARE-NEUTRAL - thus ALL HAVOK GAMES supports ATI.

I didn't know that Havok ran on ATi GPUs...I thought it ran on AMD(or Intel) CPU's...but it seems he got banned (finally) and I can live without an answer to that paradox

 

[Seero]

I was too...now I just hope and prey AMD will finally get their act together.

And is quite funny this talk TK2 has been on about "ATi" and "Havok"


I didn't know that Havok ran on ATi GPUs...I thought it ran on AMD(or Intel) CPU's...but it seems he got banned (finally) and I can live without an answer to that paradox

I guess what he means was that CPU handles physics much better than GPU. He claimed that Nvidia engineered PhysX to run really bad on CPU. He also claimed Nvidia further hammered PhysX on CPU by disabling CPU cores, making it run even slower than it suppose to be. Therefore people should ditch PhysX and use Havok as Havok (do physics on CPU) is far better than PhysX.

To relate this to this thread, Richard Hubby actually mentioned this in the article.

bit-tech: -so we'll see AMD GPU physics in 2010?

RH: Bullet should be available certainly in 2010, yes. At the very least for ISVs to work with to get stuff ready.

The other thing is that all these CPU cores we have are underutilised and I'm going to take another pop at Nvidia here. When they bought Ageia, they had a fairly respectable multicore implementation of PhysX. If you look at it now it basically runs predominantly on one, or at most, two cores. That's pretty shabby! I wonder why Nvidia has done that? I wonder why Nvidia has failed to do all their QA on stuff they don't care about - making it run efficiently on CPU cores - because the company doesn't care about the consumer experience it just cares about selling you more graphics cards by coding it so the GPU appears faster than the CPU.

It's the same thing as Intel's old compiler tricks that it used to do; Nvidia simply takes out all the multicore optimisations in PhysX. In fact, if coded well, the CPU can tackle most of the physics situations presented to it. The emphasis we're seeing on GPU physics is an over-emphasis that comes from one company having GPU physics... promoting PhysX as if it's Gods answer to all physics problems, when actually it's more a solution in search of problems..

That is what he said knowing that Nvidia has PhysX, Intel brought Havok, and their Bullet is not ready.

Nvidia's reply on this

01/20/2010: PhysX, the Preferred Solution for all Platforms
By Nadeem Mohammad, posted Jan 20 2010 at 05:39:33 PM
Recently, an interview ran with an AMD developer relations manager, who claimed that NVIDIA (after acquiring Ageia) had purposely reduced the performance and scalability of NVIDIA PhysX technology, with regards to CPU core utilization.

I have been a member of the PhysX team, first with AEGIA, and then with NVIDIA, and I can honestly say that since the merger with NVIDIA there have been no changes to the SDK code which purposely reduces the software performance of PhysX or its use of CPU multi-cores.

Our PhysX SDK API is designed such that thread control is done explicitly by the application developer, not by the SDK functions themselves. One of the best examples is 3DMarkVantage which can use 12 threads while running in software-only PhysX. This can easily be tested by anyone with a multi-core CPU system and a PhysX-capable GeForce GPU. This level of multi-core support and programming methodology has not changed since day one. And to anticipate another ridiculous claim, it would be nonsense to say we “tuned” PhysX multi-core support for this case.

PhysX is a cross platform solution. Our SDKs and tools are available for the Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, the PC and even the iPhone through one of our partners. We continue to invest substantial resources into improving PhysX support on ALL platforms--not just for those supporting GPU acceleration.

As is par for the course, this is yet another completely unsubstantiated accusation made by an employee of one of our competitors. I am writing here to address it directly and call it for what it is, completely false. NVIDIA PhysX fully supports multi-core CPUs and multithreaded applications, period. Our developer tools allow developers to design their use of PhysX in PC games to take full advantage of multi-core CPUs and to fully use the multithreaded capabilities.

There is a lot more I could say on this topic; however, I really have to get back to my day job, which is working to help make gaming great for all users! And today that includes cracking open a new copy of Dark Void, the latest PhysX title, which incorporates some awesome particle weapon effects, an insane Disintegrator gun with fluid particles and jetpack with physical smoke turbulence . I know, hard work, right? But someone has to do it!

Happy 3D gaming!

 

[MrK6]

I guess what he means was that CPU handles physics much better than GPU. He claimed that Nvidia engineered PhysX to run really bad on CPU. He also claimed Nvidia further hammered PhysX on CPU by disabling CPU cores, making it run even slower than it suppose to be. Therefore people should ditch PhysX and use Havok as Havok (do physics on CPU) is far better than PhysX.

To relate this to this thread, Richard Hubby actually mentioned this in the article.



That is what he said knowing that Nvidia has PhysX, Intel brought Havok, and their Bullet is not ready.

Nvidia's reply on this

lol, well, even if they did (which I think so), I don't think you'll ever see NVIDIA say "Yes, we purposefully crippled PhysX on CPU's so it would accentuate its performance on our GPU's." I mean, Aegia wouldn't have PhysX run extremely well on CPU's because they were trying to sell PPU's, and now NVIDIA is trying to sell GPU's. PhysX has been shown to scale very well with cores, but where this implementation was and to what depth I have no idea (I can't think of a game off the top of my head that showed this, although I'm pretty darn sure I remember seeing some tech demos of it).

That said, since AMD produces both CPUs and GPUs they are in a PRIME position to develop a killer physics engine that runs well on both - great CPU core scaling that can be taken even further with GPU horsepower. However, they need to put up or shut up and get their software development departments in gear. Many said this about their drivers, and their drivers have improved greatly over the last few years (and still are, which is also good to see). Now if they can nail this home, man, they'll have it made. That's something I'm excited about - a unified physics engine. And, hopefully, they'll stick with their fair play style and allow it to run on any hardware available (Intel, NVIDIA, etc.). It might not be optimized for competitor's hardware (who would expect that?) but they shouldn't lock it out. Could be some great things in the future for gamers.

 

[Keysplayr]

Settle down, or don't post folks.
Looks like you're focusing more on each other than the subject matter.

Anandtech Moderator - Keysplayr

Obvious troll post (the one with the picture) has been removed & the 9 subsequent, off-topic posts attacking each other, etc., have also been removed. -Admin DrPizza

 

[Paratus]

Well I don't know whether Huddy is lying but the Nvidia response is demonstratably false. As has been demonstrated ad-nauseum in the Batman thread PC titles appear to exclusively require Nvidia graphics cards before Physx will function AT ALL. So I don't know how he can say it runs great on multi-core CPUs when it requires a Geforce card to even run the drivers.

 

[Seero]

Well I don't know whether Huddy is lying but the Nvidia response is demonstratably false. As has been demonstrated ad-nauseum in the Batman thread PC titles appear to exclusively require Nvidia graphics cards before Physx will function AT ALL. So I don't know how he can say it runs great on multi-core CPUs when it requires a Geforce card to even run the drivers.

PhysX can run on CPU. People refer it as the software implementation. It however runs like crap without a Nvidia card, until people found that there is a trick to fix it. However, that trick will cause the game to crash on a specific scene/area and user must work around it.

 

[Paratus]

I understand that it CAN run on the CPU but is there a PC game out there that does the software implimentation of Physx without an NV card in the system?

 

[MrK6]

I understand that it CAN run on the CPU but is there a PC game out there that does the software implimentation of Physx without an NV card in the system?

Well, answer this: How do you think you get all the physics effects in Batman without an NVIDIA GPU?

 

[Seero]

I understand that it CAN run on the CPU but is there a PC game out there that does the software implimentation of Physx without an NV card in the system?

Yes, you don't need Nvidia card to run PhysX, but PhysX don't run on ATI video card. Those who uses ATI video must run PhysX on CPU.

 

[Keysplayr]

Not one post further. NO INSULTS. NOTHING PERSONAL.
Last warning.
For the last time, posts have been removed.
Moderator - Keysplayr

 

[PingviN]

Yes, you don't need Nvidia card to run PhysX, but PhysX don't run on ATI video card. Those who uses ATI video must run PhysX on CPU.

Will PhysX even show up as an available option if no Nvidia GPU is installed?

 

[Munky]

I've seen NV fanboys whine about the lack of gpu physx on AMD more than the people who actually own AMD cards. Until we get actual game-changing interactive physics benefits from the gpu, it will remain a check-box feature with little importance to most people. And since a lot of big titles are developed with consoles in mind, no sane developer is gonna spend a lot of resources implementing a feature only a fraction of PC gamers will care bout.

 

[Wreckage]

I've seen NV fanboys whine about the lack of gpu physx on AMD more than the people who actually own AMD cards. Until we get actual game-changing interactive physics benefits from the gpu, it will remain a check-box feature with little importance to most people. And since a lot of big titles are developed with consoles in mind, no sane developer is gonna spend a lot of resources implementing a feature only a fraction of PC gamers will care bout.

The same can be said about DX10 & 11.

 

[Munky]

The same can be said about DX10 & 11.

Umm... no. DX10 or 11 is just a rendering API, nobody in their right mind would expect to have interactive gameplay-changing improvements from those. Physics, on the other hand, is supposed to be interactive, and that's where Nvidia's gpu-accelerated physx hype fails to deliver.

 

[Seero]

Will PhysX even show up as an available option if no Nvidia GPU is installed?

Yes

 

[Phil1977]

How come Physx runs on the PS3 and Xbox 360. But not the PC CPU?

 

[MrK6]

How come Physx runs on the PS3 and Xbox 360. But not the PC CPU?

That's what some people are missing - it does run on the PC CPU. In fact, MOST PhysX games have PhysX running on the CPU only.

 

[Seero]

How come Physx runs on the PS3 and Xbox 360. But not the PC CPU?

It does run on CPU, why do you believe it doesn't? PhysX will run with or without PPU (Nvidia video card). The function where you can use a Nvidia video card as a dedicated PPU only is disabled by drivers when a non-Nvidia video card is present, so people can't by a high-end ATI card and a cheap Nvidia card just for PhysX. This don't have any impact on games featuring PhysX.

PhysX can not added after the development is complete, but during the development. Developers need to code it themselves, and thus Nvidia don't have ownership of the code built with PhysX. Otherwise no one will use it.