AMD's Roy Taylor: PhysX/Cuda doomed?

[BallaTheFeared]

Can't wait to see Havok GPU based physics in PC games.

Hopefully that will come with the PS4.

 

[SirPauly]

You don't think they'll be running it on the GPU in the consoles, do you?

Good question! Possibly! If there is continued momentum with GPU Physics, nVidia may possibly offer more flexibility to run on OpenCL! They have already stated such -- will see what the future holds!

 

[SirPauly]

Can't wait to see Havok GPU based physics in PC games.

Indeed! Was initially excited back in 2006 with HavokFX!

 

[NIGELG]

Indeed! Was initially excited back in 2006 with HavokFX!

He was being sarcastic.Havok based GPU physics has already failed.PhysX based GPU physics will most likely follow.

 

[cmdrdredd]

He was being sarcastic.Havok based GPU physics has already failed.PhysX based GPU physics will most likely follow.

And then what? Back to scripted scenes only and no advanced particle effects and such done in games? There is no working alternative and until there is...

 

[NTMBK]

"APU" is just PR FUD for IGP's..so I will keep using those brackets...we already have the acronym IGP...no need to add another to decribe the same freaking thing.

Actually, APU indicates a combined IGP and CPU on the same chip. It is not a replacement term for IGP, it is a replacement term for "CPU+IGP".

 

[NIGELG]

And then what? Back to scripted scenes only and no advanced particle effects and such done in games? There is no working alternative and until there is...

The ''market decides'' is only acceptable when it favours what the Nvidia fans like??Is that right?

Something will come along that everyone can use.Then you will see a huge adoption.None of AMD,Nvidia,Havok,Bullet,whatever seem to know what to do to advance Accelerated physics right now.

Until they or someone else does we just have to wait.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

And then what? Back to scripted scenes only and no advanced particle effects and such done in games? There is no working alternative and until there is...

One of my previous posts covers this, it's just my own opinion, but I think it's more likely that we'll see an abandonment of GPU physics in favour of moving back to physics on the CPU.

Advancements in CPUs are still occurring, game engines aren't demanding as much resource usage from modern CPUs (as a percentage of available resources). The core game logic tends to still run on one core. Yet we're getting more and more CPU power and more cores, with not much else to spend it on.

We're also seeing a paradigm shift as coders slowly struggle to transition from single threaded code and very badly multi-threaded code towards truly balanced and well written multi-threaded code which can be targeted at N cores, the 8 core CPUs in the consoles will be a bit step towards seeing this.

They'll likely always lag GPUs, but what they lack in raw power they make up for in much more important ways like keeping the physics simulation close to the core game logic, and always being available in gamers PCs.

There's also the problem of diminishing returns with simulations being exact inside game engines, a flag with a 10,000 polys that waves in the wind is not 10x better than one made of 1000 polys. Physics is likely to make way more of an impact when it's game play relevant and that requires it to be tied closely to the core game logic.

 

[SirPauly]

.Havok based GPU physics has already failed.

What on Earth are you talking about?

This demo shows a million particle real-time physics simulation running on the GPU of the Playstation 4

Havok Physics Playstation 4 Demo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1hoVCZZOd0


Offer failure, again, based on your subjective illusions and perceptions, imho!

we just have to wait.

Waiting is good for consumers -- good grief! At least offer a choice to consider to like or dislike!

 

[BallaTheFeared]

^

I have no idea what he is talking about.

I know we should see physics on the gpu with Havok, what I don't know is if that will translate to PC or not.

 

[Lonbjerg]

^

I have no idea what he is talking about.

I know we should see physics on the gpu with Havok, what I don't know is if that will translate to PC or not.

Depends if AMD has the $$$ to make an effort.
The really want to play with the big dog (PhysX)..just look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCaGb40Bz58

However that was 4 YEARS ago...and all that has manifested is that AMD want some else to do it for them.

They flirted with BulletPhysics...but that kinda turned into a FAD...

So AMD want to play in PhysX sandbox.
They just seems to be UNABLE to do so...in the mean time...I have not had nothing.

I have had +7 years oof hardware PhysX now...and can only laugh at people declaring PhysX dead...and think we ALL should wait...until AMD gets it head out of it's rear.

I will not wait..and have not waited ^^

I'm an enthusiast...not a socialist^...I don't care if people with crappy PC's cannot run this or that feature...they have crap PC's...and always will.

But trying to say the the lowest common denominator should dictate what we do...gimme a break.


Besides people DO care about PhysX....look at all the people posting, despearately and with a alot of FUD trying to declare PhysX dead.

They really care...and it's nice to see.
(You wont get them to admit that though...but if you don't care about something...you don't care...and ignore it....if you post against over and over and over again...you DO care! )

 

[PrincessFrosty]

That an interesting opinion, one which I would have claimed to share at some point in my life, I certainly consider myself an ethusiast and enjoy the bleeding edge.

However there's a difference between being what you call a "socialist" and saying that lowest common denominators SHOULD inform progression, and what I'd call a realist which asserts the opposite which is that irrelevant of our feelings on the matter, the lowest common denominator demonstrably does inform progress.

The consoles are a perfect example, I don't like it anymore than you do, but not enough to actually make me delusional to reality

 

[sushiwarrior]

IMO, the difference between "CPU PhysX" and "GPU PhysX" is that CPU PhysX does the standard work you would see in any physics engine (ragdolls, collisions, destruction etc.) while "GPU PhysX" (which is only possible on an Nvidia GPU and therefore must be an option, rather than mandatory) is purely visual and usually revolves around the same type of work - massively parallel work such as particles, cloth etc. which use lots of small calculations (also quite latency independent) to do superficial work. I am not a programmer, but I do suspect/wonder if it is that the inherent latency from working on a GPU (which, again, is very parallel but very latency insensitive) may prevent "game engine" physics from being done in a timely manner. Perhaps something like hUMA/HSA will bring enough reduction to GPU latency and improvements to the ability to get GPGPU work done quickly so that game engines can rely on the calculations being done in a timely manner. I'm not sure if CUDA has their own way of reducing latency, but considering it is a hardware issue rather than a software one...

TL;DR: GPU latency may mean that physics engines demand less wait than a GPU provides, HSA/hUMA may provide a possible fix.

 

[Mr Expert]

Besides people DO care about PhysX....look at all the people posting, despearately and with a alot of FUD trying to declare PhysX dead.

They really care...and it's nice to see.

Actually for you to say that other people care about something is very ignorant and arrogant. Some other fanboys have already tried this reverse
psychology tatic and it's rather lame. I dislike Physx because it's not in enough games and the ones it is in make the game bog down for meanial effects like cloth and smoke. Big deal I think not.

 

[NIGELG]

What on Earth are you talking about?



Havok Physics Playstation 4 Demo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1hoVCZZOd0


Offer failure, again, based on your subjective illusions and perceptions, imho!






Waiting is good for consumers -- good grief! At least offer a choice to consider to like or dislike!

I dislike....

Also you are jumping to consoles now....lol.I am not a console gamer.But Havok based GPU pyhsics has failed for PC gaming...it never even got off the ground.

That an interesting opinion, one which I would have claimed to share at some point in my life, I certainly consider myself an ethusiast and enjoy the bleeding edge.

However there's a difference between being what you call a "socialist" and saying that lowest common denominators SHOULD inform progression, and what I'd call a realist which asserts the opposite which is that irrelevant of our feelings on the matter, the lowest common denominator demonstrably does inform progress.

The consoles are a perfect example, I don't like it anymore than you do, but not enough to actually make me delusional to reality

There is also the ''accepting crap just because there is nothing else''.Between crap and nothing I'll take nothing.

I have higher standards for how I want my games to look.

 

[Black Octagon]

I solemnly swear that I DO CARE about Physx but do NOT CARE enough for it to significantly influence my purchasing decisions

P.S., Whether you're Lonbjerg, Roy Taylor or anyone else: if you have the audacity to say what others do and do not care about then you better have good evidence. Seems to me that there are plenty of people out there who do care about Physx and plenty who do not. So why don't we stop with the silly generalisations about what 'gamers' want?

 

[boxleitnerb]

Menial effects? Lol, you would have to say that about basically everything. It's the little things (and their sum) that provides realism and immersion. To dislike something that is not used (much) is totally stupid. Then I could as well say "I dislike Havok@GPU because it isn't used at all". Guess what - I like any advanced physics or graphics effects and I don't care if it's used in 1 or 100 games. It will only get better.

 

[NIGELG]

They really care...and it's nice to see.
(You wont get them to admit that though...but if you don't care about something...you don't care...and ignore it....if you post against over and over and over again...you DO care! )

No....logical fallacy.

You post about AMD a lot...it doesn't mean you care about them and we know you don't care about them.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

There is also the ''accepting crap just because there is nothing else''.Between crap and nothing I'll take nothing.

I have higher standards for how I want my games to look.

Right, and that's fine.

But when describing reality and observing what actually does happen, this isn't accurate. I'm simply saying that the community often gets divided in opinion on the matter because some people confuse the observations of others as some kind of preference.

I've wanted to see the console bubble burst for years, and a return to truly decent PC games which put the pressure back on hardware manufacturers to deliver increasing performance, but it's just not what we observe in reality.

 

[sushiwarrior]

Menial effects? Lol, you would have to say that about basically everything. It's the little things (and their sum) that provides realism and immersion. To dislike something that is not used (much) is totally stupid. Then I could as well say "I dislike Havok@GPU because it isn't used at all". Guess what - I like any advanced physics or graphics effects and I don't care if it's used in 1 or 100 games. It will only get better.

I think the difference between meaningful and menial is that GPU PhysX is rarely (aka never, because it's optional) used for any "game changing" effects eg. destruction or collision. If PhysX wasn't a closed standard, they could apply the excellent power of GPGPU to "important" effects like that. Instead, it's proprietary, and left doing stuff that is absolutely auxiliary and not really very meaningful like cloth and smoke (while it's very well done, in comparison to a destruction engine it's more or less useless).

PhysX would have so much potential if it was an open standard. We could have excellent destruction engines and particle effects on EVERY game, for EVERY user, instead of optional effects on a few games for half of the users (and even less which actually own strong enough hardware to support the effects).

 

[Mr Expert]

Menial effects? Lol, you would have to say that about basically everything.

I like big Physics effects like when a building comes crashing down in BFBC2. Some extra smoke, cloth and particle effects that bog down the framerate and are a hinderance to gameplay is just annoying to me.

 

[Mr Expert]

I think the difference between meaningful and menial is that GPU PhysX is rarely (aka never, because it's optional) used for any "game changing" effects eg. destruction or collision. If PhysX wasn't a closed standard, they could apply the excellent power of GPGPU to "important" effects like that. Instead, it's proprietary, and left doing stuff that is absolutely auxiliary and not really very meaningful like cloth and smoke (while it's very well done, in comparison to a destruction engine it's more or less useless).

PhysX would have so much potential if it was an open standard. We could have excellent destruction engines and particle effects on EVERY game, for EVERY user, instead of optional effects on a few games for half of the users (and even less which actually own strong enough hardware to support the effects).

+1^ Most people own a mid range card http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/ that is uncapable of even running Physx.

 

[bystander36]

I think the difference between meaningful and menial is that GPU PhysX is rarely (aka never, because it's optional) used for any "game changing" effects eg. destruction or collision. If PhysX wasn't a closed standard, they could apply the excellent power of GPGPU to "important" effects like that. Instead, it's proprietary, and left doing stuff that is absolutely auxiliary and not really very meaningful like cloth and smoke (while it's very well done, in comparison to a destruction engine it's more or less useless).

PhysX would have so much potential if it was an open standard. We could have excellent destruction engines and particle effects on EVERY game, for EVERY user, instead of optional effects on a few games for half of the users (and even less which actually own strong enough hardware to support the effects).

This is an interesting point and has me agreeing and wondering if it would be the best way to go or not (doing regular physics on the GPU). Given that games typically don't multi-thread well, physics on the CPU takes advantage of a resource that would otherwise go unused. On the other hand, it may be possible to improve physics if you did it all on the GPU, only the GPU is being used heavily to render frames, so it would steal resources to do physics this way.

 

[boxleitnerb]

I think the difference between meaningful and menial is that GPU PhysX is rarely (aka never, because it's optional) used for any "game changing" effects eg. destruction or collision. If PhysX wasn't a closed standard, they could apply the excellent power of GPGPU to "important" effects like that. Instead, it's proprietary, and left doing stuff that is absolutely auxiliary and not really very meaningful like cloth and smoke (while it's very well done, in comparison to a destruction engine it's more or less useless).

PhysX would have so much potential if it was an open standard. We could have excellent destruction engines and particle effects on EVERY game, for EVERY user, instead of optional effects on a few games for half of the users (and even less which actually own strong enough hardware to support the effects).

GPU-PhysX is only about visuals, that's no secret. Like TressFX, DoF, area lights, per pixel displacement mapping, reflections...you see where I'm going with this. Visual is completely okay. Just because you slap the sticker "physics" on it, doesn't mean it has to be game changing. Game changing GPU-accelerated physics will eventually come, no doubt. Until then I'll take anything I'll get.

Besides:
I'm very doubtful that with the limitations of the old consoles any significant number of games would have sported an open solution like Havok@GPU or Bullet@GPU (or PhysX@OpenCL). Consoles could not have handled it, and to program these things only for the PC is costly and makes no sense financially. I guess Nvidia pays the devs to include GPU-PhysX. Otherwise, it would also not be used.

 

[sontin]

I like big Physics effects like when a building comes crashing down in BFBC2. Some extra smoke, cloth and particle effects that bog down the framerate and are a hinderance to gameplay is just annoying to me.

So, you dont like graphics. :sneaky: