There was a chance, all they needed to do was set the MSRP higher, high enough to reduce demand such that the supply could then have met demand.
There was a chance, all they needed to do was set the MSRP higher, high enough to reduce demand such that the supply could then have met demand.
MS did that to get into the console market, I think they decided on an alternative method to penetrate that market
Except that most licensing agreements are legally binding contracts(all of them that I have ever seen are, but I hate using absolutes).
I consider ~200FPS more then fine actually. And PhysX does support more then 2 cores on other platforms at the very least.
Yeah it is, maybe the mods could split it?
For older versions of DX IF Windows is installed. Windows installation is still required, and even then some other systems can have Windows installed and not utilize it(ie- current Macs).
If you want to use that metric, you need to include all of the portables including cell phones. I think it is more reasonable to base it off of actual game sales. And for this particular discussion, packaged games sold at retail(or online) are the ones that are relevant as they are the ones using either DX or PhysX.
PhysX runs on all of those PCs and the consoles. The big difference is the consoles are primarily gaming systems.
You keep mentioning how physx runs on the consoles all PCs, but only in software which means the CPU is handling physics calculations which defeats the entire purpose of Physx raison d'etre. Removing the workload of physics calculations from the CPU. CPU's have always handled physics calculations, physx brings nothing new to the table in this scenario.
Hardware (GPU) accelerated physx is supported by how many platforms?
Do PCs have higher resolution textures then the console versions of the same games? Yes. Do PCs have superior visual settings in general then consoles? Yes.
It is a simpler task to get devs to scale PhysX up to match what PCs can do then it is to get them to build two different physics engines so PCs can benefit.
Originally posted by: Blazer7
Why, Why I didn't thought of that !?! :laugh:
I guess the consumer in me prohibits such thoughts.
I didn't say it was the kind of solution we'd have wanted them to do You are absolutely right about that :thumbsup:It's not that nV would suddenly not allow PhysX to run on ATI cards if they had a license...but they could conceivably add/improve features where the ATI cards would not benefit. And judging by what they've done recently (including blocking the PPU with ATI cards) I wouldn't be surprised if they did.
On a side note...you said that ATI was blocking AIW cards working with nV GPUs...do you have a link for that? I'm really curious to see if that's true.
bryanW1995
Lifer
- May 22, 2007
- 11,144
- 32
- 91
you really think that DAO was ready 6 months ago and bioware just said "nah, we don't need that revenue for the next 6 mos, we'll wait for the consoles to be able to run it"??? Bioware is big enough that everybody wants them on their console/gpu/OS, almost everything they touch turns to gold. Why would they worry about nintendo, sony, MS, apple, verizon, TI, or george bush when they're trying to make money? Is it possible that a very small part of the equation was the desire to release at the same time for all platforms? Sure, but there's no way that was THE reason for a 6 month delay.
- Jan 16, 2003
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If ATI GPUs are as fully programmable as they say they are, they should have (had they licensed) no trouble programming newer features into their hardware. It all depends on if it's "possible" on their hardware. After all, they are different architectures. Very difficult to say what is possible on one and not the other. We may have found things that were possible on ATI's core that were not on Nvidia's. We'll never know.
bryanW1995
Lifer
- May 22, 2007
- 11,144
- 32
- 91
Wreckage, did you forget that BFG is a video mod? Since you constantly quote the TOS to everybody else, you certainly remember that mod callouts are against the rules.
By the way, BFG has probably owned more nvidia cards than you have. I know for sure that he had an 8800gtx and gtx 280/5 most recently. He consistently goes after the top performing single gpu regardless of manufacturer.
Qbah
Diamond Member
- Oct 18, 2005
- 3,754
- 10
- 81
I know, that's what I was pointing at
Again, I'm asking you, how is that relevant? The PhysX seen on consoles is a scaled down version that can run fine on CPUs. The "awesome" PhysX on PC is running on the GPU only (running it on the CPU at 1FPS doesn't count as it's useless). Saying "but it's running on consoles that don't have nVidia cards" is irrelevant, as that's not influencing the PC market in any way. The advertised PhysX on PC is GPU-only. At least the one used by some of the dev studios. And the one that we're being told is so awesome. It's not on the same level as the lowly PhysX on the consoles.
Yes they are. Since the first DirectX. All gamers had to worry about was getting a DX compliant card as the developers were programming games for a specific DX level (usually the current one). You didn't have to get a 3Dfx to play your Glide-enabled games, PowerVR to their own tech-enabled games and so on. One standard everybody had to comply to. The benefit? Hardware producers were selling their cards to people that were buying them to play games for the platform supported by everybody. No matter which game they bought, the current hardware supported everything.
MS is paying licensing fees for their Xbox. Sony for PS3. Nintendo for the Wii. Because they own the platform and nVidia the technology. Hell, this "console PhysX" runs on the CPU, so I'm not even sure there are any licensing fees involved. But those are closed platforms. All 3 companies wanted to expand on the things that run on their consoles. This is nothing akin to the situation for the PC. nVidia is trying to push PhysX on PC because they can - Windows is an open environment, unlike the consoles. But it's still owned by MS. They say what is part of DirectX - the thing that guaranteed technology progress and a structured environment on the PC. nVidia doesn't own any platform, they don't tell anyone what those platforms should run. Microsoft guaranteed that for the past 14 years we had a structured progress in gaming. They made standards (together with the hardware vendors, I'm sure), said vendors made hardware for the standards, developers knew what they could work with for everybody up-to-date to fully enjoy it and people bough both the platform (Windows OS), hardware and software. Everybody was happy.
If PhysX was flexible in its current state, we could scale down the effects for example in Batman and have the game run with PhysX at a lower level just fine. We can't, officially. There is a hack though (no, not the one for ATi). You can artificially scale the amount of processing required for the PhysX engine down to a level the CPU can handle. There will be small irregularities (like stuff flying through other stuff) because the amount of collision calculations will be a lot lower compared to the GPU, but it's possible (there are several threads about it and a nice YT video showing how it works). And the GPU-level-PhysX that's running on the CPU is not multi-core aware. Imagine if it was... a quad-core could easily handle a scaled down GPU-PhysX-enabled environment. It's just nVidia not caring to make it run fine on a PC CPU. Why should they? It would open up PhysX to everybody and not require their card to be present for it. They want you to buy their cards only so this is what they do (the ATi block, unoptimized CPU performance).
Luckily we have MS that's telling every developer what has a future on the PC under Windows - DirectX 11. All they have to do is comply to this standard. Anything that will lock you to one vendor only = lower sales as not everybody can run your game in full glory. Unless they're paid by said vendor to use their feature - money is money, right? Doesn't matter if they get it from offering the game to everyone, or just part of the market and the "loss" from the other part diminished by a vendor "bribe".
Finally, Bioware. I know very well what company they are. PC gamers had to wait what? 6 months+ for Mass Effect. But Bioware are not stupid - once they offer a game for a platform, everybody can use it. Best way to reach the most customers? Allow everybody to play your game. PhysX in DAO will run on the CPU as it's a version that's low enough for the CPU to handle (even if it's the low level single-core only unoptimized PoS and not some special version made specifically to run fine on a multi-core CPU). Everybody will be able to run it. So everybody will be able to buy the game to fully enjoy it - Bioware wrote the game for Windows, not nVidia graphics cards.
EDIT: Link to the YT video showing a scaled down PhysX running fine on a CPU.
I agree with everything you've said and precisely because of that (many unknowns) it would not have been the wisest move for ATI to license PhysX.
bryanW1995
Lifer
- May 22, 2007
- 11,144
- 32
- 91
Originally posted by: MagickMan
Originally posted by: Blazer7
ok, so they should have had enough cards to meet the demand of the entire market at launch. That makes sense.
Lucky you.
I'm not the only person irritated over this, have you checked out the other comments on this forum? AMD wanted to get "something" out so they could trump NV, but they failed at providing anywhere close to the amount needed to supply the small number of online sites whom they selected to sell the initial offerings. They jumped the gun and are now aggravating the people whom they hoped to attract to their premium line. That's not especially good.
Waiting a little while would have improved supplier stocks AND allowed them to perhaps implement Eyefinity over CF. Blah, they could have done better.
this might be before your time, but do you remember the 8800gt launch? even with a resonably competitive 3870 launching at the same time, 8800gt was in and out of stock for months. nvidia did not do a soft or paper launch, they had a LOT of cards available, they just built a card that was a huge improvement over previous editions of nvidia and amd both. The same thing happened with 58x0, it was such a huge jump in so many ways that anybody not wearing green glasses who's in the market right now has only one choice: 5870 or 5850. Will amd's failure to have 500,000 cards available at launch convince a few people to wait for fermi? sure it will, but as many people have mentioned here over the past few months, first to market is first to the bank. They did not paper launch, the rumors of "dell" launch were overblown, but like most things that are in high demand you have to look a little bit to find one to buy right now.
BTW, when do you expect fermi to be easily available? Do you expect nvidia to build up a TON of stock before launching or do you think that they just might rush to get out a couple thousand units as fast as humanly possible. What would YOU do if it was your company? Honestly, I would truly hate to be one of the engineers working on fermi right now, JHH is probably performing a colonoscopy on them as we speak.
MagickMan
Diamond Member
- Aug 11, 2008
- 7,460
- 3
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No, I don't remember the 8800GT launch being this much of a clusterfuck. Some places ran out, but there was steady availability in many places, enough where you could shop and choose a brand.
I expect that Fermi will be handled better, given NV's track record. I do expect that things are tense there, as they should be. They've screwed the pooch and they're late.
yh125d
Diamond Member
- Dec 23, 2006
- 6,886
- 0
- 76
Originally posted by: bryanW1995
Originally posted by: MagickMan
Originally posted by: Blazer7
ok, so they should have had enough cards to meet the demand of the entire market at launch. That makes sense.
Lucky you.
I'm not the only person irritated over this, have you checked out the other comments on this forum? AMD wanted to get "something" out so they could trump NV, but they failed at providing anywhere close to the amount needed to supply the small number of online sites whom they selected to sell the initial offerings. They jumped the gun and are now aggravating the people whom they hoped to attract to their premium line. That's not especially good.
Waiting a little while would have improved supplier stocks AND allowed them to perhaps implement Eyefinity over CF. Blah, they could have done better.
this might be before your time, but do you remember the 8800gt launch? even with a resonably competitive 3870 launching at the same time, 8800gt was in and out of stock for months. nvidia did not do a soft or paper launch, they had a LOT of cards available, they just built a card that was a huge improvement over previous editions of nvidia and amd both. The same thing happened with 58x0, it was such a huge jump in so many ways that anybody not wearing green glasses who's in the market right now has only one choice: 5870 or 5850. Will amd's failure to have 500,000 cards available at launch convince a few people to wait for fermi? sure it will, but as many people have mentioned here over the past few months, first to market is first to the bank. They did not paper launch, the rumors of "dell" launch were overblown, but like most things that are in high demand you have to look a little bit to find one to buy right now.
BTW, when do you expect fermi to be easily available? Do you expect nvidia to build up a TON of stock before launching or do you think that they just might rush to get out a couple thousand units as fast as humanly possible. What would YOU do if it was your company? Honestly, I would truly hate to be one of the engineers working on fermi right now, JHH is probably performing a colonoscopy on them as we speak.
Sorta what I was thinking, this launch is far from a paper launch imo. I mean seriously how new-gen many products from any company in any industry are able to stay in stock widely?
Waiting for another month to stockpile GPUs really isn't a good idea. ATI wanted to get as big of a head start as they could, so they just got a large initial crop to release with. It's a lot more or a full launch than 4770, for example
I guess they could have done what nvidia tends to do at launch, release it earlier but at a huge price so not too many people buy it right away til supply catches up (7800GTX = $600, 8800GTX = $600 , 8800Ultra = $850 I think, GTX280 = $650
I'd disagree, I don't think nvidia can really afford to wait for stock to catch up to expected demand before release. I think they'd be better off getting the first cards released as early as they can manage. Once they start rolling out to buyers, even if only in short supply, people are a lot more likely to wait for stock to catch up than if nV waited too long. Every day fermi isn't out, someone buys a 5xxx instead of waiting
BFG10K
Lifer
- Aug 14, 2000
- 22,709
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Uh, no. Do you even know what Wine/Crossover is? It?s essentially a wrapper that takes DirectX calls and wraps them to a back-end that works natively on Linux, such as OpenGL. You most certainly do not need Windows installed in the system to use it.
See v8envy?s post to see what I mean.
I haven?t been following it closely, but AFAIK DX10 is in development right now. Not that it changes anything in this discussion given XP can?t run it either, yet it?s on 75% of the world?s computers. Also XP has the ability to run DX10 features through OpenGL because OpenGL doesn?t need the new kernel infrastructure to get those features.
DX10 support is being added right now, and this is trivial to find in any search:
http://apcmag.com/directx-10-i...wine-and-crossover.htm
LMAO, so far almost everything you?ve posted about DirectX has been wrong. But keep trying.
GPU accelerated DirectX runs on more systems than GPU accelerated PhysX. These are what we call facts, and the point I?m trying to make.
I?m still waiting for an answer from you: how many setups support GPU accelerated PhysX? I count nVidia + Windows. Do you have any more to give me?
I?m also waiting for an answer from you as to whether you disagree with nVidia?s stance that PhysX is an open standard.
BFG10K
Lifer
- Aug 14, 2000
- 22,709
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No, it is not required to be installed. See v8envy?s post and this link: http://apcmag.com/directx-10-i...wine-and-crossover.htm
I?ll also quote them:
Even if you include all of those I still have confidence the PC will beat them.
Actually, you make a good point about portable devices, namely those that run Windows CE and have DirectX: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa921056.aspx
Does PhysX even run on Windows CE?
Yes, but GPU accelerated DirectX runs on more platforms than GPU accelerated PhysX does, and that?s my point. My other point is that any IHV can implement a GPU (and a driver for it) and automatically get GPU acceleration without restriction from Microsoft.
As for the CPU: http://www.hardocp.com/image.h...ZvS05ZZ21fOV84X2wuZ2lm
That?s unusably slow, so it is really an advantage in this instance that it runs on the CPU? This is akin to saying GMA is good because it ?runs? games. Technically they?ll launch and run, but they aren?t playable.
BFG10K
Lifer
- Aug 14, 2000
- 22,709
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Heh, if Wreckage wants to go after my arguments in a legitimate fashion, that?s fine by me. In fact, attacking the argument constructively is encouraged here.
A mod callout would be something like ?your arguments are so stupid, so I can?t believe they made you a mod?.
I hope this clarifies things. Cheers. :beer:
Yep, the last three I had were an 8800 Ultra, GTX260+, and the GTX285. The 8800 Ultra had some flaky drivers at times, but the 260+ and 285 were superb devices.
I haven?t picked up a 5870 because I?m waiting to see how Fermi turns out, but the 5870 is definitely a sweet board, and anyone who has one will be pleased with it I?m sure. From my own testing of the 5770 I?ve seen the architecture has a few attractive features. :thumbsup:
It's actually closer to 8 months ago, and Bioware hasn't exactly kept this a secret. They have spoken explicitly about how the day 1 DLC was due to the fact that the PC dev team has been done for so long they needed something else to do(this is on top of them deciding to add extra content to the core game). If there were no console ports DAO would have shipped in March.
Ultimately, EA makes that call, and they are certainly more worried about the consoles then the PC space.
Batman AA wouldn't have special PhysX for the PC if it wasn't using PhysX for the consoles in the first place, same with Mirror's Edge. Scaling the engine up is trivial compared to adding an entirely seperate physics engine.
DX was pretty much utter garbage until DX6, even then OpenGL was clearly superior until around the DX8 timeframe. DX didn't win because it was better, that is for certain. It also didn't win because it was more open, OpenGL was always a better fit on that end.
Windows is not remotely close to be anything at all like an open environment, not in the vague realm of any such thing. It is entirely proprietary, it's simply a matter of who has what piece of the platform.
At this moment MS has a vested interest in PC gaming vanishing from the face of the Earth. You can read numerous articles and editorials about this on gaming sites, and again I would bring up MS's top three games of the last few years never saw a PC release- not delayed, not poor port, nothing. How can you seriously try and pretend that MS is doing anything to advance PC gaming when they won't even port their own games to the platform? Shooters at that.
No, everyone who got their way on internal MS politics was happy. When is the last time an ATi and nV part were at parity in DX? Who MS is more inclined to support has a decided advantage in DX revisions, this has been the case for a while now(ie- DX9 uses FP16 instead of FP24 and the NV30 is no longer a bad memory for nV). If MS was upset with a particular IHV, they made them pay for it using DirectX.
I posted a link already showing a CPU pushing Batman at over 200FPS using PhysX. PhysX most certainly can scale.
Did you read that link? Some DX9 games work, they are trying to work on DX10 calls. If you consider emulation that works sometimes the same thing as actually working, I guess I would have to say you and I differ on that. Using that same standard PCs can play a ton of old console games too, not that they actually all work right, or at all, but sometimes they do.
You can have every bit of confidence in the world if you'd like. Every major game publisher disagrees with you, strongly where it counts.
It scales. Batman clears 200FPS running PhysX on current CPUs, that is a fact. The more advanced physics features it can do is much like PCs offering higher resolution/AA/AF then the consoles. PhysX makes that possible, DirectX doesn't. We are mainly dealing with ports now, that is the reality of the market. PhysX enables those ports to offer something above and beyond for the PCs in a fairly simple manner. DirectX doesn't.
Qbah
Diamond Member
- Oct 18, 2005
- 3,754
- 10
- 81
Seems we will have to disagree then. I have my view on the matter, you have your own.
But, as for your ~200FPS PhysX comment with a link to AT Batman review, those tests have been done with PhysX OFF. If PhysX was on in those tests, the HD5850 would be seeing single digit FPS numbers - as was proved by HardOCP to name one site. Please be careful when reading articles and basing your opinion on them next time. So no, this is not fact. This is a mistake on your part. GPU-level PhysX runs painfully slow on CPUs.
With advanced PhysX off. The game's physics engine in PhysX all the time, on every platform. They just have a more advanced physics setting if you have hardware that can handle it. That is precisely my point, PhysX can scale and be a benefit to people on the PC that can take advantage of the more advanced options, something that isn't reasonable if developers use a less advanced solution.
I assure you I am correct. Your issue is that you think PhysX means advanced utilization of the PhysX API that can not run on x86 CPUs effectively. PhysX SCALES- that has been my entire point to why it can benefit gamers. Over 200FPS to single digit FPS and a lot of areas in between, PhysX scales.
BFG10K
Lifer
- Aug 14, 2000
- 22,709
- 3,002
- 126
There's no point debating anything with you until you research the basics of Wine/Crossover games.
Fact: it's not an emulator, and it does not require Windows to be installed to use it.
BFG10K
Lifer
- Aug 14, 2000
- 22,709
- 3,002
- 126
And? How is that relevant to your false claim that Windows is required to be installed to use Wine? I pointed out Windows is not required to be installed, and you respond by debating how well the implementation works. This is your typical strawman tactic in effect again.
Retract your false claim please. Windows is not required to use Wine/Crossover games.
Theres nothing to differ on because thats a strawman argument on your part, and Im not even arguing it; Im pointing out that DirectX is available on non-Microsoft platforms.
Furthermore, Wine isnt an emulator. It implements portions of the front-end Win32/DirectX API and wraps it to a native UNIX back-end. If you think Wine is an emulator, then so is Vista when running Windows XP applications.
Running old console games is emulation, which is not what Wine is.
We arent talking about game publishers, were talking about the unit counts of systems in the world than have DirectX installed on them.
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