any consideration to PhysiX factor?

[rogueshah]

Hey I intend to purchase a high end Card...like ati 4850 or nvidia 9800GTX + for gaming purpose
should the fact that NVIDIA is supporting the Physix phenomenon in new games (after acquiring ageia) be given any weightage when deciding which company to swing to?



Enough's enough. Take it to PM if you guys want to continue the debate, because at this point, it's way off track.

- AmberClad (Video Moderator)

 

[Schadenfroh]

Please see the Physx FAQ

 

[thilanliyan]

Lol I'll get in before this turns ugly...

PhysX may have potential but as of right now I don't think your buying decision should really take that into consideration. If the 2 cards you want to get are equal in every way including price, performance, then consider warranty, support, etc, THEN PhysX. There's one game that will be out in January (although the PhysX doesn't really affect gameplay...it's just eye candy) and another one in February. I honestly have no idea if it will succeed but for it to succeed all the players (Intel, AMD, nVdia, Microsoft) have to be on board and that's not the case right now and may not happen if MS gets their own version of Physics into Windows 7.

EDIT: Even if PhysX is ported to Windows 7 it still needs all vendor support for it to succeed.

 

[s44]

Any reason not to expect an OpenCL (and therefore cross-platform) version of PhysX?

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: s44
Any reason not to expect an OpenCL (and therefore cross-platform) version of PhysX?

That's true...but again all the major players have to get on board.

 

[s44]

All the major players ARE on board with OpenCL -- Nvidia, AMD, even Intel. In fact, they actually cooperated (!), which is why we ended up with the spec so fast...

 

[SSChevy2001]

Imo it's still to early to buy a card for physx. You might want to wait till there's a good amount of titles. If I had to pick between the 9800 gtx and 4850, I would pick the 4850.

 

[Qbah]

Out of curiosity... Will the current generation of cards support OpenCL? Cause if they will, they will also support some sort of standard physics engine - be it ATi or nVidia. And then the PhysX feature will become a moot point. nVidia will support it by having PhysX compatible with OpenCL and ATi by supporting OpenCL.

 

[Modelworks]

OpenCL can already do physics. Its just a matter of someone standardizing the process of how its implemented, so that one program would run the same on multiple cards.
It is possible to write a translation layer that would allow OpenCL to use the PhysX api, just a matter of if someone is willing to take the time to do it.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: rogueshah
Hey I intend to purchase a high end Card...like ati 4850 or nvidia 9800GTX + for gaming purpose
should the fact that NVIDIA is supporting the Physix phenomenon in new games (after acquiring ageia) be given any weightage when deciding which company to swing to?

Well, you're asking the question. "Should PhysX be given any weightage.".

The fact you ask this at all, shows that you yourself are giving it some "weightage".

Your answer is, it won't hurt to have a graphics card that supports it. Doesn't cost you anything extra. Might as well.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Your answer is, it won't hurt to have a graphics card that supports it. Doesn't cost you anything extra. Might as well.

One could say the same about DX10.1 and the Radeon.

However, since I don't get free hardware from either company for talking them up, I say just get whichever card does better in the games you play now.

 

[Wreckage]

Considering how many recent game developers have announced support for it and how many games are out and or on the way... I say it's a good reason to choose one card over the other.

It would be like comparing 2 DVD-RW drives that are around the same cost except one supports Blu-ray and the other does not. Why would you not want the extra?

If there was a huge price premium for having PhysX, I could see being hesitant but it's essentially free.

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: s44

All the major players ARE on board with OpenCL -- Nvidia, AMD, even Intel. In fact, they actually cooperated (!), which is why we ended up with the spec so fast...

That really doesn't mean anything because the major players actually have to come up with a hardware PhysX implementation.

ATi probably won't, Microsoft probably won't add it to the DirectX spec, and Intel definitely won't as they?re certainly not going to promote their competitor?s tech. So that leaves nVidia as the sole vendor, OpenCL or no OpenCL.

Originally posted by: TheSnowman

One could say the same about DX10.1 and the Radeon.

However, since I don't get free hardware from either company for talking them up, I say just get whichever card does better in the games you play now.

I agree completely, but a group of individuals in this forum don?t appear to see it that way.

They don?t seem to understand that unsupported tech is as useless as not having it in the first place.

They also don?t seem to understand that two games coming in the next month is hardly an earth-shattering endorsement for said tech.

 

[s44]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Originally posted by: s44

All the major players ARE on board with OpenCL -- Nvidia, AMD, even Intel. In fact, they actually cooperated (!), which is why we ended up with the spec so fast...

That really doesn't mean anything because the major players actually have to come up with a hardware PhysX implementation.

Wrong. Only one player has to come up with an OpenCL PhysX implementation.

If Nvidia wants to make their framework universally supported, no one can stop them.

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: s44

Wrong. Only one player has to come up with an OpenCL PhysX implementation.

Uh, no. An API like OpenCL or DirectX is hardware independent because it doesn?t target specific hardware. It?s the IHV?s device driver that is responsible for mapping those calls to specific hardware.

So just because one vendor comes up with something at the API level, it does not mean it?ll automatically work everywhere. Furthermore, I don?t think Intel even has an OpenCL implementation for their GPUs yet.

If Nvidia wants to make their framework universally supported, no one can stop them.

So why don?t they? Wouldn?t it be much better for developers if their code automatically provided hardware accelerated PhysX on non-nVidia solutions as well?

If it?s so easy like you claim, why doesn?t nVidia implement OpenCL PhysX for their GPUs and automatically provide hardware acceleration on all GPUs (again your claim, not mine)?

Surely doing so would increase the market penetration of PhysX which would be a win for nVidia?

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

They don?t seem to understand that unsupported tech is as useless as not having it in the first place.

I'm just going to go ahead and assume you either missed all the recent anouncements of companies supporting PhysX or you just choose to ignore it.

They also don?t seem to understand that two games coming in the next month is hardly an earth-shattering endorsement for said tech.

It's being adopted at a far faster rate than DirectX 10. Are you saying DirectX 10 is useless unsupported tech?

 

[s44]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
If it?s so easy like you claim, why doesn?t nVidia implement OpenCL PhysX for their GPUs and automatically provide hardware acceleration on all GPUs (again your claim, not mine)?

Because the OpenCL spec was finalized just weeks ago.

My prediction in the fourth post of this thread is that Nvidia will in fact re-release PhysX in that form.

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

I'm just going to go ahead and assume you either missed all the recent anouncements of companies supporting PhysX or you just choose to ignore it.

Who gives a shit about announcements? Do you give a shit about DX10.1 announcements (Blizzard, EA, et al)? No? Then why should anyone give a shit about PhysX announcements?

How about you provide a list of released games that provide a substantial benefit from PhysX in the majority of game areas (so no UT3 and GRAW2 which rely on cherry-picked PhysX maps). No announcements, demos, trailers or tech demos either.

None of the other PhysX supporters seem to be able to manage such list so let?s see if you fare better.

Are you saying DirectX 10 is useless unsupported tech?

At the moment most certainly, and if I was buying a card today I would not consider DX10.1 or PhysX.

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: s44

My prediction in the fourth post of this thread is that Nvidia will in fact re-release PhysX in that form.

Okay, and when that happens nVidia's PhysX advantage will be moot since any card will provide hardware acceleration for it, at which point everyone who has been recommending nVidia because of PhysX will have egg on their faces.

For this reason I don?t think this will happen. Sure, they?ll probably come up with an OpenCL implementation but it?ll likely have a vendor lock to their GPUs which will fall back to a software implementation on other GPUs. That way they encourage more developers to use PhysX but they can still show pretty graphs over the competition.

 

[s44]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
For this reason I don?t think this will happen. Sure, they?ll probably come up with an OpenCL implementation but it?ll likely have a vendor lock to their GPUs which will fall back to a software implementation on other GPUs. That way they encourage more developers to use PhysX but they can still show pretty graphs over the competition.

You've got to be kidding. Nvidia isn't afraid of ATI -- they've (fairly or not) beaten the pants off of them repeatedly, and even after a "losing" generation are still ahead in the marketplace.

This is about GPU vs. CPU -- Nvidia vs. Intel -- and their physics engine vs. everyone else's.

Vendor lock? Please. It was AMD, not Nvidia, that stonewalled the CUDA port project.

And yes, I do think this means that you shouldn't worry too much about PhysX exclusivity in the long run. All gamers with DX10 hardware will benefit.

 

[SSChevy2001]

Originally posted by: s44
This is about GPU vs. CPU -- Nvidia vs. Intel -- and their physics engine vs. everyone else's.

Vendor lock? Please. It was AMD, not Nvidia, that stonewalled the CUDA port project.

And yes, I do think this means that you shouldn't worry too much about PhysX exclusivity in the long run. All gamers with DX10 hardware will benefit.

ATi didn't stonewall Nvidia. They realized they would have no chance in competing with Nvidia holding all the cards. Instead their going to let Nvidia foot the bill to get GPU PhysX off the ground, and as they said it will die.

It's obvious that ATi and Intel have something cooking to counter GPU PhysX, next year will more than likely be more revealing. In the meantime the best Nvidia can do is get out as much titles as possible.

ATI also promised GPU-accelerated Havok Physics on its Radeon graphics cards series. According to Cheng, the company is still working on that plan and it ?will provide more clarity to our work once more milestones have been achieved between AMD and Havok?.

?Our guidance was end of this year or early next year but, first and foremost, it will be driven by the milestones that we hit.

http://news.softpedia.com/news...-Is-Future-99876.shtml

 

[nosfe]

right now, basically nobody would buy a card just because of PhysX, even nvidia fanboys wouldn't, they don't recommend cards with PhysX because it has PhysX but because it's nvidia

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: s44

And yes, I do think this means that you shouldn't worry too much about PhysX exclusivity in the long run. All gamers with DX10 hardware will benefit.

Okay, cool, I'm glad we agree on that part.

I see three possible scenarios here:

1. Everything stays as it is (i.e. only nVidia supports PhysX), which means we'll need more PhysX titles to classify it as nVidia's advantage.
   
2. Everyone gets PhysX which means nVidia's exclusivity will be nullified, unless of course nVidia still have a significant performance advantage. In that case we'll need data to show that in the form of more games supporting PhysX.
   
3. PhysX stays an nVidia exclusive but ATi, Intel and/or Microsoft come up with something else. Then we'd need see how that solution compares to PhysX, whether nVidia supports said solution, and how many titles each solution gets.

It?s far too early to be recommending nVidia because there are two PhysX titles coming in a month. The games just aren?t there yet and by the time they are, the landscape could?ve changed dramatically.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001

Originally posted by: s44
This is about GPU vs. CPU -- Nvidia vs. Intel -- and their physics engine vs. everyone else's.

Vendor lock? Please. It was AMD, not Nvidia, that stonewalled the CUDA port project.

And yes, I do think this means that you shouldn't worry too much about PhysX exclusivity in the long run. All gamers with DX10 hardware will benefit.

ATi didn't stonewall Nvidia. They realized they would have no chance in competing with Nvidia holding all the cards. Instead their going to let Nvidia foot the bill to get GPU PhysX off the ground, and as they said it will die.

It's obvious that ATi and Intel have something cooking to counter GPU PhysX, next year will more than likely be more revealing. In the meantime the best Nvidia can do is get out as much titles as possible.

ATI also promised GPU-accelerated Havok Physics on its Radeon graphics cards series. According to Cheng, the company is still working on that plan and it ?will provide more clarity to our work once more milestones have been achieved between AMD and Havok?.

?Our guidance was end of this year or early next year but, first and foremost, it will be driven by the milestones that we hit.

http://news.softpedia.com/news...-Is-Future-99876.shtml

There are two problems with this SSChevy.

1. PhysX isn't dying, more big developers are signing up, and there are already dozens of titles in development. ATi says it "will die" because they don't want people to buy their competitor's products.

2. Paradoxically, while ATi says "proprietary standards will die" they say they will be using Havok physics. If NVIDIA doesn't support Havok, only the the second place company whose vendor relations program lags far behind will be supporting a "proprietary standard". If NVIDIA does support Havok, they'll still have the advantage of offering all ATi does plus the PhysX titles.

Not to mention Havok GPU Physics have already been started and dropped once before, and Havok is owned by AMDs competitor.

It's easy to see why ATi thinks proprietary standards will die, to my knowledge, nothing that has been prorietary to them has been used in more than a couple games.

Proprietary standards aren't necessarily doomed though. Glide and CUDA both prove that the world doesn't care who brings a feature, as long as it's useful.

 

[Atechie]

A OpenCL wrapper on top of the PhysX api would only spell less performance.
And I wouldn't expect to see any real OpenCL apps for the near future, it's all PR right now, and bulding a standard takes considerable time.

AMD's problem is that PhysX (which I migth add is one of the best physics middelware on the market ) is established and ganing support.
AMD's problem is that NVIDIA got it's own physics API and so does Intel(look for stuff happening to Havok when Larrabee comes out)...making AMD dependant on it's comepetion if they don't want to make their own API.

Anyone saying wait with PhysX because OpenCL is comming is seriously lacking some basic information.