[Bug] Nvidia removes restrictions on hybrid NV+ATI Physx setups!!!

[Modelworks]

So your saying I should be upset with a company because it paid for physx ,supports physx drivers,pays for the R&D cost and disables it's use for it's main competition?

You should be upset with a company that changes its terms to suppress competition. They are effectively telling you the consumer what you can and cannot buy based solely on the loss of profit from them. It would be different if there was a technical reason but there is not. It is the reason there are laws preventing the canceling of a printers warranty because the user decided to use a refilled cartridge. A company cannot sell a product based on a requirement of using another company product or not using a competitors product.


I talked this over with a patent attorney who works for Valve software when Nvidia first started doing this, we were having lunch, I really don't care about physx, just the principle, his comment was the only reason this wasn't being challenged in court is because nobody cared enough about physx to spend the cash to get it there.

 

[zebrax2]

So your saying I should be upset with a company because it paid for physx ,supports physx drivers,pays for the R&D cost and disables it's use for it's main competition?

Well the money they used to buy physx, its support and its R&D didn't just magically appeared right before eyes does it now? It actually came from the consumers pocket. Id be pissed also if i have an extra nvidia that was capable of physx months ago then suddenly it was blocked

This is a big money business screw principles. The only ones bitching are ATI owners. "

You can't really blame them they were ones that were affected after all.

 

[thilanliyan]

No where does it say it supports ATI hardware either.

You (and others actually) say that like PhysX is running on the ATI card...its not. It is running on the nV card....and is said by nV to run on an nV card. Why does it matter what other card is in the system? I believe Win 7 WDDM 1.1 allows drivers from both nV and ATI at the same time (Win XP and Vista didn't I think) so at a basic level it isn't technically impossible. I actually have a spare 8800GT and I tried it with Fluidmark and Metro 2033...no issues I can report (although I don't know how to tell in Metro 2033 whether GPU physx is actually on rather than CPU physx).

 

[happy medium]

You should be upset with a company that changes its terms to suppress competition. They are effectively telling you the consumer what you can and cannot buy based solely on the loss of profit from them. It would be different if there was a technical reason but there is not. It is the reason there are laws preventing the canceling of a printers warranty because the user decided to use a refilled cartridge. A company cannot sell a product based on a requirement of using another company product or not using a competitors product.


I talked this over with a patent attorney who works for Valve software when Nvidia first started doing this, we were having lunch, I really don't care about physx, just the principle, his comment was the only reason this wasn't being challenged in court is because nobody cared enough about physx to spend the cash to get it there.

I said that many post back....who cares but the ATI users that said physx sucks anyway.

By the way, I dont think you should be able to use a refill cartridge and keep your warranty. Just like some gpu companies will not let you change the heatsink without voiding the warranty.

 

[ronnn]

? Ha? I make a few points and take a few points and suddenly I'm trolling?

This has nothing to do with Nvidia vs ATI. I thought this was about principles?

This is big business, screw principles? I do think you troll endlessly, but just because you love to argue......

 

[Dark4ng3l]

Look you either don't understand(too stupid to get it) or you don't want to understand(bias) or you are payed to argue this for no reason(focus group). In the end your whole argument here boils down to "because" and that really is not an argument. If this were a discussion group you would have been laughed out of the room by now. Part of rational discussion involves actually listening to other people and possibly refuting what they say using actual arguments. This is more like talking to a cd player that is broken and repeats the same 4 seconds of audio over and over and over.

If you would actually attempt to making some kind of argument you might be taken more seriously (but probably not) but that fact that you can't distinguish between Nvidia keeping their competitive advantage in their products(ie you can't run Physx on a 5870) and them locking out the functionality OUT OF THEIR OWN CARDS without it being written anywhere that a supported system magically becomes unsupported just because someone is using a 5450 to run an extra screen on their computer.

You literally have millions and millions of situations where similar things are not tolerated. Repairing your damaged Ford with non Ford parts will not inexplicably void your 6 months free satellite radio or cause your engine to decide that it just won't go above 3000 RPM anymore.

Anyways I marked you on my focus group list so i'm going to be keeping an eye on that for sure. You can tell your friend Keys that i'm not going to consider backing down.

 

[konakona]

I think there will be a whole slew of games comming out for it within the next year.
Mafia 2 is a good example.

I did see the teaser video for it. I am not all too concerned about 'realness' in video games, so it didn't really come off as something done terribly wrong. Didn't really make me wanna go out and buy a physX capable card just for that though. Not bad, but wasn't enough to have me going "wow, look at that!"

Having seen actual demos at local fry's, 3dvision, eyefinity and physx - they all mean about the same to me; wouldn't mind having one if they came at a minimal cost and hassle, but as it is the asking price is too hefty for what they do. I would take a bigger screen with a multi GPU any time of the day if I had that much money to spend on video side of things.

 

[happy medium]

Look you either don't understand(too stupid to get it) or you don't want to understand(bias) or you are payed to argue this for no reason(focus group). In the end your whole argument here boils down to "because" and that really is not an argument. If this were a discussion group you would have been laughed out of the room by now. Part of rational discussion involves actually listening to other people and possibly refuting what they say using actual arguments. This is more like talking to a cd player that is broken and repeats the same 4 seconds of audio over and over and over.

If you would actually attempt to making some kind of argument you might be taken more seriously (but probably not) but that fact that you can't distinguish between Nvidia keeping their competitive advantage in their products(ie you can't run Physx on a 5870) and them locking out the functionality OUT OF THEIR OWN CARDS without it being written anywhere that a supported system magically becomes unsupported just because someone is using a 5450 to run an extra screen on their computer.

You literally have millions and millions of situations where similar things are not tolerated. Repairing your damaged Ford with non Ford parts will not inexplicably void your 6 months free satellite radio or cause your engine to decide that it just won't go above 3000 RPM anymore.

Anyways I marked you on my focus group list so i'm going to be keeping an eye on that for sure. You can tell your friend Keys that i'm not going to consider backing down.

Why is it I can't exspress my opinion, argue a point or disagree with you guys without being called a troll?

You guys are derailing this thread, I'm talking about the topic...

I've read from post 100 on. I'm in agreement that you're trolling. Every time someone makes a valid point, you deflect and switch the argument to something else. That started a ways back when someone pointed out that "any PC" - you had some silly rebuttal, and then in post 113, that was answered quite concisely. You seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing. -Admin DrPizza

 

[happy medium]

I did see the teaser video for it. I am not all too concerned about 'realness' in video games, so it didn't really come off as something done terribly wrong. Didn't really make me wanna go out and buy a physX capable card just for that though. Not bad, but wasn't enough to have me going "wow, look at that!"

Having seen actual demos at local fry's, 3dvision, eyefinity and physx - they all mean about the same to me; wouldn't mind having one if they came at a minimal cost and hassle, but as it is the asking price is too hefty for what they do. I would take a bigger screen with a multi GPU any time of the day if I had that much money to spend on video side of things.

I agree, but if there were many games that supported it ,and they were good , I'd buy into it.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

Why is it I can't exspress my opinion, argue a point or disagree with you guys without being called a troll?

You guys are derailing this thread, I'm talking about the topic...

You can express your opinion all you want. But in the real world if your opinion is that the world is flat don't expect to be taken seriously no matter how many times you repeat it.

 

[happy medium]

Why is it I can't exspress my opinion, argue a point or disagree with you guys without being called a troll?

You guys are derailing this thread, I'm talking about the topic...

I've read from post 100 on. I'm in agreement that you're trolling. Every time someone makes a valid point, you deflect and switch the argument to something else. That started a ways back when someone pointed out that "any PC" - you had some silly rebuttal, and then in post 113, that was answered quite concisely. You seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing. -Admin DrPizza

Any pc could mean, Cpu enabled Physx was my point.
Last I looked there was such a thing used in the xbox 360.

In no way does it use the ATI gpu.

 

[jvroig]

Any pc could mean, Cpu enabled Physx was my point.

They said "any PC", why would you want that interpreted in the most anti-consumer way possible?

 

[konakona]

actually, xbox 360's xenos is made by none other than ATi themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenos_(graphics_chip)

 

[NoQuarter]

Actually it does:

Quote:
- Any PC or Apple Mac computer with a NVIDIA CUDA-enabled processor executing NVIDIA PhysX

Since when does AMD sell pc's enabled with Cuda support?

Obviously AMD nor Intel nor nVidia sell pc's. And AMD doesn't sell Cuda-enabled processors. But NVIDIA does, and you can buy them, and put them in any PC.

But right now if you buy one, and put one in any PC, it ceases to function.

The criteria is 'Any PC (any PC with any hardware in it, Intel, AMD, nVidia, ATI) with a NVIDIA CUDA-enabled processor (it also contains a Geforce card)'

System 1:
i7 920, Intel chipset, Radeon 5870, GTS 250.
Is this Any PC? Yes.
Does it have a NVIDIA CUDA-enabled processor? Yes.

System 2:
AMD Phenom II 955, nVidia chipset w/nVidia IGP, Radeon 5770
Is this Any PC? Yes.
Does it have a NVIDIA CUDA-enabled processor? No.

System 3:
C2D e8400, Intel chipset, GTX 260.
Is this Any PC? Yes.
Does it have a NVIDIA CUDA-enabled processor? Yes.

 

[happy medium]

Obviously AMD nor Intel nor nVidia sell pc's. And AMD doesn't sell Cuda-enabled processors. But NVIDIA does, and you can buy them, and put them in any PC.

But right now if you buy one, and put one in any PC, it ceases to function.

The criteria is 'Any PC (any PC with any hardware in it, Intel, AMD, nVidia, ATI) with a NVIDIA CUDA-enabled processor (it also contains a Geforce card)'

System 1:
i7 920, Intel chipset, Radeon 5870, GTS 250.
Is this Any PC? Yes.
Does it have a NVIDIA CUDA-enabled processor? Yes.

System 2:
AMD Phenom II 955, nVidia chipset w/nVidia IGP, Radeon 5770
Is this Any PC? Yes.
Does it have a NVIDIA CUDA-enabled processor? No.

System 3:
C2D e8400, Intel chipset, GTX 260.
Is this Any PC? Yes.
Does it have a NVIDIA CUDA-enabled processor? Yes.

ok , I see now, thanks. It's a very thin line but plausable.

 

[HurleyBird]

I talked this over with a patent attorney who works for Valve software when Nvidia first started doing this, we were having lunch, I really don't care about physx, just the principle, his comment was the only reason this wasn't being challenged in court is because nobody cared enough about physx to spend the cash to get it there.

I think its a bit more involved than that. As far as AMD is concerned, they don't want PhysX to suceed. They're perfectly content to stay back and let NV shoot themselves in the foot as far as PhysX adoption goes. In the highly unlikely even that PhysX does take off under Nvidia's leadership, expect AMD to launch a storm of litigation at Nvidia.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Obviously AMD nor Intel nor nVidia sell pc's. And AMD doesn't sell Cuda-enabled processors. But NVIDIA does, and you can buy them, and put them in any PC.

But right now if you buy one, and put one in any PC, it ceases to function.

The criteria is 'Any PC (any PC with any hardware in it, Intel, AMD, nVidia, ATI) with a NVIDIA CUDA-enabled processor (it also contains a Geforce card)'

System 1:
i7 920, Intel chipset, Radeon 5870, GTS 250.
Is this Any PC? Yes.
Does it have a NVIDIA CUDA-enabled processor? Yes.

System 2:
AMD Phenom II 955, nVidia chipset w/nVidia IGP, Radeon 5770
Is this Any PC? Yes.
Does it have a NVIDIA CUDA-enabled processor? No.

System 3:
C2D e8400, Intel chipset, GTX 260.
Is this Any PC? Yes.
Does it have a NVIDIA CUDA-enabled processor? Yes.

I think that clarifies it all for Happy, good post

 

[KIAman]

I think its a bit more involved than that. As far as AMD is concerned, they don't want PhysX to suceed. They're perfectly content to stay back and let NV shoot themselves in the foot as far as physX adoption goes. In the highly unlikely even that PhysX does take off under Nvidia's leadership, expect AMD to launch a storm of litigation at Nvidia.

That's the part that boggles me. nVidia ain't stupid and they are experts in marketing and branding. Why shoot themselves in the foot over something like this? This doesn't hurt ATI sales at all, only those who had an older nVidia card who upgraded to ATI. Now those users have no use for their older cards.

I see what they were hoping for. They were hoping that physX was important enough that people would consider upgrading only to another nVidia card so to make use of their older nVidia card as a dedicated physX card but they took so damn long to come out with an upgrade to the G80 that many previous nVidia people jumped to ATI. Instead of keeping those people neutral on who is their preferred GPU vendor (and purchase simply based on performance and price), nVidia is now just pissing them off for no good reason.

I mean, physX isn't that big a deal, it is a tiny feature (which has potential, but tiny nonetheless) and nVidia is behaving as if this feature is enough to sway consumer support. I thought it was genius on nVidia's part to allow old Cuda enabled GPU to act as a dedicated physX card. Not only could nVidia bring out a new generation of GPU as a primary driver but they could keep producing their older G80 parts and have increased secondary sales AS WELL AS increase the adoption rate of physX.

The only opinion I am left with regarding this entire situation is simply that nVidia isn't smart as I thought they were.

 

[Creig]

It appears that people wishing to download the OpenPhysX™ Beta 257.15 GeForce driver won't have to search the internet for obscure hostings of the file. Someone within Nvidia has amazingly come to the realization that:

1) The genie is out of the bottle and the file will always be available for those looking hard enough.
2) Perhaps it might, just might, make PhysX more popular if they allow it to work alongside an AMD card.

Nvidia's Tom Petersen has commented on our article through the nTersect blog: "A lot of you have been asking about PhysX and the 257.15 beta driver we posted on Monday. First off it is true that PhysX is enabled when running on NVIDIA GPUs when AMD GPUs are used in the same system. PhysX is a compelling technology that makes PC games great – I am not surprised our fans are eager for it. When using this beta driver no additional hacks are required to enable PhysX. While it was not intentional, due to the overwhelming positive response to the beta driver we have decided to leave the beta up with support enabled.

The fact remains that the investment to do a full QA cycle on this AMD/NVIDIA hybrid GPU configuration is beyond what NVIDIA can support at this time. The cost of maintaining AMD/NVIDIA hybrid configurations is larger than the development expense for PhysX, and I do expect that there are games and configurations where this type of system just won’t work. Please, don’t call me :>. Therefore our WHQL certified drivers will continue to have this support disabled."

http://www.ngohq.com/news/17916-nvidia-driver-bug-removes-hybrid-physx-blockage-updated.html


Whether or not this means that future beta drivers will also have PhysX enabled for systems with AMD cards installed or if it was just for this one driver version is anybody's guess.

 

[konakona]

hmm interesting. so you are suggesting they just did what only makes to consumers while avoiding backlash from shareholders/whoever wants this stupid lockup? good move if true