Digital Foundry: next-gen PlayStation and Xbox to use AMD's 8-core CPU and Radeon HD

[inf64]

Intel is the owner of Havok.
It's nice that intel is investing money into optimized Physics engine for GCN .

Here is the video of Havok's engine running on GCN :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1hoVCZZOd0

Looks pretty impressive.

 

[SocketF]

Intel is the owner of Havok.
It's nice that intel is investing money into optimized Physics engine for GCN

Yes I think so, too :biggrin:

 

[Cerb]

Well you are properly right was just thinking if the arm a5 core in jaguar could be used for more then TrustZone alone they probably have 2 a5 cores on the dye.
How difficult wold it be to swap the a5 to a a9 from what I can see the buss would be the same and jaguar is a synthesized design.

No idea how hard it would be, since the 'uncore' glue is what's really special, but again, why? The A5 was chosen because it is weak and small, because it only does one thing. It's supposed to be in the ballpark of a small grain of salt--under 1mm^1.

Not only that, but moving data around these days takes nothing. You might see a few % of CPU cycles eaten up for it, but that's because most NIC drivers do a lot in your CPU that they could do in hardware. Choose a NIC that does all the real lifting in hardware*, and the CPU time taken will be negligible.

* which usually means a MIPS or ARM core on the NIC chip, to run the same code .

Yes I think so, too :biggrin:

TMK, Intel, "had plans," but now that they don't, they'll hold on to them as long as they aren't losing them money.

 

[grimpr]

Tressfx: A new frontier of realism in pc gaming

http://blogs.amd.com/play/tressfx/
http://havok.com/news-and-press/releases/havoks-cutting-edge-physics-technology-showcased-playstation%C2%AE-meeting-2013

Big win for AMD's GPU department. Looks like PS4 titles that support Havok engine will have GPU accelerated physics on PC ports too .
Thanks to Final8ty on XS for finding the info and posting it.

Dont bet on that, Havok is owned by Intel.

 

[Greenlepricon]

Dont bet on that, Havok is owned by Intel.

If anything it just means that Intel is helping out both themselves and AMD. I don't think they ever intend to fight back in the gpu department (besides igpu). This gives them a chance to be a player in it, and gives AMD the resources they need to promote it.

 

[grimpr]

If anything it just means that Intel is helping out both themselves and AMD. I don't think they ever intend to fight back in the gpu department (besides igpu). This gives them a chance to be a player in it, and gives AMD the resources they need to promote it.

No way its gonna land on the PC, Havok developed a gpu accelerated version of its engine and was cancelled the minute Intel bought them. The PS4 gpu accelerated is exclusive to the PS4 at the request of Sony and fallback to cpu physics on the PC. Its Intel and they're not that stupid.

 

[Greenlepricon]

No way its gonna land on the PC, Havok developed a gpu accelerated version of its engine and was cancelled the minute Intel bought them. The PS4 gpu accelerated is exclusive to the PS4 at the request of Sony and fallback to cpu physics on the PC. Its Intel and they're not that stupid.

Who called them stupid? Regardless of whether it crosses to the pc or not, it's still good for AMD publicity and it's still good for Intel who owns it. I don't see how that changes the fact that it's sorta like an Intel feature on AMD hardware...

 

[zebrax2]

No way its gonna land on the PC, Havok developed a gpu accelerated version of its engine and was cancelled the minute Intel bought them. The PS4 gpu accelerated is exclusive to the PS4 at the request of Sony and fallback to cpu physics on the PC. Its Intel and they're not that stupid.

Depends on how much Intel want to hurt Nvidia. Nvidia is a competitor in the HPC market as well as the mobile market.

 

[IlllI]

No way its gonna land on the PC, Havok developed a gpu accelerated version of its engine and was cancelled the minute Intel bought them.

why would intel do such a thing? :thumbsdown:

 

[itsmydamnation]

or being middleware they would do it to maintain market. Forcing developers to rewrite code for one of the three major platforms is not a good way to attract developers.

 

[itsmydamnation]

Would have been a great post of he didnt miss the point completely. Just about everyone agrees that consoles can be taken further than PCs with the same/similar hardware. The debate is, can they be taken further than PCs with hardware that has twice the capabilities.

yes easily, 2 times performance especially in GPU is nothing, 10 times on the other hand. will we have 20TFLOP GPU's in 6 - 8 years..... that will be an interesting question :twisted:

 

[Lonbjerg]

Intel is the owner of Havok.
It's nice that intel is investing money into optimized Physics engine for GCN .

Here is the video of Havok's engine running on GCN :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1hoVCZZOd0

Looks pretty impressive.

1 million particles would have been impressive years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xN2PkxNRHs

Hell even the PPU sported this spec:

Sphere collision tests: 530 million per second...

I guess I was right after all...as SOON as AMD did anything (It's Havok, but for the arguments sake)...suddenly the effects would be called good...and not "annoying"....keep it up this is to funny after all the whine over PhysX for years now ^^

 

[itsmydamnation]

we will have to wait and see but given its an APU with a single memory address space and low latency interconnect between CPU and GPU. GPU for the first time will be able to do more then just particles and effects and be able to do a serious amount of the rigid body physics.

Will it be worth the effort/trade offs. guess we will have to wait and see.

 

[Lonbjerg]

we will have to wait and see but given its an APU with a single memory address space and low latency interconnect between CPU and GPU. GPU for the first time will be able to do more then just particles and effects and be able to do a serious amount of the rigid body physics.

Will it be worth the effort/trade offs. guess we will have to wait and see.

Really...rigid bodies?
That is so 2006...

 

[itsmydamnation]

Really...rigid bodies?
That is so 2006...

no its not, so how many game do there collision detection via the GPU.... oh wait....

 

[Cerb]

no its not, so how many game do there collision detection via the GPU.... oh wait....

How many games do we care about doing it via the GPU? Zero. It's been done effectively on CPUs for years, now. It's time for soft body and fluid physics (and, there's work on getting both into actual game engines).

 

[Lonbjerg]

no its not, so how many game do there collision detection via the GPU.... oh wait....

Google APEX...tier 1 and tier 2 physics.
It's hardly news.
Even the PPU had shrapnel that caused collateral damage.

Are we really going to "herald" 2006 level interactive physics because of the PS4?
Really?

But I am glad people are taking physics more seriously (like I predicted), when AMD "entered" the race...stances would change....golden! :biggrin:

 

[Lonbjerg]

How many games do we care about doing it via the GPU? Zero. It's been done effectively on CPUs for years, now. It's time for soft body and fluid physics (and, there's work on getting both into actual game engines).

Wait, you don't care for gamephysics when it's via PhysX....but when AMD does it...you are interested...golden! :biggrin:

 

[Cerb]

Wait, you don't care for gamephysics when it's via PhysX....but when AMD does it...you are interested...golden! :biggrin:

No. I'm not sure what you meant to be responding to, but it clearly wasn't my post that you quoted. That, or you have some really good hallucinogens.

 

[Lonbjerg]

What has been done on the CPU has been pretty bad over the years.
And the GPU > CPU when it comes to physics.
Putting the workload on the lesser performing (physics is VERY computional heavy) hardware is cart before horse.

And the future is GPGPU physics...AGEIA opened the door....there is no closing it now.

 

[Cerb]

What has been done on the CPU has been pretty bad over the years.
And the GPU > CPU when it comes to physics.
Putting the workload on the lesser performing (physics is VERY computional heavy) hardware is cart before horse.

And the future is GPGPU physics...AGEIA opened the door....there is no closing it now.

Really...rigid bodies?
That is so 2006...

So, that should have been 2016?

What has been done on the CPU has worked quite well. It has changed gameplay mechanics, and added immersion. That has not been done with GPU physics. GPU physics has been used only as added eye candy, thus far.

It's nothing to do with PhysX or not. If AMD had one that only worked really well on their GPUs, the same problem would arise: to make it really work, it needs to be on the CPU (like the very few good uses of PhysX on PCs, and all uses of it on consoles), or you would need to limit your game to only running for owners of one or the other major AIB GPU vendor. Then, you would need to tackle the problem of batching enough physics work per frame, and keeping enough CPU work to do while waiting for the results (a problem solved by just doing it on the CPU).

In our PCs, and the last gen of consoles, the GPU has been at a huge disadvantage, being tens of thousands of cycles away from the CPU, often more on PCs, going through all the software layers. The PS4 won't have the latency problem to the GPU, and near-future PC CPUs won't suffer from lack of computational power. Our PCs will still be better served by doing it on the CPU, for the same reason as they have up until now: the GPU is a cross-country trip, while the SIMD registers are right there. AVX2 is right around the corner, and will close that computational performance gap.

 

[Lonbjerg]

So, that should have been 2016?

What has been done on the CPU has worked quite well. It has changed gameplay mechanics, and added immersion. That has not been done with GPU physics. GPU physics has been used only as added eye candy, thus far.

It's nothing to do with PhysX or not. If AMD had one that only worked really well on their GPUs, the same problem would arise: to make it really work, it needs to be on the CPU (like the very few good uses of PhysX on PCs, and all uses of it on consoles), or you would need to limit your game to only running for owners of one or the other major AIB GPU vendor. Then, you would need to tackle the problem of batching enough physics work per frame, and keeping enough CPU work to do while waiting for the results (a problem solved by just doing it on the CPU).

In our PCs, and the last gen of consoles, the GPU has been at a huge disadvantage, being tens of thousands of cycles away from the CPU, often more on PCs, going through all the software layers. The PS4 won't have the latency problem to the GPU, and near-future PC CPUs won't suffer from lack of computational power. Our PCs will still be better served by doing it on the CPU, for the same reason as they have up until now: the GPU is a cross-country trip, while the SIMD registers are right there. AVX2 is right around the corner, and will close that computational performance gap.

False, the bolded part...but nice fallacy, taking your subjective, personal view and presenting it like a fact. :thumbsdown:

What has happend is that the CPY has held back physic for years.
And you are still advocating letting the lesser performing hardware do the job...:thumbsdown:

 

[Piroko]

1 million particles would have been impressive years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xN2PkxNRHs

I know that you meant it completely different, but that's a very nice example of progress made in the last years.
On one side, one million spherical particles with a fairly low and static amount of collisions (most of them don't collide at all), fixed hitboxes (probably point based?) rendered in 800*600 (?) with choppy framerate, almost no geometry and no dynamic lights in your video.
On the other side, one million particles with odd shapes and hitboxes, all colliding in massive peaks (when they hit the rooftops), rendered in 1080p30 (?) with no hiccups, with a decent amount of geometry and reflections. That's a huge amount of improvements which aren't obvious at first glance.

 

[Phynaz]

Lon stays true to form...

 

[beginner99]

False, the bolded part...but nice fallacy, taking your subjective, personal view and presenting it like a fact. :thumbsdown:

What has happend is that the CPY has held back physic for years.
And you are still advocating letting the lesser performing hardware do the job...:thumbsdown:

Physics on GPU = less FPS in game. thats the downside. And as long as the Physics is eye-candy, which it mostly was, then your better of just turning at off, at least in a MP FPS.