"Inevitable Bleak Outcome for nVidia's Cuda + Physx Strategy"

[Munky]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Man, that made my day, it really did.
There are so many games you could have said and I would have taken you totally seriously, but then you mention Farcry 2 and I don't know whether you're joking or being serious and you think FC2 is more impressive than Mirror's edge.

But PhysX doesn't really add a huge amount. A PhysX game without PhysX hardware won't look like crap, it'll look slightly worse, like having no AA vs 4xAA. Hardly the world.
Wreckage seems to be overestimating how much PhysX adds, while ignoring the fact that he is arguing that current PhysX is about as worthwhile as DX10.1 (which AMD has and NV doesn't).

Wreckage, if you are going to argue that PhysX makes tihngs prettier, then it's effectively just a small graphical extension to the base game, much like a DX10.1 path would be.
Now since AMD has DX10.1 and NV has PhysX H/W, you win some and lose some on both sides, but basically it's a wash.
Both DX10.1 and PhysX do very little really, and only one IHV supports each at the moment, and they both just add small amounts graphics wise. DX10.1 has the advantage that it will eventually be supported by all though, so it's more worthwhile going for a DX10.1 card and waiting for DX101. stuff to be added because any future card should work with it, than going for a PhysX card and hoping that it will become supported by all cards in the future.

No, I'm not joking.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Scali
I don't... various games with hardware acceleration have already come out, and many more will follow. Big names like Epic and EA are backing PhysX, which we've already seen in 'big' titles like Unreal Tournament and Mirror's Edge.

Yes they may have signed up for PhysX but they didn't say whether it would be GPU Physx or not. It could just be CPU physx like it has been in the majority of games. Oh and UT3 was a couple of maps...PhysX does not have a killer app. Mirror's Edge and Cryostasis are not superb games (in terms of gameplay).

 

[Scali]

Originally posted by: thilan29
Yes they may have signed up for PhysX but they didn't say whether it would be GPU Physx or not.

Doesn't really matter.

Originally posted by: thilan29
Mirror's Edge and Cryostasis are not superb games (in terms of gameplay).

I actually thought Mirror's Edge was a pretty cool game with very unique gameplay. Nothing to do with the physics perhaps, but I've never played a platform game from a first-person perspective like that. It felt a bit like a first-person version of Tomb Raider.

(I fixed those quotes, must have pasted the wrong BB code somehow)

 

[SlowSpyder]

Best PC game physics thread in PC Gaming.

I see a lot of non-Physx titles there. I don't see Mirrors Edge. What does this prove? Well, it proves nothing... but it does show that a lot of games have impressed people with their physics capablity without the use of Physx. Given how much more power is potentially available with Physx, you'd have to say that so far it's implementation in games really hasn't impressed people. I'm not sold that as of now Physx adds anything to the level of immersion in games.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
At the moment? Ok, yes, right as of this moment they do not. What do you think they've been working on with Larrabee?

Yes I know what they've been working on but I seriously doubt it will pose any serious threat to nV and ATI's dominance of the discrete market in the foreseeable future. They're trying to get devs to change their programming ways and that's not gonna happen over night.

But it sounds like you're saying that in choosing Havok over PhysX, ATI is just putting off the inevitable, which is Intel screwing them over just as badly, if not worse, than you believe Nvidia would. So in your thinking, ATI is just going by whichever company takes "longer" to F them over.

My thinking is that by the time Larrabee becomes competitive, the Physx "war" would have been decided and then NV or ATI or Intel can switch to whichever camp is the dominant one or maybe both types of physics can coexist (as long as it runs decently on all hardware). It's not like Havok has not been around at all (other than the GPU aspects) so Havok could end up being preferred by devs (I think it was Modelworks that said he preferred Havok as it was a more complete toolset).

I don't think any company will get screwed over...given time I'm sure all cards will have been optimized to the point where there are no large performance differences when it comes to physics acceleration using either Havok or PhysX (like how eventually you could use MSAA and SSAA on both types of cards without drastic performance differences...for the most part). However, that can't be guaranteed at the current moment had ATI gone with PhysX right away since as I said before, PhysX on an ATI card is an unknown at the moment. More than anything I believe it was a business decision (and I think you'd also see it as the correct one if the shoe was on the other foot)...nothing to do with advancing realism, gaming, etc.

It all makes perfect sense.

I hope no company gets the short end of the stick when it comes to physics acceleration but were I to hazard a guess as to what will happen in a few years time, I'd have to guess ATI would be the one losing. It would be sad to see AMD/ATI gone IMO...I like the competition and it was sorely missed (by my wallet) during G80's reign. I paid CAD$600 for my 8800GTS 640 when it came out. 2 years later and nV's 2nd fastest GPU at the time could be had for a fraction of the price because of the price impact that the 4800 series had. I'll never spend $600 on another GPU (I don't enjoy games as much as I used to anyway) and thanks to competition, I can get extremely good performance for less than half that. As long as there are at least 2 competitive GPU makers in the market I could care less who they are.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: thilan29


My thinking is that by the time Larrabee becomes competitive, the Physx "war" would have been decided

There is no "war". If you want advanced GPU physics your only choice is Physx at the moment.

 

[Scali]

Originally posted by: thilan29
Yes I know what they've been working on but I seriously doubt it will pose any serious threat to nV and ATI's dominance of the discrete market in the foreseeable future. They're trying to get devs to change their programming ways and that's not gonna happen over night.

The chip will get standard Direct3D, OpenGL and OpenCL drivers. So although you COULD program it in new and exciting ways, you can also run 'conventional' (GP)GPU stuff on it.
If Larrabee performs and the price is right, it can indeed threaten nVidia and ATi.
I think Intel may prove to be a dangerous outsider in the GPU market. I don't think they'll be a threat to the high-end at first, and Intel never said they would be. They said they wanted to aim at the midrange with the first iteration of Larrabee. I think they have a good chance of achieving that goal, and midrange is more important in terms of sales and profit than the high-end anyway.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Um, he was pointing out that if you don't want the extra graphical niceties of PhysX (foliage etc) then why would you care about high res textures, high lighting and shadow details, high model geometry a high resolution and AA?
Why are all the graphical effects that aren't necessary that you _can_ run valid, but missing out on some makes them worthless and invalid?
What's the difference between AA and extra foliage? Why should you care about having one but not the other if you want everything on? Either you want it all, or none of it really matters and you might as well get a $50 card that can run the game at 800x600 with everything on low.

Exactly my point. Some of the people who say they are not impressed with PhysX will argue how much better 8xAA is over 4xAA. :roll:

PhysX probably adds more graphically and gameplay wise than anything I've seen in the last few years. Some would rather play politics though and oppose it on the grounds that their party does not support it. Gladly they are in the minority and their marketshare is dwindling.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Originally posted by: thilan29

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
At the moment? Ok, yes, right as of this moment they do not. What do you think they've been working on with Larrabee?

Yes I know what they've been working on but I seriously doubt it will pose any serious threat to nV and ATI's dominance of the discrete market in the foreseeable future. They're trying to get devs to change their programming ways and that's not gonna happen over night.

But it sounds like you're saying that in choosing Havok over PhysX, ATI is just putting off the inevitable, which is Intel screwing them over just as badly, if not worse, than you believe Nvidia would. So in your thinking, ATI is just going by whichever company takes "longer" to F them over.

My thinking is that by the time Larrabee becomes competitive, the Physx "war" would have been decided and then NV or ATI or Intel can switch to whichever camp is the dominant one or maybe both types of physics can coexist (as long as it runs decently on all hardware). It's not like Havok has not been around at all (other than the GPU aspects) so Havok could end up being preferred by devs (I think it was Modelworks that said he preferred Havok as it was a more complete toolset).

I don't think any company will get screwed over...given time I'm sure all cards will have been optimized to the point where there are no large performance differences when it comes to physics acceleration using either Havok or PhysX (like how eventually you could use MSAA and SSAA on both types of cards without drastic performance differences...for the most part). However, that can't be guaranteed at the current moment had ATI gone with PhysX right away since as I said before, PhysX on an ATI card is an unknown at the moment. More than anything I believe it was a business decision (and I think you'd also see it as the correct one if the shoe was on the other foot)...nothing to do with advancing realism, gaming, etc.

It all makes perfect sense.

I hope no company gets the short end of the stick when it comes to physics acceleration but were I to hazard a guess as to what will happen in a few years time, I'd have to guess ATI would be the one losing. It would be sad to see AMD/ATI gone IMO...I like the competition and it was sorely missed (by my wallet) during G80's reign. I paid CAD$600 for my 8800GTS 640 when it came out. 2 years later and nV's 2nd fastest GPU at the time could be had for a fraction of the price because of the price impact that the 4800 series had. I'll never spend $600 on another GPU (I don't enjoy games as much as I used to anyway) and thanks to competition, I can get extremely good performance for less than half that. As long as there are at least 2 competitive GPU makers in the market I could care less who they are.

Larrabee success to me isn't going to be measured by FPS. I will judge on Min. FPS. And Image quality. If Intel gameplay is good . And the visuals are = to what I seen in Meteor . I am buying . If not I won't its that simple. I am not looking for Top speed from Larrabee I am looking for top graphics effect. feal and immersion. The only scene I have ever seen that even looked immersive was the Meteor Video . If someone has better vid. Please post link. I don't think that scene was running real fast. Looked like larrabee was working hard to run it.

 

[Scali]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Gladly they are in the minority and their marketshare is dwindling.

I was just looking at the Steam survey:
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/

It's a bit confusing because all of ATi's current cards fall under '4800 series'.
That is their entire range from low-end to high-end. So basically all ATi cards together have increased with 0.46% in the last month.
(Looking at the others, there are some other ATi models that have increased, but they're all below 0.1%, so not important).

However, if you lump some of nVidia's cards together, eg 9600, 9800 and GTX260 (roughly the same range as the 4800 series from low to high)...
You'd get 0.33% + 0.18% + 0.24%. Way more than ATi's cards.... and that's still ignoring the 9500 series and probably some of the renamed models like the GTS240/GTS250.

That's quite amazing actually. I mean, when you read reviews or go to forums like Beyond3D, people are generally quite positive about ATi's cards... And I agree, they are pretty good cards, excellent value for money... I was just telling a friend of mine today to look at a Radeon 4770 for his new PC.
But these figures show that nVidia seems to be gaining marketshare on ATi at quite a decent rate. And they are already at 65.81% vs 27.34% for ATi.

I didn't realize that nVidia was so much more popular among gamers. You sort of assume that they would be more or less equal, since that's what you see in reviews and in terms of price.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Nemesis 1
If Intel gameplay is good . And the visuals are = to what I seen in Meteor . I am buying . If not I won't its that simple.

I hope for the same. I'd like to see a 3rd competitor in the GPU market.

Originally posted by: Scali
You sort of assume that they would be more or less equal, since that's what you see in reviews and in terms of price.

Currently yes nV is way ahead...their G80 series dominated for a while. There was a time when they were more equal.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: thilan29


My thinking is that by the time Larrabee becomes competitive, the Physx "war" would have been decided

There is no "war". If you want GPU physics your only choice is Physx at the moment.

Fixed that for you. There's nothing "advanced" about PhysX.

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Exactly my point. Some of the people who say they are not impressed with PhysX will argue how much better 8xAA is over 4xAA. :roll:

PhysX probably adds more graphically and gameplay wise than anything I've seen in the last few years. Some would rather play politics though and oppose it on the grounds that their party does not support it. Gladly they are in the minority and their marketshare is dwindling.

I have the option to run my 9600GSO along side my 4890 just to handle the physics stuff in Windows 7. I tried it, and you know what? It wasn't worth it. In the titles I played, PhysX offered no advantage in gameplay, and to be honest, I didn't notice anything different about those titles. Maybe I just wasn't playing the right games, who knows... but to me it was the same as Rollo's idiotic argument that he would rather have a 2nd rate low resolution monitor to use his 3D glasses versus his high end monitor that was supposedly "collecting dust".

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: thilan29


My thinking is that by the time Larrabee becomes competitive, the Physx "war" would have been decided

There is no "war". If you want GPU physics your only choice is Physx at the moment.

Fixed that for you. There's nothing "advanced" about PhysX.

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Exactly my point. Some of the people who say they are not impressed with PhysX will argue how much better 8xAA is over 4xAA. :roll:

PhysX probably adds more graphically and gameplay wise than anything I've seen in the last few years. Some would rather play politics though and oppose it on the grounds that their party does not support it. Gladly they are in the minority and their marketshare is dwindling.

I have the option to run my 9600GSO along side my 4890 just to handle the physics stuff in Windows 7. I tried it, and you know what? It wasn't worth it. In the titles I played, PhysX offered no advantage in gameplay, and to be honest, I didn't notice anything different about those titles. Maybe I just wasn't playing the right games, who knows... but to me it was the same as Rollo's idiotic argument that he would rather have a 2nd rate low resolution monitor to use his 3D glasses versus his high end monitor that was supposedly "collecting dust".

Come on dude, you know your just saying this stuff because you don't have a 4650 in the 2nd slot running PhysX. My goodness, I've never seen such opposition in the face of a new and cool technology.

EDIT: sorry, forgot the smiley!!

 

[SirPauly]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: thilan29


My thinking is that by the time Larrabee becomes competitive, the Physx "war" would have been decided

There is no "war". If you want GPU physics your only choice is Physx at the moment.

Fixed that for you. There's nothing "advanced" about PhysX.

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Exactly my point. Some of the people who say they are not impressed with PhysX will argue how much better 8xAA is over 4xAA. :roll:

PhysX probably adds more graphically and gameplay wise than anything I've seen in the last few years. Some would rather play politics though and oppose it on the grounds that their party does not support it. Gladly they are in the minority and their marketshare is dwindling.

I have the option to run my 9600GSO along side my 4890 just to handle the physics stuff in Windows 7. I tried it, and you know what? It wasn't worth it. In the titles I played, PhysX offered no advantage in gameplay, and to be honest, I didn't notice anything different about those titles. Maybe I just wasn't playing the right games, who knows... but to me it was the same as Rollo's idiotic argument that he would rather have a 2nd rate low resolution monitor to use his 3D glasses versus his high end monitor that was supposedly "collecting dust".

Come on dude, you know your just saying this stuff because you don't have a 4650 in the 2nd slot running PhysX. My goodness, I've never seen such opposition in the face of a new and cool technology.

Neither have I ...........and I am not affiliated to nVidia in any shape or form and was a huge ATI supporter at one time. This incredible opposition for something that is basically free and adds some immersion to gaming titles is odd. And what is so odd is so many claim it is going to be important to boot but not 'till the others are ready. It's insane to me. If one is a supporter of advanced Physics -- either through the CPU or GPU -- that time seems to be here -- dynamic gaming is happening if you like it or not; now. So you can embrace it or just do what you do.

Extremism is a wonderful thing.

I am reading views where gamers are picking and choosing eye-candy instead of appreciated all eye-candy and should be glad to receive eye-candy from any IHV. But, no, GPU PhysX has to be from a killer AAA title and not only be eye-candy but change gaming and with no performance hit right this instant. In other words -- Ideal for all to be acceptable -- right now! Maybe then they may give PhysX some credit. Extremism is a wonderful thing.

I am reading views where they're comparing the entire 48XX family and compare it to just the GTX family. Extremism is a wonderful thing

I am reading views that take a marginal positive and turn this into a negative.

Extremism is a wonderful thing and the theme at times in forums.

What can you do?

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: SirPauly

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: thilan29


My thinking is that by the time Larrabee becomes competitive, the Physx "war" would have been decided

There is no "war". If you want GPU physics your only choice is Physx at the moment.

Fixed that for you. There's nothing "advanced" about PhysX.

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Exactly my point. Some of the people who say they are not impressed with PhysX will argue how much better 8xAA is over 4xAA. :roll:

PhysX probably adds more graphically and gameplay wise than anything I've seen in the last few years. Some would rather play politics though and oppose it on the grounds that their party does not support it. Gladly they are in the minority and their marketshare is dwindling.

I have the option to run my 9600GSO along side my 4890 just to handle the physics stuff in Windows 7. I tried it, and you know what? It wasn't worth it. In the titles I played, PhysX offered no advantage in gameplay, and to be honest, I didn't notice anything different about those titles. Maybe I just wasn't playing the right games, who knows... but to me it was the same as Rollo's idiotic argument that he would rather have a 2nd rate low resolution monitor to use his 3D glasses versus his high end monitor that was supposedly "collecting dust".

Come on dude, you know your just saying this stuff because you don't have a 4650 in the 2nd slot running PhysX. My goodness, I've never seen such opposition in the face of a new and cool technology.

Neither have I ...........and I am not affiliated to nVidia in any shape or form and was a huge ATI supporter at one time. This incredible opposition for something that is basically free and adds some immersion to gaming titles is odd. And what is so odd is so many claim it is going to be important to boot but not 'till the others are ready. It's insane to me. If one is a supporter of advanced Physics -- either through the CPU or GPU -- that time seems to be here -- dynamic gaming is happening if you like it or not; now. So you can embrace it or just do what you do.

Extremism is a wonderful thing.

I am reading views where gamers are picking and choosing eye-candy instead of appreciated all eye-candy and should be glad to receive eye-candy from any IHV. But, no, GPU PhysX has to be from a killer AAA title and not only be eye-candy but change gaming and with no performance hit right this instant. In other words -- Ideal for all to be acceptable -- right now! Maybe then they may give PhysX some credit. Extremism is a wonderful thing.

I am reading views where they're comparing the entire 48XX family and compare it to just the GTX family. Extremism is a wonderful thing

I am reading views that take a marginal positive and turn this into a negative.

Extremism is a wonderful thing and the theme at times in forums.

What can you do?

Stop being an extremist? You first!

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: SirPauly

Extremism is a wonderful thing and the theme at times in forums.

What can you do?

It's not extremism it's merely fanboyism.

Reminds me of all the Xbox360 fans who hate Blu-ray simply because the other console has it. :roll:

 

[SirPauly]

Originally posted by: Spike

Originally posted by: SirPauly

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: thilan29


My thinking is that by the time Larrabee becomes competitive, the Physx "war" would have been decided

There is no "war". If you want GPU physics your only choice is Physx at the moment.

Fixed that for you. There's nothing "advanced" about PhysX.

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Exactly my point. Some of the people who say they are not impressed with PhysX will argue how much better 8xAA is over 4xAA. :roll:

PhysX probably adds more graphically and gameplay wise than anything I've seen in the last few years. Some would rather play politics though and oppose it on the grounds that their party does not support it. Gladly they are in the minority and their marketshare is dwindling.

I have the option to run my 9600GSO along side my 4890 just to handle the physics stuff in Windows 7. I tried it, and you know what? It wasn't worth it. In the titles I played, PhysX offered no advantage in gameplay, and to be honest, I didn't notice anything different about those titles. Maybe I just wasn't playing the right games, who knows... but to me it was the same as Rollo's idiotic argument that he would rather have a 2nd rate low resolution monitor to use his 3D glasses versus his high end monitor that was supposedly "collecting dust".

Come on dude, you know your just saying this stuff because you don't have a 4650 in the 2nd slot running PhysX. My goodness, I've never seen such opposition in the face of a new and cool technology.

Neither have I ...........and I am not affiliated to nVidia in any shape or form and was a huge ATI supporter at one time. This incredible opposition for something that is basically free and adds some immersion to gaming titles is odd. And what is so odd is so many claim it is going to be important to boot but not 'till the others are ready. It's insane to me. If one is a supporter of advanced Physics -- either through the CPU or GPU -- that time seems to be here -- dynamic gaming is happening if you like it or not; now. So you can embrace it or just do what you do.

Extremism is a wonderful thing.

I am reading views where gamers are picking and choosing eye-candy instead of appreciated all eye-candy and should be glad to receive eye-candy from any IHV. But, no, GPU PhysX has to be from a killer AAA title and not only be eye-candy but change gaming and with no performance hit right this instant. In other words -- Ideal for all to be acceptable -- right now! Maybe then they may give PhysX some credit. Extremism is a wonderful thing.

I am reading views where they're comparing the entire 48XX family and compare it to just the GTX family. Extremism is a wonderful thing

I am reading views that take a marginal positive and turn this into a negative.

Extremism is a wonderful thing and the theme at times in forums.

What can you do?

Stop being an extremist? You first!

When I was a supporter of ATI -- was behind GPU Physics and GPGPU and the raw potential as I am now with nVidia. I watched this event when ATI couldn't STFU about GPU Physics and GPGPU:

I don't remember hearing any opposition at all in the past -- just now that ATI is quiet and nVidia can't STFU-- odd?

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/10907

 

[Paratus]

There is something telling, however, that developers are willing to pay for Havok but not for Physx.

Seems the demand is not there currently for Physx.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Paratus
There is something telling, however, that developers are willing to pay for Havok but not for Physx.

Seems the demand is not there currently for Physx.

Can you elaborate a bit on this? Aren't all the devs who signed up for PhysX required to pay licensing fees? Or is it free? Not certain.

 

[SirPauly]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: SirPauly

Extremism is a wonderful thing and the theme at times in forums.

What can you do?

It's not extremism it's merely fanboyism.

Reminds me of all the Xbox360 fans who hate Blu-ray simply because the other console has it. :roll:

Extremism is when one takes an extreme side:

PhysX is an absolute must-have right now

It is going to die anyway and doesn't add to game-play.

 

[SirPauly]

Originally posted by: Paratus
There is something telling, however, that developers are willing to pay for Havok but not for Physx.

Seems the demand is not there currently for Physx.

Maybe you can explain why some powerful developer houses on signing on with PhysX -- is this just marketing nonsense or is there substance here?

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: thilan29


My thinking is that by the time Larrabee becomes competitive, the Physx "war" would have been decided

There is no "war". If you want GPU physics your only choice is Physx at the moment.

Fixed that for you. There's nothing "advanced" about PhysX.

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Exactly my point. Some of the people who say they are not impressed with PhysX will argue how much better 8xAA is over 4xAA. :roll:

PhysX probably adds more graphically and gameplay wise than anything I've seen in the last few years. Some would rather play politics though and oppose it on the grounds that their party does not support it. Gladly they are in the minority and their marketshare is dwindling.

I have the option to run my 9600GSO along side my 4890 just to handle the physics stuff in Windows 7. I tried it, and you know what? It wasn't worth it. In the titles I played, PhysX offered no advantage in gameplay, and to be honest, I didn't notice anything different about those titles. Maybe I just wasn't playing the right games, who knows... but to me it was the same as Rollo's idiotic argument that he would rather have a 2nd rate low resolution monitor to use his 3D glasses versus his high end monitor that was supposedly "collecting dust".

Come on dude, you know your just saying this stuff because you don't have a 4650 in the 2nd slot running PhysX. My goodness, I've never seen such opposition in the face of a new and cool technology.

EDIT: sorry, forgot the smiley!!

See, I know you're just messin.

But truth be told... IF I were to take offense to that comment I'd have said, "What would be the point? I have a 4890, hence I wouldn't need a second card to run PhysX!"

The thing that people don't seem to catch on here is that 98% of what's going on is pure marketing. The other 2% is what really matters... and the long and the short of it is that PhysX is only a minuscule fraction of that 2%. Everyone is begging for something in physics which changes the game, and that simply hasn't happened. Give me a world in which physics actually changes the gameplay such that it is REQUIRED to play it, and then any sort of precision accelerated physics becomes meaningful. Until then, it literally is the same as FSAA... sure it's nice to have, but it really doesn't matter in the end.

When it's all said and done, in the end whatever OpenCL standard implementation is going to win. And you know what? It won't matter if CUDA is better than Stream or Larrabee, because it will be OpenCL driving cross-platform physics. IF Nvidia gave a damn and really wanted to win, the wouldn't be sitting on their "Well AMD didn't want our help" laurels and porting PhysX to OpenCL. There's plenty of room in the driver stack to prove to everyone that CUDA is better at the same time hitting mass market "feature/bullet-point" adoption.

THIS is why the topic title is 100% correct, no matter anyone's misinformation about AMD/Nvidia, CUDA/Stream, whatever. It's a marketing game, literally, and has absolutely nothing to do with engineering problems at this point.

 

[Lonyo]

The PhysX API is free. Support is not free.
You can go cheap and get it for free but you don't get any assistace. If you pay for Havok I think you get the API and support, if you pay for PhysX you get the API and support, but you can opt to not pay and just get the API.

That is my understanding of it.

 

[SirPauly]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: thilan29


My thinking is that by the time Larrabee becomes competitive, the Physx "war" would have been decided

There is no "war". If you want GPU physics your only choice is Physx at the moment.

Fixed that for you. There's nothing "advanced" about PhysX.

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Exactly my point. Some of the people who say they are not impressed with PhysX will argue how much better 8xAA is over 4xAA. :roll:

PhysX probably adds more graphically and gameplay wise than anything I've seen in the last few years. Some would rather play politics though and oppose it on the grounds that their party does not support it. Gladly they are in the minority and their marketshare is dwindling.

I have the option to run my 9600GSO along side my 4890 just to handle the physics stuff in Windows 7. I tried it, and you know what? It wasn't worth it. In the titles I played, PhysX offered no advantage in gameplay, and to be honest, I didn't notice anything different about those titles. Maybe I just wasn't playing the right games, who knows... but to me it was the same as Rollo's idiotic argument that he would rather have a 2nd rate low resolution monitor to use his 3D glasses versus his high end monitor that was supposedly "collecting dust".

Come on dude, you know your just saying this stuff because you don't have a 4650 in the 2nd slot running PhysX. My goodness, I've never seen such opposition in the face of a new and cool technology.

EDIT: sorry, forgot the smiley!!

See, I know you're just messin.

But truth be told... IF I were to take offense to that comment I'd have said, "What would be the point? I have a 4890, hence I wouldn't need a second card to run PhysX!"

The thing that people don't seem to catch on here is that 98% of what's going on is pure marketing. The other 2% is what really matters... and the long and the short of it is that PhysX is only a minuscule fraction of that 2%. Everyone is begging for something in physics which changes the game, and that simply hasn't happened. Give me a world in which physics actually changes the gameplay such that it is REQUIRED to play it, and then any sort of precision accelerated physics becomes meaningful. Until then, it literally is the same as FSAA... sure it's nice to have, but it really doesn't matter in the end.

When it's all said and done, in the end whatever OpenCL standard implementation is going to win. And you know what? It won't matter if CUDA is better than Stream or Larrabee, because it will be OpenCL driving cross-platform physics. IF Nvidia gave a damn and really wanted to win, the wouldn't be sitting on their "Well AMD didn't want our help" laurels and porting PhysX to OpenCL. There's plenty of room in the driver stack to prove to everyone that CUDA is better at the same time hitting mass market "feature/bullet-point" adoption.

THIS is why the topic title is 100% correct, no matter anyone's misinformation about AMD/Nvidia, CUDA/Stream, whatever. It's a marketing game, literally, ]and has absolutely nothing to do with engineering problems at this point.

I don't agree with just pure marketing.

Edit: Having trouble following you here and need some time to digest your view as you're all over the place to me.

You're comparing PhysX' eye-candy to FSAA? Sure it is nice to have but it really doesn't matter in the end? When FSAA is probably one of the most important areas when deciding on a GPU. Am I reading you correctly or wrong?

Until PhysX changes game play and is a requirement -- then we have something worthwhile?

This is your view?

 

[Wreckage]

I think the ATI fans are worried that PhysX could be the final nail in the ATI coffin. That's why they are so concerned with it. It's free and it enhances games, yet they are rallying against it.

Whatever. Good luck with that.

I'm happy with it. Game developers keep signing up for it. 67% of the video cards sold last quarter support it. Pure success if you ask me.

Check out this PhysX video for Sacred 2. Awesome! What's not to love?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTrEnFCoYNE