PhysX worthless with ATI?

[hohyss]

So if I buy 4870x2 card...

will there be any chance that I can take advantage of PhysX?

Looks like motherloads of developers are on PhysX bandwagon but
it looks like physx works on the card that actually supports it.

Even if Nvidia and Ati cooperates, do you guys think it will be possible ?
I m not sure whether ATI incorporated CUDA solution to their card.

I think its kind of possible since those developers are developing a game for xbox360 ( ati ) and ps3 ( nvidia ) which doesnt seem to have physx support. But thats my theory/

So what do you guys think?

 

[Piuc2020]

PhysX is an open platform and I don't think NVIDIA has anything against porting PhysX to ATI, it seems AMD is the stubborn one.

PhysX won't grow past the insignificant eye-candy level until ATI is on board, no developer will want to alienate such a big part of the userbase considering it's growing even more with the popularity of HD 48xx cards.

I'm very excited about PhysX but AMD needs to have it ported to their cards, otherwise it will never take off in a significant way.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Keep in mind that PhysX is an SDK just like Havok is...just because a developer or game supports PhysX (just like with Havok) does not mean it'll require the hardware acceleration side of PhysX...(of course nVidia will want you to believe otherwise)

Hardware physics acceleration is still very much in its infancy, don't buy into technology before you have a concrete reason to (ie there's a certain game you really want know that requires the hardware acceleration)

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: hohyss
So if I buy 4870x2 card...

will there be any chance that I can take advantage of PhysX?

Looks like motherloads of developers are on PhysX bandwagon but
it looks like physx works on the card that actually supports it.

Even if Nvidia and Ati cooperates, do you guys think it will be possible ?
I m not sure whether ATI incorporated CUDA solution to their card.

I think its kind of possible since those developers are developing a game for xbox360 ( ati ) and ps3 ( nvidia ) which doesnt seem to have physx support. But thats my theory/

So what do you guys think?

Doesn't look that way. At least for current gen cards. I suppose it's possible, but like Pic said, AMD seems to be the stubborn one.

Many developers are already incorporating CUDA based PhysX into their game engines. Yes PhysX works on all 8 series and above Nvidia cards.

Anything is possible, and Nvidia is cooperating, AMD isn't. CUDA was designed specifically for Nvidia's unified shader architecture, which is very different from AMD/ATI's shader architecture. Even if PhysX is made to run on AMD/ATI hardware, there isn't any guaranty that it will perform as well. Hey, it's always possible, but CUDA was designed alongside the hardware from NV.

Once again, anything is possible. As of right now, if you want any opportunity to run PhysX on your PC, AMD/ATI currently is not the way to go. That may change in the future, but I don't have any solid info that AMD is hammering away at this ability.

Here is a bit-tech article that may help explain things.

Nvidia helping to bring PhysX to ATi Cards

Another from EnGadget.

PhysX on ATI effort gets helping hand from NVIDIA

 

[MarcVenice]

Chances are your HD4870X2 is an old piece of crap when games finaly start appearing that will take real advantage of hardware accelerated physics, be it physx through cuda on nvidia or havok running on ati's card, or even cpu's. Right now I think it's foolish to choose a videocard based on a features not even being utilized. Just like dx10.1 is no reason to buy ATI over Nvidia.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Chances are your HD4870X2 is an old piece of crap when games finaly start appearing that will take real advantage of hardware accelerated physics, be it physx through cuda on nvidia or havok running on ati's card, or even cpu's. Right now I think it's foolish to choose a videocard based on a features not even being utilized. Just like dx10.1 is no reason to buy ATI over Nvidia.

Then you advocate that a person does not have to give an ounce of thought to the immediate future when it comes to a graphics card purchase, CPU, Monitor, etc.? Buy for today, don't even think about tomorrow? I don't think that is very wise. Certainly one should not base his entire purchase decision on PhysX, but it can't hurt to have the full support for it.

PhysX, CUDA, DX10.1, SLI, Xfire are all things that should be considered, at least I think so.
PhysX has a strong showing of support by quite a few developers. We have a few games that demonstrate what PhysX is capable of, and several games emerging before Christmas.

So, I think that saying one should buy without considering the immediate future technology is not so great advice. It should be somewhat considered.

 

[MarcVenice]

Jeez keys, you keep spinning my words around and around untill it makes my own head spin. I do infact advocate giving 2 ounces of thought to the immediate future, and the immediate future holds no important, or even mediocre physx titles that require hardware accelerated physx support which is only possible with a PPU or GPU from nvidia. Hence I don't think he should base his decision on wether his graphics card can run physx. He should buy the videocard that he thinks suits him best, and if he wants maximum performance on a 30" screen, then it has to be a HD4870X2, and he shouldn't worry about the fact that it doesn't ( yet ) support physx.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Jeez keys, you keep spinning my words around and around untill it makes my own head spin. I do infact advocate giving 2 ounces of thought to the immediate future, and the immediate future holds no important, or even mediocre physx titles that require hardware accelerated physx support which is only possible with a PPU or GPU from nvidia. Hence I don't think he should base his decision on wether his graphics card can run physx. He should buy the videocard that he thinks suits him best, and if he wants maximum performance on a 30" screen, then it has to be a HD4870X2, and he shouldn't worry about the fact that it doesn't ( yet ) support physx.

Sorry Marc. To me, even this post says, "Don't consider PhysX". PhysX should be considered. Some titles are here, with partial PhysX content, and one full title. UT3 and GRAW2 are pretty kewl. Warmonger is meh. Others are right around the corner. September is almost here, and with new titles out before Xmas, that is only 3-4 months out "max". To me, that is the immediate future and should very much be considered. I'm not trying to spin your words dude.
It looks like that is what you are posting.

"Right now I think it's foolish to choose a videocard based on a features not even being utilized. Just like dx10.1 is no reason to buy ATI over Nvidia."

But PhysX IS being utilized. Right now. DX10.1 is not. There is a difference there don't you think?

OP, are you gaming on a 30" screen?

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Jeez keys, you keep spinning my words around and around untill it makes my own head spin. I do infact advocate giving 2 ounces of thought to the immediate future, and the immediate future holds no important, or even mediocre physx titles that require hardware accelerated physx support which is only possible with a PPU or GPU from nvidia. Hence I don't think he should base his decision on wether his graphics card can run physx. He should buy the videocard that he thinks suits him best, and if he wants maximum performance on a 30" screen, then it has to be a HD4870X2, and he shouldn't worry about the fact that it doesn't ( yet ) support physx.

Sorry Marc. To me, even this post says, "Don't consider PhysX". PhysX should be considered. Some titles are here, with partial PhysX content, and one full title. UT3 and GRAW2 are pretty kewl. Warmonger is meh. Others are right around the corner. September is almost here, and with new titles out before Xmas, that is only 3-4 months out "max". To me, that is the immediate future and should very much be considered. I'm not trying to spin your words dude.
It looks like that is what you are posting.

"Right now I think it's foolish to choose a videocard based on a features not even being utilized. Just like dx10.1 is no reason to buy ATI over Nvidia."

But PhysX IS being utilized. Right now. DX10.1 is not. There is a difference there don't you think?

OP, are you gaming on a 30" screen?

No, I think Marc is trying to save people from nVidia's marketing department attempting to slow sales of HD 48XX with the use of a feature that really doesn't have much use right now. It will have some good use in the future, but not now.

I think PhysX will be great, but at the time being, I think it is marketing tactic to slow down the sales of ATi cards.

I think trying to future proof anything among us techies is silly... We always talk about it, but it never happens due to the addiction of always upgrading (frequently, for most of us). So, for most users on this forum, I think that buying a card for PhysX is rather silly. Buy the card when there is a game that you want to play that makes stellar use of it, and then, only if your current system will be unable to do so.

 

[MarcVenice]

Keys, I review games. I've got 8 games lined up for september, of which NONE require hardware physx acceleration. There's tripple a titles like spore, warhammer online, brothers in arms, stalker clear sky, crysis warhead, mercenaries 2, of which none need hardware physx acceleration. I could continue with all the other games in october, november and even december, but there's NOTHING, zip, nada, niks, and more nothing. Then there's mirror's edge, it's basicaly a jump around kind of game, and no serious, groundbreaking, new gameplay like physx elements will be introduced, unless my information is way off ofcourse. But it is touted to be a major physx title.

So besides UT3 and Graw2, and only some maps at that, you've got nothing to stand on. Whats exactly right around the corner, perhaps you know more then I do? Perhaps in 4 months, but more like 6-8 months physx games might be round around the corner, and perhaps THEN I could agree with you, and then we should really consider physx as a important part to get nvidia over ATI, but not right now. ALL the major reviewing sites have been saying it, yet you still keep claiming the direct opposite. Physx games aren't here yet, and developerwide adoption of physx is a long way out.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777
I think trying to future proof anything among us techies is silly... We always talk about it, but it never happens due to the addiction of always upgrading (frequently, for most of us). So, for most users on this forum, I think that buying a card for PhysX is rather silly. Buy the card when there is a game that you want to play that makes stellar use of it, and then, only if your current system will be unable to do so.

That's not really true with Nvidia's PhysX implementation as it allows for mix-mode SLI with a dedicated Nvidia PhysX card on any platform with multiple PCIEx16 slots, even non-SLI boards and chipsets. It works for sure now with 2 mixed NV parts, hopefully a driver update removing WDDM dependencies on the PhysX card enables compatibility with an ATI card used as the main display device. From early reviews this mixed-mode SLI (9800GTX GPU + 9600GT PhysX) provides similar performance to an SLI solution (9800GTX SLI handling both GPU and PhysX) or a faster single card (GTX 280 handling both GPU and PhysX) in PhysX enabled games without any of the pitfalls of SLI.


For the others, I've posted this elsewhere but its a good read about AMD's stance on CUDA/PhysX and unwillingness to implement it on their parts:

Extremetech Interview - Why Won't ATI Support CUDA and PhysX?
So it sounds like support for CUDA or PhysX on ATI graphics cards just isn't going to happen unless Nvidia picks up the phone first and offers an olive branch, or there is an overwhelming demand from ATI's customers.

#1 probably isn't going to happen despite reports of NV helping NGO, so it looks like it'll take #2 to get AMD off their asses before DX11 introduces an "agnostic" hardware physics API.

 

[Creig]

Why would ATI want to support PhysX in the first place? ATI is currently working with Intel on Havok. Havok is already well established and it's possible that ATI may be able to use it on their GPUs as well.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Creig
Why would ATI want to support PhysX in the first place?

Its quite obvious they don't want to. But its also quite obvious why they should, that is, if they actually cared about adding value for their parts and consumers. I think it makes perfect sense for them not to support NV's IP even if it means sabotaging their own parts, but lets call it for what it is.

I wrote plenty about the topic here and also included a few more links, not gonna rehash it all so feel free to read through it, or not:

AMD on Havok

ATI is currently working with Intel on Havok.

On what? Better Havok support for the CPU, which is going to benefit Nvidia as well? You certainly don't think Intel is going to optimize Havok for AMD CPUs do you? They'll keep feeding you this BS as long as you keep eating it.

Havok is already well established and it's possible that ATI may be able to use it on their GPUs as well.

Software PhysX is also well established, but like Havok, has no impact on hardware PhysX whatsoever as they both run on any CPU without issue. I've said this once and I'll say it again, there's 0% chance ATI will get any form of GPGPU acceleration that runs Havok faster than it would on a CPU before Intel implements it themselves. First chance of that happening is Larrabee in 2009-2010, not to mention there's no evidence whatsoever of any hardware accelerated Havok engine.

 

[apoppin]

PhysX worthless with ATI?

No one knows for sure

you pay your money and you take your chances

AMD is evidently going to support Havok along with Intel and MS and it is their *intention* to expand it to the GPU.

Nvidia is going with their own PhysX

Who will win? Will it even eventually be Havok + PhysX on all platforms?

no one knows


right now, both sides are posturing and trying to get a marketing advantage. As you can see, there are supporters for each competing solution and each has their "points"

The future ?
- i think there will eventually be a compromise ,, right now - for the next few months, it is not so important. After that .. depends how long you plan to keep your video card that should make it important - or not - for you. i don't think it will be so important for another year.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: chizow
I've said this once and I'll say it again, there's 0% chance ATI will get any form of GPGPU acceleration that runs Havok faster than it would on a CPU before Intel implements it themselves. First chance of that happening is Larrabee in 2009-2010, not to mention there's no evidence whatsoever of any hardware accelerated Havok engine.

Unless you have some sort of super-secret insider info, you can't say there's a 0% chance that ATI won't be able to get GPU accelerated Havok before/if Intel ever uses it. All you're doing is guessing.

ATI did a pretty good job of surprising everyone with the 48X0 series cards. Right up until the launch date, everybody thought it would be a 480SP snoozefest. Instead, it turned Nvidia upside down and still has them scrambling today. Radeon accelerated Havok physics could turn out to be another such surprise. Or it might not even be in the works. We don't know, you don' t know. All we can do is wait and see. But I don't think having ATI supporting Nvidia PhysX is really in their best interests.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: chizow
I've said this once and I'll say it again, there's 0% chance ATI will get any form of GPGPU acceleration that runs Havok faster than it would on a CPU before Intel implements it themselves. First chance of that happening is Larrabee in 2009-2010, not to mention there's no evidence whatsoever of any hardware accelerated Havok engine.

Unless you have some sort of super-secret insider info, you can't say there's a 0% chance that ATI won't be able to get GPU accelerated Havok before/if Intel ever uses it. All you're doing is guessing.

There's no super-secret insider info needed....Intel is not going to develop currently non-existent technology that puts them at a competitive disadvantage with a rival like AMD if their own hardware does not benefit from it as well. This is common sense and based on the same logic that drew you to the conclusion ATI doesn't want to support CUDA PhysX.

The only reason Intel is stringing AMD along to begin with is because they know GPU accelerated CUDA PhysX is a greater threat to Havok than allowing AMD to slap a "Havok Ready" sticker on AMD CPUs in the short-term, which buys Intel some time to get their own hardware solution out the door (Larrabee). AMD benefits because they do not own any proprietary hardware or software physics engine, so they get to tag along with Havok until DX11 introduces hardware-accelerated physics for free.

 

[Wreckage]

I think Physx was a major coup for NVIDIA. It really leaves ATI behind technology wise and I really don't see them catching up any time soon.

There is zero support for Havok on ATI GPUs and I doubt there ever will be.

 

[SSChevy2001]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
I think Physx was a major coup for NVIDIA. It really leaves ATI behind technology wise and I really don't see them catching up any time soon.

There is zero support for Havok on ATI GPUs and I doubt there ever will be.

ATI has Nvidia number if they want to add Nvidia Physx, but they don't.

Nvidia has not shown that they would be an open and truly collaborative partner when it comes to PhsyX. The same goes for CUDA, for that matter

What AAA GPU physx titles are there?
When are those AAA titles coming?
How much GPU physx effects are developers willing to add just for Nvidia?

Future proofing has never been part of the computer industry, as it moves to fast. When AAA titles come then it's time to talk.

We chose Havok for a couple of reasons. One, we feel Havok's technology is superior. Two, Intel have demonstrated that they'll be very open and collaborative with us, working together with us to provide great solutions. It really is a case of a company acting very indepently from their parent company.

Havok GPU support is coming to AMD/ATI, when Intel and AMD are ready.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001

Havok GPU support is coming to AMD/ATI, when Intel and AMD are ready.

There is no AMD/ATI Havok support. None. There is "talk" but no real solution.

Bottle line if you want actual GPU physics, NVIDIA is the only way to go.

Considering ATI has no price+performance advantage anymore there is no reason to recommend their cards until they do actually support physics.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
I think Physx was a major coup for NVIDIA. It really leaves ATI behind technology wise and I really don't see them catching up any time soon.

There is zero support for Havok on ATI GPUs and I doubt there ever will be.

Yes, ATI is currently behind Nvidia in the hardware GPU assisted physics department which is currently included in a grand total of three of all past & current games. Furthermore, it is unknown just how large a role GPU physics will play in future titles, assuming it survives that long. ATI should just fold up shop now.

/end ATI

Seriously though, Wreckage, what make you think that ATi isn't working on a GPU based physics, possibly through Havok? Obviously DX11 is going to support it & Nvidia has PhysX. Do you honestly think someone at ATI just went "Holy crap! Hardware based physics? Why didn't somebody tell me about this!?!".

Even back in 2006 there were Havok FX/Radeon GPU based physics demos shown. I'm quite sure that ATI knows plenty on the subject. If it turns out that GPU based physics processing becomes popular enough, ATI will have a solution available.

 

[biostud]

until DX11, I think that physics will be CPU dependent, maybe with some goodies in physX titles.

 

[cm123]

Originally posted by: hohyss
So if I buy 4870x2 card...

will there be any chance that I can take advantage of PhysX?

Looks like motherloads of developers are on PhysX bandwagon but
it looks like physx works on the card that actually supports it.

Even if Nvidia and Ati cooperates, do you guys think it will be possible ?
I m not sure whether ATI incorporated CUDA solution to their card.

I think its kind of possible since those developers are developing a game for xbox360 ( ati ) and ps3 ( nvidia ) which doesnt seem to have physx support. But thats my theory/

So what do you guys think?

sure you can! simply buy a PhysX card, Asus & BFG sell them, work fine with ATI cards - I have one, funny as heck, almost nothing I play uses it, got it from work though - be great if something I played like cod4 or fear actually used it - tried unreal and couple of other games just to see the difference, can tell with ease, at least when your looking for the difference...

www.BFGtech.com

 

[Creig]

Personally, what I'm looking to get out of GPU physics is more realism in the games as far as the environment goes, not just more particles flying around. I want the GPU to calculate that the bullet I just shot went through a 1" wooden board, lost 40% of its velocity, hit a concrete wall, put a 1/2" divot in it, ricocheted 15 degrees horizontally and hit an enemy in the ass, leaving nothing but a welt and one very pissed off soldier.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001

Havok GPU support is coming to AMD/ATI, when Intel and AMD are ready.

There is no AMD/ATI Havok support. None. There is "talk" but no real solution.

Bottle line if you want actual GPU physics, NVIDIA is the only way to go.

Considering ATI has no price+performance advantage anymore there is no reason to recommend their cards until they do actually support physics.

Wow, Nvidia has three demos out and suddenly physics is the end-all and be-all feature for graphics cards. Who cares about FPS, AA & AF anymore! As long as it can do physics, BUY IT!

:roll:

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001

Havok GPU support is coming to AMD/ATI, when Intel and AMD are ready.

There is no AMD/ATI Havok support. None. There is "talk" but no real solution.

Bottle line if you want actual GPU physics, NVIDIA is the only way to go.

Considering ATI has no price+performance advantage anymore there is no reason to recommend their cards until they do actually support physics.

Did you miss the press releases where AMD and Havok agreed to work together to develop Havok for *both* CPU/GPU

and we KNOW intel and MS are ALSO thinking Nvidia is backing a 3-hit wonder
- if THEY have anything to say about it

Nvidia has MS + AMD + intel working on Havok as a counter to PhysX

PhysX' future is no more assured than it was with Aegia

The PhysC guys sure talk the talk ..
where's the beef?

Warmonger?

RotFL