Thoughts On GPU Physics
- Thread starter ViRGE
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SunnyD
Belgian Waffler
Originally posted by: aka1nas
ATI cards don't support Havok either.
Actually they do. They just haven't publically released a driver for it, but they have demoed it a year or so ago.
CURRENTLY there is no Video card that runs havok physics, though. It's done by the CPU, currently. Mostly software. Who knows if ATI will actually come out with the drivers? We'll just have to wait and see.
SunnyD
Belgian Waffler
Excuse me? ATI have been demoing Havok on their video cards as far back as 2006. As I said - they haven't released drivers to the public yet, but they ARE doing it on the GPU.
It's vaporware until they actually release something. The fact that it's been 2 years since the demo makes it less credible, not more.
More importantly, that article is regarding HavokFX, which is SM 3.0 based. No shipping games support HavokFX, which is a different product from the software-based Havok package.
AMD supporting GPU-assisted Havok is a non-starter if they are relying on HavokFX, as no existing games using Havok will then be accelerated.
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That was Havok FX, a special version of Havok that only did second-order physics (i.e. physics that don't impact the game) and ran on the GPU via SM3 code. It didn't work out, Havok killed the project in the middle of 2007. There is currently no way to run first-order Havok physics on a GPU, and it looks like there's nothing in development that will change that either.
Sylvanas
Diamond Member
- Jan 20, 2004
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Normally I'd trust Guru3D, but that seems like really shoddy reporting, and the writing errors just in 2 paragraphs aren't helping them out. There's certainly a number of reasons why this would not be true (as if Intel wants their baby running on GPUs and lessening the value of CPUs) and I have not seen anyone else able to corroborate such a thing. It all stems from that one press release which seems more and more like it was just a strategic release against NVIDIA, since both Havok and AMD compete against them.
Originally posted by: aka1nas
ATI cards don't support Havok either.
http://ati.amd.com/technology/...ire/physics/index.html
yes they are :! driver should be out soon
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Again, that's Havok FX, a crummy second-order physics system that's been dead for a year.Originally posted by: tuteja1986
Originally posted by: aka1nas
ATI cards don't support Havok either.
http://ati.amd.com/technology/...ire/physics/index.html
yes they are :! driver should be out soon
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That page is from 2006. Notice how all of the references are to the X1000 series; I can dig up the AT article referencing it if you'd like. And it is just referring to Havok FX, let me break it down:
ATI[the video card maker] is working with Havok[the company] and their Havok FX[the product] effects physics engine.
Ah, I guess I misinterpreted the "and", I see you are correct. Still, at this point I am interested in just as many Havok FX games as I am interested in GPU-accelerated PhysX games: zero. I don't really think it's fair to complain about Havok FX being dead when there isn't a *worthwhile* game out there that makes use of GPU based PhysX.
They are working with Intel and Havok on doing it, but its not for current cards. They are working on it for the future.
The 48xx cards WILL NOT EVER accelerate Havok. Future ATI and Intel discrete graphics will in all likelyhood move Havok to the GPU, but thats probably not going to happen until sometime in 2009.
As for DX 10.1, by the time Starcraft 2 comes out Nvidia will have a DirectX 11 part. DirectX 11 is coming before Windows 7. DX 11 is said to be released sometime next spring/summer.
DX 10.1 is fairly worthless. It is a microevolutionary step over DX 10 that only a hanful of games will ever use. DX 11 will be completely revolutionary step for desktop graphics.
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Who said I was complaining?
I'm happy, it was a bloody-awful system since it was all second-order physics and I'm glad it's dead.Anyhow, if we want to talk about this any more, we need to spin off a new thread. We shouldn't be cluttering up a Starcraft thread with unrelated stuff.
Unreal 3, and all future games based off of the Unreal Engine, will be PhysX enabled.
BioWare will also be releasing PhysX enabled games.
While there arent many PhysX titles now, there will be far more PhysX titles out by time Intel/ATI/Havok have GPU Accelerated Havock. Hardware based PhysX is VASTLY superior to software based Havok.
Finally, there will be a crapload more PhysX enabled games, than there will ever be DX 10.1 games. Hell there are probably already more PhysX games than there will ever be DX 10.1 games. Hell right now there are more Physx enabled games, than there are DX 10 games.
Sylvanas
Diamond Member
- Jan 20, 2004
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Wreckem:
No, they do and will. From Guru3d
Hardware Canucks also mention Havok Here
Wreckem:
Starcraft 2 is expected to turn up H1 09 if not Christmas this year, there will be no DX11 or Windows 7- you have no idea when Nvidia or ATI will have support for DX11 so it's silly to propose this information as fact, it is likely that they will have support at around the same time given what we have seen in the past.
Wreckem:
There are plenty of articles out there on this, DX10.1 is not worthless and it is very important since it makes the developers job easier. Not to mention it has the potential to run alot faster due to one less render pass, we saw this evident in Assasins Creed.
Wreckem:
Unreal Engine 3 does not mean guaranteed PhysX- the engine has the potential to but does not support it on every title. Mass Effect does not have PhysX, Gears of War and Bioshock are the same, infact UT3 is the only UE3 game for the PC that supports hardware accelerated Physics, with the others it is up to the developer to implement it.
Originally posted by: ViRGE
Again, that's Havok FX, a crummy second-order physics system that's been dead for a year.Originally posted by: tuteja1986
Originally posted by: aka1nas
ATI cards don't support Havok either.
http://ati.amd.com/technology/...ire/physics/index.html
yes they are :! driver should be out soon
how is Havok physic dead ?
Alan Wake
Fallout 3
Starcarft
Diablo 3
Also few other games that will be announced in E3 2008 that will support Havok at Microsoft press conference. I think its far from dead.
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But not Havok FX. Havok FX is quite dead. Those are just more games that use the Havok software package, just like the hundreds of other games already out there.Originally posted by: tuteja1986
Originally posted by: ViRGE
Again, that's Havok FX, a crummy second-order physics system that's been dead for a year.Originally posted by: tuteja1986
Originally posted by: aka1nas
ATI cards don't support Havok either.
http://ati.amd.com/technology/...ire/physics/index.html
yes they are :! driver should be out soon
how is Havok physic dead ?
Alan Wake
Fallout 3
Starcarft
Diablo 3
Also few other games that will be announced in E3 2008 that will support Havok at Microsoft press conference. I think its far from dead.
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The guys in a Starcraft 2 thread started an interesting side discussion about physics, so interesting that I split it off rather than mess up the Starcraft thread. Here it is in its entirety, I may have messed up the order on a message or two though.:Q
Here it is in its entirety, I may have messed up the order on a message or two though.:Q
Kuzi
Senior member
- Sep 16, 2007
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Yeah. Some of you guys are confusing the Havoc Physics engine that is already running in at least 45 PC games. It uses the extra processing power of the CPU cores in your system, dual cores, quad cores etc. Havoc is still not running on GPUs yet, but hopefully will soon.
AMD recently announced plans to optimize Havoc physics for their hardware. I think here they are mostly talking about CPUs, but some parts of the Physics engine would be able to run on a GPU (and run very fast).
At the link Havoc mentions:"The clear priority of game developers is performance and scalability on the CPU. Beyond core simulation, however, the capabilities of massively parallel products offer technical possibilities for computing certain types of simulation. We look forward to working with AMD to explore these possibilities."
The massively parallel part is about GPUs, so in the future it's very possible we'll see games physics running on CPUs but improved or "sped up" even more when running on ATI video cards (RV6xx, RV7xx etc).
At least that's how I understood it.
AMD recently announced plans to optimize Havoc physics for their hardware. I think here they are mostly talking about CPUs, but some parts of the Physics engine would be able to run on a GPU (and run very fast).
At the link Havoc mentions:"The clear priority of game developers is performance and scalability on the CPU. Beyond core simulation, however, the capabilities of massively parallel products offer technical possibilities for computing certain types of simulation. We look forward to working with AMD to explore these possibilities."
The massively parallel part is about GPUs, so in the future it's very possible we'll see games physics running on CPUs but improved or "sped up" even more when running on ATI video cards (RV6xx, RV7xx etc).
At least that's how I understood it.
I'm actually pretty excited about it after seeing a decent frame rate boost in Mass Effect with the 177.41 PhysX drivers. I also upgraded my platform as well, but I don't think that was enough by itself to increase FPS averages of 45 or so to 62 capped in ME.
Until Havok is actually running on GPU SPs I don't think its a big deal, it has been running on CPUs for as long as its been around and that level of support will not change whether you run an Intel or AMD CPU. Pretty sure PhysX is an open standard so hopefully ATI/AMD adopts it, as I think PhysX is the better non-CPU implementation right now.
Here's a recent comparison of GPU/CPU/PPU PhysX from TechGage in UT3. Keep in mind, they are using a special PhysX map pack. You can see there's some huge gains at 1680 with both GPU and PPU PhysX but those gains largely go away as there's most likely less extra SP power for PhysX.
I'm quite sure Crysis would run much better with an accelerated physics engine and after watching at the Diablo 3 trailer, I'm really hoping they implement some type of non-CPU hardware accelaration there as well.
Until Havok is actually running on GPU SPs I don't think its a big deal, it has been running on CPUs for as long as its been around and that level of support will not change whether you run an Intel or AMD CPU. Pretty sure PhysX is an open standard so hopefully ATI/AMD adopts it, as I think PhysX is the better non-CPU implementation right now.
Here's a recent comparison of GPU/CPU/PPU PhysX from TechGage in UT3. Keep in mind, they are using a special PhysX map pack. You can see there's some huge gains at 1680 with both GPU and PPU PhysX but those gains largely go away as there's most likely less extra SP power for PhysX.
I'm quite sure Crysis would run much better with an accelerated physics engine and after watching at the Diablo 3 trailer, I'm really hoping they implement some type of non-CPU hardware accelaration there as well.
I don't know where you come up with your "48xx cards WILL NOT EVER accelerate Havok" theory from. There are several GPGPU features built into the 4800 series that could easily make this possible. That's like saying the G80 will never support PhysX last year (obviously that would have been a crappy prediction now eh?) All it takes is a driver that converts Havok to CAL/Brook+/OpenCL type calls and you've got your accelerated Havok on the 4800.
If DX10.1 is so "microevolutionary" over 10.0 you really should ask yourself why Nvidia couldn't just include this in their $650 card.
Nemesis 1
Lifer
- Dec 30, 2006
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I like this thread. I know that Havok is working closely with AMD. But are you guys sure that Havok(INTEL) wants to do pyhsics on a gpu??? This doesn't seem right. Looking at What intel is trying to do with larrabee 16-24-cores each can do 4 threads in 16 core =64 threads 24 core =96 threads . So I believe that Intel the owner of Havok is working hard on physics for x86 processors. Its what I would do . how about you. what would you do if you were intel .
I myself want physics done on the x86 core . In an intel larrabee that would equal on a nehalem system 8 threads to do physics + the 64/96 threads that larrabbee could excelerate the process . Which is the time period were discussing.We should also remember that ATI is not going for bigger more powerful single cores. AMD/ATI want multi cores . So ATI 's transitor overhead will be less than NV . Better for ATI to do physics on the cpu since AMD has 4core processors todo this work .
I also feel its important but i won't link . To discuss what NV was saying about physics befor intel bought Havok . Seems to be 2 differant stories being told by the same company (NV).
IS this important ? Yes it is for debate. AS we can read what the same company says about physics befor INTEL bought Havok and after. Both stories cann't be true so which is it.
I myself want physics done on the x86 core . In an intel larrabee that would equal on a nehalem system 8 threads to do physics + the 64/96 threads that larrabbee could excelerate the process . Which is the time period were discussing.We should also remember that ATI is not going for bigger more powerful single cores. AMD/ATI want multi cores . So ATI 's transitor overhead will be less than NV . Better for ATI to do physics on the cpu since AMD has 4core processors todo this work .
I also feel its important but i won't link . To discuss what NV was saying about physics befor intel bought Havok . Seems to be 2 differant stories being told by the same company (NV).
IS this important ? Yes it is for debate. AS we can read what the same company says about physics befor INTEL bought Havok and after. Both stories cann't be true so which is it.
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