No one really dislike GPU accelerated physics, what many dislike is the segregation created by GPU accelerated physx working only with or in tandem with nVidia GPUs.
No, that is not the case. PhysX is attractive to game developers, it is free to implement, and not difficult to get support from Nvidia on implementation. However, people need to be paid, and therefore gamers need to pay for this one way or the other. If Nvidia put licenses on the implementation of PhysX, meaning the cost will be imbedded on the cost of the game itself. Unfortunately, since AMD does not support PhysX, it will not be attractive to developers that way.
Many sees license from Nvidia on PhysX means under Nvidia's control. That is false. Let say you brought a video card from AMD that supports PhysX, but have problems with games, will you believe that it is due to AMDs fail implementation? or Nvidia's little dirty tricks?
It should be clear that, although video cards more or less does the something, there are key difference within the design of the GPU, which can affect performance on different fields. The shader processor from AMD has a smaller physical size than cuda cores. Is it really hard to believe that they does not do every task the same way?
The key on whether AMD should acquire license from Nvidia isn't "Oh then AMD will be under Nvidia." In fact, the "bumpgate" incident clearly showed that if something is causing problems, its creator must be responsible. If there will be problems after AMD required PhysX from Nvidia, AMD will sue Nvidia without a second thought. Most importantly, people will automatically believe that it is some tricks from Nvidia. As you can see the risk on Nvidia far exceeded the rist on AMD shall AMD be able to acquire PhysX from Nvidia.
On the surface, AMD will only gain from it than lost. However, shader processors must be modified to support PhysX, which cause far more than its license fee. Note that PhysX support is one of the fundamental thing when designing CUDA core. This won't be the case for AMD, and therefore may not perform equally. Shall AMD pay for something and modify its core design at high cost, that will eventually underform from its competitor? As of now, AMD chooses not to. The reason can be, as some as pointed out, due to the lack of funding.
The other way to acquire such effect is to hire people who knows PhysX and recreate PhysY. That why, PhysY will be engineered on what shader process do best, and therefore minimize the cost of modifing the design and maximize its performance. The downsize of this approach is it won't work on games that currently support PhysX. Programming change may be very small, but may have to be build at game design phase and requires direct support from AMD. Even if AMD does this, it will be known as a copy of PhysX. This won't be better than aquiring PhysX directly in terms of prespective.
It is just business decisions. It depends on rather will benefit sales. There is no point to support PhysX if it does not benefit the value of the video card. That doesn't mean AMD or Intel should simiply ignore it shall they choice not to support. Something must be done. What should be done is the key to this problem.
If people can take off their colored glasses for a second, then people will realize that "gaming" really isn't worth to be mentioned when it comes to such decision making.
The whole idea about Fusion isn't because it will one day take over discrete video card, but the console box. It is logical, and far more benefical than supporting PhysX from its competitor. As long as PhysX runs on fusion, which it will, it really doesn't matter if GPU is accelerating it or not. It will be worth a talk, but not game breaking deals. Again, this isn't about gaming, it is about sales.
We spoke alot of rival advertising. Both vendors, as well as other companies use it. The down side of such advertisement is it will backfire, and when it does, it does much more damage and good to the company. Even if the advirtiser doesn't reveal its identity, it will be seen as a fanboy/fangirl very shortly. Unlike any individual, where we can jump ship at anytime, and say whatever we want, what they say are bounded by a cheque which makes them easy to be spotted. Now of course they can be working in groups to further hide their identities, but they can avoid being seen as a fan group.
Talks in this thread are more towards scali and keys than on the issue itself.
Facebook
Twitter