What if Intel or AMD locked Nvidia out....?

[Gikaseixas]

Question to all: How would you feel if AMD or Intel locked out Nvidia graphic cards in their motherboards chipsets???

IMO it would be very unfair just as much as Nvidia is locking out AMD from PhysX

Like Creig said in another thread "It's their hardware, after all"

 

[Genx87]

How entirely sure how such a thing would happen. Unless Intel and AMD dropped PCIE slots from their MBs. Thst said GPU PhysX would be available to AMD if AMD were to license it. Also GPU PhysX doesnt prevent ATI video cards from functioning like your scenario would for Nvidia cards.

 

[KIAman]

Considering the marketshare nVidia still holds, I believe this will just hurt every player financially. I would be personally angry that as a consumer, I am forced to choose entire platforms based on their compatability with GPUs.

This is nothing like a PhysX lockout as the "marketshare" of PhysX titles are miniscule and the majority of gamers will never feel the pain of the lockout. Hardly anybody cared when the lockout happened.

 

[Gikaseixas]

How entirely sure how such a thing would happen. Unless Intel and AMD dropped PCIE slots from their MBs. Thst said GPU PhysX would be available to AMD if AMD were to license it. Also GPU PhysX doesnt prevent ATI video cards from functioning like your scenario would for Nvidia cards.

at a driver level just like Nvidia restricts AMD from functioning whenever its cards are found in a system. Wouldn't that be possible?

 

[NoQuarter]

How entirely sure how such a thing would happen. Unless Intel and AMD dropped PCIE slots from their MBs. Thst said GPU PhysX would be available to AMD if AMD were to license it. Also GPU PhysX doesnt prevent ATI video cards from functioning like your scenario would for Nvidia cards.

I suppose with a BIOS check, sort of the way SLI is locked to nVidia licensed motherboards even though technology wise there's nothing preventing any multi-slot PCIe mobo from doing SLI.

But the mobo manufacturers have final control over the BIOS so you'd have to convince every mobo manufacturer to lock out nVidia, and then there'd be an untapped market waiting for loads of cash to be made.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Hardly anybody cared when the lockout happened

you should have seems the numerous threads here at anandtech about this subject. ATI users\fanboys where pissed

 

[digitaldurandal]

Question to all: How would you feel if AMD or Intel locked out Nvidia graphic cards in their motherboards chipsets???

IMO it would be very unfair just as much as Nvidia is locking out AMD from PhysX

Like Creig said in another thread "It's their hardware, after all"

PhysX is a copyright software that Nvidia owns. PCIE is not owned by either company.

The two things you are comparing are not comparable.

Both AMD and Nvidia use PCIE connections for their graphics cards.

If you are unhappy about the use of PhysX in titles then you should be unhappy with the software teams that choose to include them in their titles, they could just as easily use another engine, although arguably Havok is no where near the functionality of PhysX.

AMD could buy, improve, and market Havok as their proprietary engine and compete - but they have chosen not to.

When AMD introduced eyefinity they were the only company with that type of surround gaming support. Nvidia chose to compete and created their own.

Free market. Use it or lose it.

 

[Genx87]

at a driver level just like Nvidia restricts AMD from functioning whenever its cards are found in a system. Wouldn't that be possible?

I doubt they would bother, especially Intel.

 

[busydude]

you should have seems the numerous threads here at anandtech about this subject. ATI users\fanboys where pissed

Hmm.. no. The people who were pissed are those who have upgraded from older Nvidia cards to AMD cards and cannot use the former card as a dedicated PhysX card... there is no reason for nvidia to block the use of its own card.. when an AMD card is the primary card.

 

[badb0y]

No one gives a flying crap about PhysX not running on AMD hardware. They care when nVidia restricts the function on it's OWN GPU when an AMD card id the primary graphics card.

 

[shangshang]

Intel and NV are looking to settle. So there will be no lockout of NV by Intel. I wonder how AMD would feel if Intel and NV go to bed with each other, even if each is using a separate blanket in the same bed?? All good for consumers!

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2124284

 

[Arkadrel]

Unless Intel and AMD dropped PCIE slots from their MBs

Didnt Intel agree to 5+ years of keeping to the PCIE standart on their motherboards, because of the FTC or something?

Hmm.. no. The people who were pissed are those who have upgraded from older Nvidia cards to AMD cards and cannot use the former card as a dedicated PhysX card... there is no reason for nvidia to block the use of its own card.. when an AMD card is the primary card.

+

No one gives a flying crap about PhysX not running on AMD hardware. They care when nVidia restricts the function on it's OWN GPU when an AMD card id the primary graphics card.

I wonder why AMD never took nvidia to court over this if they could.

 

[railven]

I'm sure they can find work arounds.

For example in order to push more APUs to the masses Intel could only offer PCI-E support on their X58 equivalent boards (ie premium/enthusiast line) and thus leave the mid-range to third party (are there any left?)

And on the other side I thought of how AMD could throttle/handicap nVidia cards on AMD boards without removing PCIE at all.

In the end if there is a will there is a way, but I'd swear the first company off that even tried something. This isn't what I consider healthy competition.

 

[Arkadrel]

For example in order to push more APUs to the masses Intel could only offer PCI-E support on their X58 equivalent boards (ie premium/enthusiast line) and thus leave the mid-range to third party (are there any left?)

I dont see why Intel cant do that... once its versions of APUs are far enough ahead. Once they determine they make more money by doing such, Im guessing they will if they can legally do so.

 

[NoQuarter]

PhysX is a copyright software that Nvidia owns. PCIE is not owned by either company.

The two things you are comparing are not comparable.

Both AMD and Nvidia use PCIE connections for their graphics cards.

...

Free market. Use it or lose it.

How do you feel about the SLI situation then? There is nothing preventing a Crossfire motherboard from doing SLI except a single BIOS string.

If nVidia is able to vendor lock a standard interface (multiple PCIe slots) for SLI how is that different than AMD/Intel chipsets vendor locking nVidia out?

 

[ArchAngel777]

How do you feel about the SLI situation then? There is nothing preventing a Crossfire motherboard from doing SLI except a single BIOS string.

If nVidia is able to vendor lock a standard interface (multiple PCIe slots) for SLI how is that different than AMD/Intel chipsets vendor locking nVidia out?

Good post, same with the OP. Great post.

 

[golem]

How do you feel about the SLI situation then? There is nothing preventing a Crossfire motherboard from doing SLI except a single BIOS string.

If nVidia is able to vendor lock a standard interface (multiple PCIe slots) for SLI how is that different than AMD/Intel chipsets vendor locking nVidia out?

It's still not the same thing. PCIe is a standard and if you follow the standard, it should work. Otherwise it wouldn't be a standard, so if Intel/AMD follow that standard they can't lock out Nvidia. SLI is a licensed technology owned by Nvidia, if you don't follow their rules, it doesn't work.

 

[ArchAngel777]

If nVidia truly believes they have better graphics cards (not including Physx here) then they would be wise to sell a special physx card that would work regardless of the primary video card in the system. Otherwise, what is the point of locking it out?

They make a sale on a card no matter what. If they can produce cheap little cost effective Physx cards with high margins and allow them to work despite what the primary graphics card vendor is, they would probably make more money. Additionally, they would probably see Physx adopted at a much faster rate and because it would be adopted at a faster rate, they would sell more physx cards. It is a win/win for them because if they keep producing a better graphics card, then they get to sell a physx card on top of the primary graphics card. If, for whatever reason, the comsumer wants to go ATI, at least they make a sale off of the physx card. I honestly see no point in the Physx lockout. I think it is a bad business decision.

 

[NoQuarter]

It's still not the same thing. PCIe is a standard and if you follow the standard, it should work. Otherwise it wouldn't be a standard, so if Intel/AMD follow that standard they can't lock out Nvidia. SLI is a licensed technology owned by Nvidia, if you don't follow their rules, it doesn't work.

Certainly, except the 'rules' for SLI seem to be the PCIe rules + $5.

 

[Rezist]

It's the way nVidia chooses to operate, personally I don't like it and it AMD can offer the same performance for the same dollar I would pick them, if nVidia had the same performance as AMD for less $ I would go with nVidia however.

 

[digitaldurandal]

I'm sure they can find work arounds.
And on the other side I thought of how AMD could throttle/handicap nVidia cards on AMD boards without removing PCIE at all.

This would be an illegal practice and they would go bankrupt. Unlike Intel who recently had to pay out quite a hefty fine to AMD, AMD could not take such a blow and they would fold in the wake of the massive litigation to follow that.

Nvidia can argue that they must block the code from running because otherwise AMD or people using their cards could trick the code into running on another GPU. Which is true, as it was being done before.

The answer is not to fight back - AMD has zero clout with Nvidia. The answer is to compete. Release, support, and push another standard of physics processing to developers. Developers chose to use PhysX because they essentially get a lot of support to include it in their product. AMD has a bit of history of not really supporting developers. This has caused issues where Nvidia has AA in a game, but AMD does not - because Nvidia sent a team of programmers to hack in some AA optimizations and afterward everyone wants to cry that they should share.

You really have only two choices if you don't like it.

Choice one: get angry and don't purchase Nvidia products (which if you're unhappy the chances are that you already do not do so)

Choice two: do something to help push an open standard of physics processing, or join the industry and help AMD to create a competitive product.

There really is no choice three convince amd to illegally handicap competitors products.

Or post about a silly hypothetical situation on Anandtech, because you are frustrated, comparing apples to oranges.

 

[Kenmitch]

It's still not the same thing. PCIe is a standard and if you follow the standard, it should work. Otherwise it wouldn't be a standard, so if Intel/AMD follow that standard they can't lock out Nvidia. SLI is a licensed technology owned by Nvidia, if you don't follow their rules, it doesn't work.

It would be possible for Intel/AMD to come to some cross-licensing agreement and lock nvidia out at the same time. You just gotta think outside the box

 

[Seero]

Question to all: How would you feel if AMD or Intel locked out Nvidia graphic cards in their motherboards chipsets???

IMO it would be very unfair just as much as Nvidia is locking out AMD from PhysX

Like Creig said in another thread "It's their hardware, after all"

Intel did, Nvidia sued them, and rumor stated that it had been settled. Intel did the same thing to AMD, and AMD sued them, and rumor stated that it had been settled. I tried to find a motherboard that uses AMD CPU and support SLI, but most of them only support CF. I wonder why.

 

[digitaldurandal]

If nVidia truly believes they have better graphics cards (not including Physx here) then they would be wise to sell a special physx card that would work regardless of the primary video card in the system. Otherwise, what is the point of locking it out?

Dedicated PhysX cards do not sell. This has been attempted, how many people do you know with one. The current Fermi generation is partially built to take advantage of GPU computational power.

You are isolating PhysX as a separate thing when it is quite clear that Nvidia views it as a feature of their product.

The point of locking it out is to create a situation where the consumer must choose card a vs card b. Where their card has a feature that the competitors card does not have.

Similar to AMD coming out with eyefinity - which is why for this generation I went with a 5870. It was not about price or performance really - my SLI 285s had more performance - it was simply about features. AMD had a feature I wanted and I bought it.

Next round I see myself going back to the green team as long as they do not completely botch the 570.

Why?

Features:
Better multigpu scaling. Better surround gaming performance.

PhysX doesn't really play a factor for me but it doesn't hurt either.

 

[digitaldurandal]

It would be possible for Intel/AMD to come to some cross-licensing agreement and lock nvidia out at the same time. You just gotta think outside the box

Not possible. Illegal.

They could choose not to include any licensed SLI motherboards - but a third party would provide them anyway. That is about as far as they could go without getting slapped with a lot of fines.

anti-competitive practices are illegal. For some reason you all don't seem to understand this.

There is a big difference between what Nvidia has done and what you are talking about doing. Nvidia does not stop the competitors products from working, it simply stops its own product from working under certain situations, in no way impeding on the function of the competitors hardware. If it did, this would be illegal.