AMD: Developers Use PhysX Only For The Cash

[dstln]

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/9838-55-developers-physx-cash >_>

 

[Chris_TC]

Can somebody enlighten me what's so bad about PhysX? It can run on the CPU and on the GPU, can it not?

So with PhysX 50% of gamers get fast GPU physics (Nvidia users), 50% get slow CPU physics (ATI users).
If a CPU-only solution like Havok is used, 100% of gamers get slow CPU physics.

So is this just envy (I can't have fast GPU physics, so neither should you!) or am I interpreting the situation incorrectly?

 

[dstln]

[citation][nom]Chris_TC[/nom]Can somebody enlighten me what's so bad about PhysX? It can run on the CPU and on the GPU, can it not?So with PhysX 50% of gamers get fast GPU physics (Nvidia users), 50% get slow CPU physics (ATI users).If a CPU-only solution like Havok is used, 100% of gamers get slow CPU physics.So is this just envy (I can't have fast GPU physics, so neither should you!) or am I interpreting the situation incorrectly?[/citation]

I don't think physx can run playable at all off the cpu. The problem is that Nvidia is allegedly paying developers to add features in this way that will only work on their graphics cards, despite the underlying processes being very possible on cards from either company. Have you not been reading through these comments before posting? Or did you just skip straight to the post after reading the article perhaps?

Yes, physx is currently the best and most accessible physics system and I can't blame Nvidia for wanting to get their money worth. A better open system needs to be implemented and encouraged. But if physx was actually that good and worthwhile and easy enough to develop for, devs would include the option in their games WITHOUT needed to be paid off. The article is more or less claiming that they would choose to not include company-specific features if they didn't have nvidia-publisher agreements requiring it. And I can't see how anyone could objectively think that such feature-specific agreements are good for the consumer in any fashion.

Despite what certain obvious trolls/children of nvidia employees would want you to think, it's most certainly a bad thing. And it would certainly be the same if say, ATI and Microsoft hit a deal for exclusive DX11 rights and then ATI paid devs to include DX11 effects in their games at the expense of users of the other cards, who could just as easily use the features but aren't allowed to.

 

[shin0bi272]

[citation][nom]rooket[/nom]Nvidia physx? Does it even do anything? I own an nvidia card but I don't care if a game has physx or not.[/citation]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhUV2zKttOA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEy5Sv5GBzA

second one is kinda old though

 

[jurassic1024]

[citation][nom]OvrClkr[/nom]I dont think is relevant at all, its not like PhysX is actually going to boost sales. Price to performance is what matters not PhysX. NV is behind ATM, PhysX is not going to save the company, lower pricing and not screwing up is what they should be focusing on.[/citation]

LOL@not gonna save the company. It seems you don't come to this site as often as you should.

What's sad is this site informs you about what's going on, yet the comment section is full of made up hoopla. It might as well be anyway. Comments full of fanboys and wannabe PR and analysts. If any of us right minded people replied to all the bull***t comments on sites like these, we would have to quit our jobs. Fudzilla has the right idea. NO COMMENTS. And whats the point of having comments, when too many times, it's the writer that is attacked, or two people that are both wrong, trying to battle it out to see who's the smartest. 8 times out of 10, both fail. Imagine how big and heavy your local newspaper would be if it had a comment section. Then imagine what f***ing good it would do. Comment sections are like politics. 90% of people that use/talk about them, know very little, but think anything is better than nothing... which is what makes me wanna choke a b***h. aka Y'all.

 

[shin0bi272]

Dstln: I think AMD struck a deal a few months ago with havok but dont quote me on that.

Nvidia has just as much right to push devs to use their physx as AMD does to use their tech (lets say eyefinity). If Nvidia is paying people to use their physx or doing what ageia did and giving it away for free that's much cheaper than the 250,000 for havok and much faster than writing their own physics engine (i.e. crysis). Of course AMD is going to be pissed off that nvidia has a faster card (though not the 60% we originally saw) coming out AND better physics... it just serves to marginalize amd's market share even more.

 

[Parsian]

I hope AMD invest on promoting their ATi Stream technology... I really need some proper video editing software that can run super resolution, deinterlacing and encoding on ATI GPU.

 

[kinney]

[citation][nom]dman3k[/nom]Wait... Didn't DirectX won over OpenGL???[/citation]

Not if you're paying attention.

 

[matt87_50]

again nVidia, your business practices suck! especially when they hurt the consumer by adding limitations to games that mean people can only run them with YOUR hardware. especially especially when there is no other good reason!

PhysX is a good, easy to use, powerful physics engine that would be a good choice IF NEEDED.

[citation][nom]Chris_TC[/nom]Can somebody enlighten me what's so bad about PhysX? It can run on the CPU and on the GPU, can it not?So with PhysX 50% of gamers get fast GPU physics (Nvidia users), 50% get slow CPU physics (ATI users).If a CPU-only solution like Havok is used, 100% of gamers get slow CPU physics.So is this just envy (I can't have fast GPU physics, so neither should you!) or am I interpreting the situation incorrectly?[/citation]

If nvidia spent half as much time they do on their proprietary stuff, making it using open standards like openCL or directCompute instead, then 100% of gamers could have fast GPU physics. and another thing, CPU physics is overrated, you can do A HELL OF A LOT on a modern CPU.

what do you want? ATI to make their own physics library? so some games run well on ATI and some on nVidia? thats as bad as exclusives. skrew that.

 

[dstln]

[citation][nom]Parsian[/nom]I hope AMD invest on promoting their ATi Stream technology... I really need some proper video editing software that can run super resolution, deinterlacing and encoding on ATI GPU.[/citation]

DXVA support/capabilities in general needs a huge amount of work, especially on ATI's front. At least CUDA is slightly less restricted. Anything can deinterlace lol. Encoding in GPU is sketchy at best and generally not remotely worth it unless you have an ancient cpu and modern graphics card (or unless the structures and capabilities completely change in the near future). But right now, none of the gpgpu projects are very impressive to me aside from a couple specific cuda apps and basic dxva decoding of basic 1080p for low-power systems.

 

[alextheblue]

[citation][nom]Chris_TC[/nom]Can somebody enlighten me what's so bad about PhysX? It can run on the CPU and on the GPU, can it not?So with PhysX 50% of gamers get fast GPU physics (Nvidia users), 50% get slow CPU physics (ATI users).If a CPU-only solution like Havok is used, 100% of gamers get slow CPU physics.So is this just envy (I can't have fast GPU physics, so neither should you!) or am I interpreting the situation incorrectly?[/citation]OK but if you use something that is not dependent on Nvidia, like a physics API that runs on DX and DirectCompute or that runs on OpenCL, it will work on cards from both vendors. That is the problem, they are bribing developers to use PhysX which is controlled by Nvidia and not officially supported by Nvidia on non-Nvidia hardware. In fact if you have AMD graphics installed alongside Nvidia hardware, they disable your ability to use the Nvidia card as a secondary PhysX-only accelerator, on purpose. They can do things like this because they control their own drivers.

If these developers were not being bribed to use PhysX, they would be more likely to develop physics that run on AMD and Nvidia cards. In other words, fast GPU physics for 100% of gamers.

Doesn't that seem better? Or do you fall into the category of "Only people like me should have fast GPU physics", which is equally as bad as "I can't have it so neither should you".

 

[razor512]

while there other methods of doing physics on the videocard, the nvidia physx stuff offers the best performance.

there have been many demos where if the physx rendering was not done in the videocard, there will be an insane amount of lag. remember, a GPU can process stuff like this much faster than a CPU can

PS CUDA can also handle physics processing

ATI drivers mainly suck when it comes to addinf new features to their cards.

ATI/AMD hardware is great but their drivers suck

 

[Parsian]

[citation][nom]dstln[/nom]DXVA support/capabilities in general needs a huge amount of work, especially on ATI's front. At least CUDA is slightly less restricted. Anything can deinterlace lol. Encoding in GPU is sketchy at best and generally not remotely worth it unless you have an ancient cpu and modern graphics card (or unless the structures and capabilities completely change in the near future). But right now, none of the gpgpu projects are very impressive to me aside from a couple specific cuda apps and basic dxva decoding of basic 1080p for low-power systems.[/citation]


i meant the offline processing not real time. I have tons of 8mm film that i want to restore to HD and a lot of DV that is interlaced... I am using Adobe Premiere and Video Enhancer but they are slow as hell on deinterlacing and upsizing on my Quad Core :S

 

[jsm6746]

this is namely a warning from ati and a call for use of an open source gpu physics solution.

 

[Gin Fushicho]

I don't care, even as an Nvidia fan I'm going to whoever can do it better.

 

[Chris_TC]

[citation][nom]AlexTheBlue[/nom]In other words, fast GPU physics for 100% of gamers. Doesn't that seem better? Or do you fall into the category of "Only people like me should have fast GPU physics", which is equally as bad as "I can't have it so neither should you".[/citation]
Of course fast GPU physics for all gamers would be best. I wasn't aware that there are ways to get GPU physics on ATI.
But then why haven't we seen any games? If there are ways to do GPU-accelerated physics for both ATI and nVidia, then why aren't CPU physics a thing of the past?

 

[razor512]

[citation][nom]Chris_TC[/nom]Of course fast GPU physics for all gamers would be best. I wasn't aware that there are ways to get GPU physics on ATI. But then why haven't we seen any games? If there are ways to do GPU-accelerated physics for both ATI and nVidia, then why aren't CPU physics a thing of the past?[/citation]

ATI doesn't want their cards using physx and they purposely try to block it because they are planning on releasing their own physx crap and they will release it for only a newer line of videocard so users of the old cards, even if the old hardware is fast enough, will have to upgrade to get new features.

many companies do this. They release a new hardware in which the new features can easily be added via software but they lock out the old hardware in order to force people to essentially pay like $300+ for a driver update

I have no brand loyalty, I go with what ever gives the most performance for the money, but I wont sacrifice stability for that performance. many ATI cards are good but the drivers suck. they are slow to fix problems.

 

[kansur0]

I think another reason why nVidia really wants to have everyone use their proprietary physics solution is that if OpenGL and OpenCL begins to be widely accepted in the games market then they will really lose the separation they have with specific drivers for the workstation video card market. The difference between a workstation card and a regular video card is often a single transistor on the card or something as simple as a BIOS. If PhysX became the defacto standard then people like me who are hobbyist 3D animators would be forced to buy workstation cards at exorbitant prices in order to play around.

I am sure this isn't a direct result as the reason why nVidia is being crooked in their business practices...but I am sure they would love to have 3D applications that would underperform or even completely not work at all and vice versa forcing people to buy workstation cards for OpenGL applications.

One other note of interest...Adobe has recently announced that it's full CS5 release of applications like Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects will be accelerated with nVidia's CUDA. I sniffed out a really good link to an article with many irate customers that want OpenCL fully supported.

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/11/adobe_sneak_peek_major_gpu_acceleration.html

 

[Guest]

ive never been disapointed with physx, and i can clearly see when physx is used, i like it and adds more to your game in terms of quality action scenes.