Nvidia buy Ageia

[FarFarAway]

Check the news out here

 

[Rastalovich]

I only have 1 reservation in this, well one bank of questions really.

If I write a game with a future nVidia card in dev - will the physx part of it negate an ATI/AMD card owner ?

Would an ATI & physx card be an alternative ?

Would it simply be that, if u have an ATI card, the game will still work, just no physics.

Havok ? What`s that all about ?

I`m so confuzed right now >.<

Good thing tho imo

 

[ionicle]

basically...i think

they will have to write games with the option to turn physix on or off in the settings, off by default methinks..

 

[Rastalovich]

If it`s off by default, would that not mean that the game is specifically dev`d with physx in mind tho ?

 

[Luigi]

Yes AFAIK....

Although crysis's physics are all on cpu so how much its needed i dont know..

 

[Hatman]

I remember reading somewhere that the 8 series have hardware to support some physics and "software physics" will be one of nvidias priorities for the future.

So maybe we'll see some good results from this!

 

[Luigi]

Unified shaders can all do physics IIRC, its just getting it to work...

 

[Rastalovich]

ATI/AMD`s answer to this is going to be what ?

They`re gonna be fudged if they produce an alt to this. Devs would be stuck in an either/and/or situation surely.

 

[Bungral]

ATI/AMD`s answer to this is going to be what ?

They`re gonna be fudged if they produce an alt to this. Devs would be stuck in an either/and/or situation surely.

Is that not just the same situation with the old Hyper Threading (Intel) and Hyper Transport (AMD)... I can't remember much about it but i'm sure most of the support was for Hyper Threading and not Transport.

Unless they were just different names for the exact same thing.

 

[Pyr0]

amd/ati were planning on using the havok api for gpu physics. (havok fx)

unfortunately, intel bought havok and killed the idea.

Linky:

(Nov 2007)GPU Physics Dead for Now Says AMD's Developer Relations Chief

 

[FarFarAway]

ATI/AMD`s answer to this is going to be what ?

They`re gonna be fudged if they produce an alt to this. Devs would be stuck in an either/and/or situation surely.

Yep what Pyr0 said is true

amd/ati were planning on using the havok api for gpu physics. (havok fx)

unfortunately, intel bought havok and killed the idea.

Linky:

(Nov 2007)GPU Physics Dead for Now Says AMD's Developer Relations Chief

Ye, shame too, as I've seen some properly promising demo's on GPU physics by ATI

 

[Hatman]

This is what I meant.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_home.html

Software physics apparently

 

[FarFarAway]

CUDA is GPGPU

Ageia already have software physics, that's what UT3's engine has in it, even without a PhysX card. I think we're gonna see some good stuff soon

 

[Rastalovich]

So.. at the end of the day, or the end of this year maybe, where are ATI/AMD going to stand ?

There`s another thing to think of too as a dev. Do u push forward with Physics in mind, which of course will take some of ur time ? I`m sure nVidia will happily flood them with cards. Or do u consider a fair chunk of the market ur about to sell to won`t have physics (i.e. ATI), so would fear of alienating them (sales figures) - or does this dev go on and ATI (users) basically suck-it ?

I guess it could depend on if nVidia decide to launch a completely different set of drivers - that WILL NOT work in conjunction with the old pci-slot PhysX cards. That`d be a hardcore corporate move.

All interesting stuff imo.

 

[FarFarAway]

It'll also depend on what sales model Nvidia use...will they continue the free distribution that Ageia currently use or will they push for the API to be bought?

 

[Pyr0]

i'm thinking there's a possibility for nvidia to licence it to amd/ati

it would kind of even the playing field on the physics front and allow for developers to not have to worry about hardware support

 

[Rastalovich]

Do you think that would lead to inflate AMD`s prices ? They`re generally considered good per performance.

 

[Pyr0]

guess it depends how greedy nv are or how much they want it to succeed

 

[Rastalovich]

The question; will GeForce 8 series GPUs benefit from NVIDIA's ownership of PhysX technology?, was answered in part by NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. Though no official announcement has yet been made, Huang stated:

"We're working toward the physics-engine-to-CUDA port as we speak. And we intend to throw a lot of resources at it. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if it helps our GPU sales even in advance of [the port's completion]. The reason is, [it's] just gonna be a software download. Every single GPU that is CUDA-enabled will be able to run the physics engine when it comes."

Software download for ur gfxcard

 

[Hatman]

Software download for ur gfxcard

GPGPU