Nvidia Supports ATI Radeon PhysX Efforts
Mountain House (CA) - You gotta love this industry. 12 days ago, we reported about a website making progress in getting Nvidia’s CUDA platform and PhysX to run on ATI Radeon cards, which Nvidia denied would be possible. Some even claimed that such a tool was a planned hoax. Now we are told that developer Eran Badit has not only been invited to join Nvidia’s developer program, but has also been offered hands-on help. Here is an update to a fascinating story that may soon bring PhysX support to your Radeon graphics card.
Eran Badit editor-in-chief of ngohq.com posted an update to the events of last week. He confirmed that he is receiving support from Nvidia to get PhysX to run on ATI cards. "It’s very impressive, inspiring and motivating to see Nvidia’s view on this," he wrote. He believes that Nvidia most likely wants to "take on Intel with CUDA and to deal with the latest Havok threat from both AMD and Intel."
He also noted that he made progress getting his hands on a Radeon 4800 card and noted that his CUDA Radeon library is "almost done." Badit said that "there are some issues that need to be addressed, since adding Radeon support in CUDA isn’t a big deal - but it’s not enough! We also need to add CUDA support on AMD’s driver level and its being addressed as we speak."
The tone at Nvidia has changed quite a bit over the past week. It appears that Nvidia does not mind running PhysX on ATI Radeon (or just about any other GPU) cards. In fact, Nvidia has opened access to Developer Relations and is providing assistance to Badit, including access to documentation, SDKs and more importantly, hardware and actual engineers. In the end, if Badit could get PhysX to run on Radeon cards, the PhysX reach would be extended dramatically and Nvidia would not be exposed to any fishy business claims - since a third party developer is leading the effort.
We contacted Nvidia for a statement and received the following note from Roy Taylor, vice president of developer relations:
"Eran and I have been talking via email and we have invited him to join NVIDIA’s registered developer program. We are delighted at his interests in CUDA and in GPU accelerated physics using PhysX. Eran joins a long line of developers who are now working on using the GPU to run physics and who are doing so with the world’s leading physics software — PhysX. "
Derek Perez, who is in charge of Nvidia’s PR department joined Taylor with this statement:
"We’ll help any and all developers that are using CUDA. That includes tools... documentation... and hands on help. We’re delighted with the interest in CUDA and PhysX; and that includes the news on www.ngohq.com."
Eran told us that he needs support from AMD as to get the utility developed and compatible with the ATI Radeon 2900, 3800 and 4800 series of graphics cards. According to Badit, it took AMD seven days to respond and send the requested documents. We also asked AMD for comment, but have not received a reply so far. As soon as we receive a comment from AMD, we will update this article.
We are in touch with Badit and as soon as we receive a PhysX_on_AMD run-time we can use we will provide you an update. At least right now it appears that one guy from Israel is changing the face of GPU-accelerated physics, giving developers a choice what physics API to use for next-gen gaming titles.
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Cool...
Im not trying to flamebait here, but I wonder how AMD would respond if it was the other way around?
this is pretty amazing... i wonder whats gonna happen with the HAVOK physics now...
^ exactly.. havoc is owned by intel and nvidia is taking all steps necessary to make intels trip into the gpu world as hard as possible
Good move by nVidia!
I hope Badit is getting serious pay, cuz messing around such heavy politics could cost him way more than he's getting. Nvidia loves him for showing up the blue and green teams. But big blue(not IBM) in turn could screw him over, and he won't know it. Sometimes being the nice know-it-all does'nt pay off. I'd rather get payed for chopping my own hand off, than be called brave and adventurous. Is that last word spelled ok?
This is something where FOSS makes a lot of sense. NVidia and AMD/ATI can have their own way of doing things, but if they open up the interfaces, then each API can compete and let the market decide. Moreover, it opens the possibility that smaller hardware vendors can enter the market with their own processors without having to build a full-fledged software system around them.
Hopefully AMD, which has been fairly supportive of the FOSS community, will give Badit support too. I'd like to see AMD/ATI software work on NVidia cards too.
Don't you think nvidia is only doing this so that physx can get more developer support and push out havoc in the industry? I'm not complaining, intel already has too large a foothold in the electronics market.
Works for me. If both ATI and nVidia support PhysX then game developers will be a lot more likely to use it. This is good for everybody - ATI. nVidia, game companies, gamers.
Works for me. If both ATI and nVidia support PhysX then game developers will be a lot more likely to use it. This is good for everybody - ATI. nVidia, game companies, gamers.
Agreed.
but dont you think having PhysX solely will make things more expensive in the long term?
Well, it's not a monopoly situation IMO. Anybody can live without PhysX support, so prices will have to be reasonable or the thing won't sell.
sounds like the directx and openGL war all over again. Amd would be stupid to fight this. With the 4870 at the price point that its at, and being able to run both the havok and physX API. I can see lots of sales coming from this deal. also this just might make intel's venture into the gpu market that much harder.
Not a bad move on nVidia's part, they're looking at the future.
Even if they lose out to ATi this current graphics generation, they know full well they can come back again next generation with a competitive product.
The problem is Intel, if Intel manages to cut nVidia out of a large proportion of the physics acceleration market right now, they'll have an easier time pushing havoc when larabee shows up. By allowing ATi cards to run physx, nVidia has just opened 100% of the gaming community to physx accelerated gaming. .
It doesn't take long for gaming developers to jump on new technology... If they know that everyone will have that tech in their systems of course.
As a gamer I am happy with Havok, it doesn't make my games run any worse and I have come to expect rag-doll physics. Some of the most unexpectedly fun game experiences have been with Havok'ed corpses..Far Cry, Oblivion.
PhysX has had no meaningful game insertion yet, let alone hundreds of Havok titles. Also the technology may be fundamentally flawed for on-line play: Try transmitting all that gamestate data over your internet connection.
Until we have magic internet, PhysX will be limited to single play or small 2 man matches on a LAN.
Good luck PhysX, you have your work cut out for you if you wish to overtake Havok.
I don't think it's a good ideal for AMD to jump on the PhysX bandwagon so quick. Since Intel has such a foot hold on CPU sells, all Intel would have to do was lower the prices on the CPU's and that would put the hurt on AMD's CPU market share to the point they would go so fare in debt that they couldn't recover from it.
I dont think you guys understand how shocking this has to be ! lol. Nvidia payed a lot of money to buy Physx. Now If crysis ran on physx lower end cards would also run it smoother . Heres the big part. IF BOTH ATI AND NVIDA RUN PHYSX THEN MOST DEVELOPERS WOULD PROBABLY JUMP ON THE BANDWAGON . So much for Valves super elite multicore particle engine.
Bad part is that no one would care what cpu they have if everyone runs on physx wich your right might hurt AMD . Hmmmm what is Nvida planing the death of AMD? wow this is a good conspiracy going on
I smell foul play...
this smells fishy
Yea this move is fishy... by supporting phyisx would help Nvidia because game develers would see it as both ATI and Nvidia support physicx so why bother with havok.
rather than making a tough disicion which one to support.
As a gamer I am happy with Havok, it doesn't make my games run any worse and I have come to expect rag-doll physics. Some of the most unexpectedly fun game experiences have been with Havok'ed corpses..Far Cry, Oblivion.PhysX has had no meaningful game insertion yet, let alone hundreds of Havok titles. Also the technology may be fundamentally flawed for on-line play: Try transmitting all that gamestate data over your internet connection.Until we have magic internet, PhysX will be limited to single play or small 2 man matches on a LAN.Good luck PhysX, you have your work cut out for you if you wish to overtake Havok.
This is the only intelligent response in this thread. If you think AMD is going to give over control and reputation (AND PERFORMANCE!!) by supporting this nvidiot scam, then that's why you are not running AMD.
Correction - one other poster suggested this developer night get his ass sued. Perhaps it could blow up in nvidiots face, like most everything else lately.
AMD will not trust it's performance to be managed by nvidiot - wake up call - cos that's what this is - it's a cheap scam. Small wonder no response. This dvloper might have access - but NOT the inside track to all the secrets.
There have been complaints of typos and ambiguity in thg articles lately; but THIS article is deliberately misleading, inflammatory, indicative of bias, misinterpreted even in these comments, and insulting to us all - ESPECIALLY THE TITLE.
Better quality reporting can be found in the Mational Enquirerrr.
Clean up yer act thg or simply get honest about who u pimp for. Kikk me if you want - this is crap BS and you know it. I think yer in nvidiots pocket - or bed!
meh, nVidia COULD use this to their advantage by releasing some kind of chip which massively optimises CUDA and PhysX etc. in programming PhysX to run at a slower rate on any other graphics card will probably work for them, seeing as how most games are heading towards the whole 100% destructible environments thing.
but with all the new dual, quad, hept and oct cores either around or coming out soon, i'd rather just let the CPU handle all the physX for me. no point dropping my framerate just so i can put a hole in a wall everytime i drive a tank into it...which...doesnt happen much...i swear...
Well,the way I see it,atleast each respective company is ACTUALLY working on something.Remember,this is a 3rd party,not just AMD.
The hell if it makes it run slower,this will only make each company try to make better hardware.Otherwise people would probably be sticking around the early pentiums here.
Has foothold on both competing realtime physics technologies without the fuss.
Maybe Nvidia is realizing that AMD/TI is not the real threat (just healthy competition), Intel is the one to worry about in the long term.
Unexpected!
Im not trying to flamebait here, but I wonder how AMD would respond if it was the other way around?
Its not like AMD did not license there AMD64(x64) tech to Intel(and not like intel did not license X86 to AMD in the first place). Maybe Nvidia plans to license it to ATI after they get hooked.
This has nothing to do with PhysX, PhysX is just the bait.
It's all about CUDA and making it the industry standard, for making GPGPU programs, before other programming languages, that nVidia won't control, will have a chance to make a real impact. The first competitor is OpenCL and soon DX11, with it's compute shaders, will arrive.
This has nothing to do with PhysX, PhysX is just the bait.It's all about CUDA and making it the industry standard, for making GPGPU programs, before other programming languages, that nVidia won't control, will have a chance to make a real impact. The first competitor is OpenCL and soon DX11, with it's compute shaders, will arrive.
Ehm. Agree.
In fact, still, the winner here is AMD/ATi. They're squeezed between nVidia and intel on both sides, and they have promising, yet still short of perfect products on both sides. So, without the costs induced, they have support for all the competing standards at least at GPGPU side. I'm just waiting for their move to connect the GPU and CPU with HT bus. Then, it'll get real fun!
anyone who tries mafia 2 or metro 2033 with physx maxed will say PHYSX is awesome, cant wait for it to be part of every game standard.