CUDA, PhysX Are Doomed Says AMD's Roy Taylor
Here's a little smack-talk dished out by AMD.
In a recent interview with VR-Zone, AMD’s VP of channel sales Roy Tayor said that Nvidia's CUDA is doomed, and PhysX is an utter failure. Why? Because the industry doesn't like proprietary standards. Companies could get away with it in the early days of gaming, and it worked. But today, in a world of multiple platforms and form factors, proprietary standards are deemed unhealthy for the industry, and nobody wants it.
"Nvidia should be congratulated for its invention," he said. "As a trend, GPGPU is absolutely fantastic and fabulous. But that was then, this is now. Now, collectively our industry doesn’t want a proprietary standard. That’s why people are migrating to OpenCL."
For the uninitiated, OpenCL (Open Computing Language) is an open standard (framework) for cross-platform, parallel programming of processors (CPU,s GPUs, DSPs etc) used in mobile devices, servers and personal computers. It's maintained by the Khronos Group and adopted by Intel, Qualcomm, AMD, Nvidia, Samsung and several others.
In the interview Taylor also pointed to Intel's Sandy Bridge platform in which 17 percent of the die was GPU, Ivy Bridge which went up to 27 percent and Haswell around 32 percent. There's definitely a pattern, he said, and believes that Intel will eventually adopt the term APU much like ATI was forced to ditch the visual processing unit (VPU) label it began using in 2002 after the launch of the Radeon 9700.
"We think the reason they’re doing that is because of GPGPU," he said. "It’s not because of games. I think they see that HSA is an absolutely unstoppable force. I just don’t know why they don’t call [Haswell] an APU… it seems just like pride. If you remember [ATI] tried to join the coin term VPU… ‘No, no, no, it’s a VPU not a GPU,’ they would say. GPU just became widely adopted they just quietly adopted it, and I believe Intel will do the same. Look [Intel] it’s an APU, why are you protesting?"
As for SoCs with GPU cores versus standalone graphics cards, he believes there will always be a market for enthusiast gamers wanting the latter option. However there are some signs that APUs are eroding the lower-middle end discrete graphics card market.
"For enthusiast gamers, graphics cards will never go away," he said. "Unlike our competitor, who’s obsessed with launching consoles in the mobile market, we still love PC gamers and we’re absolutely committed to them. That’s never going to go away. Nobody should have any doubt that we’re committed to GPUs."
To read the full interview, head here.
But still, I do agree. PhysX is a solution without a problem, and almost no-one uses it. CUDA is becoming less and less relevant due to OpenCL, plus the newer cards are relatively hopeless at FP64.
Personally I do agree though. OpenCL being cross platform is much superior. Once it takes off better I am sure NVidia will quickly improve performance in it.
Physx is mainly a gimmick and adds clutter to the screen.
At the end of the day, who cares what the companies say about each other. Atleast it doesn't hurt customers like the hybrid-physx lockout and other anti-competitive practices.
I find it revolting to see "paid-info-wars" happening on this website. I might just migrate do Anandtech or whatever.
just off the top of my mind, i only know of physx games.
I doubt many people who know about APUs actually cares whether they call it APU or CPU. To me, this sounds like an obnoxious kid trying to get attention... yes, I know AMD wants us to call them APUs but to me, they're still CPUs with IGP.
This makes me want to buy nVidia even more.
it actually depends, AMD is better with open driver support on linux, nvidia is better with closed driver support. AMD only currently looks bad right now on the linux front because neither company has released an open driver any time recently, and since nvidia is better on the closed front, makes them the better option.
(it wouldn't be the first time a company has been caught doing so)
PhysX and TressFX or any game "physics" is simply game fluff that in the end add absolutely nothing to the game experience. It is fluff for one reason and that is, actual in-game physics would take up too many resources hence it is relegated to in-game fluff like hair, flags and projectile impact effects, but nothing of substance.
I like AMD products but their used-car salesman marketing tactics they have been pulling in the last year is getting silly. Whose intelligence are they trying to insult. Bashing the competition in your own (or any) field is never a good practice.
But still, I do agree. PhysX is a solution without a problem, and almost no-one uses it. CUDA is becoming less and less relevant due to OpenCL, plus the newer cards are relatively hopeless at FP64.
Personally I do agree though. OpenCL being cross platform is much superior. Once it takes off better I am sure NVidia will quickly improve performance in it.
Physx is mainly a gimmick and adds clutter to the screen.
At the end of the day, who cares what the companies say about each other. Atleast it doesn't hurt customers like the hybrid-physx lockout and other anti-competitive practices.
Currently a lot of physics in games is used just for cosmetic effect instead of affecting gameplay because otherwise people with weak hardware would be unable to play the games. This situation will change when most people have sufficiently strong hardware.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/PhysX-APEX-CUDA-PlayStation-SDK,21402.html
... so? If PS4 is all AMD, and nVidia Physx gonna work on PS4, so there is a possibility to open up Physx for other platforms... if nVidia opens up Physx, it haz a chance to live on...
Currently a lot of physics in games is used just for cosmetic effect instead of affecting gameplay because otherwise people with weak hardware would be unable to play the games. This situation will change when most people have sufficiently strong hardware.
Thank you for rephrasing, what I just said - in-game physics are just fluff due to high system requirements for thing like destructible environments. Was that point lost on you, in my initial post?