|
|
Rumour control: Nvidia helping driver modders with Radeon PhysX
Nvidia still happy for AMD to port PhysX over to Radeon cards using CUDA
Although Nvidia openly said it would talk to AMD about getting PhysX working on Radeon cards, we at least thought that it would charge the company to license the technology. However, the driver modders over at NGOHQ.com claim that Nvidia is actively helping them to get PhysX working on ATI GPUs, using the modded drivers they announced last week.
‘I’m going to ask you to hold on to something steady,’ says Regeneration in the latest post on the site, ‘as some of you are going to feel a bit dizzy after you hear this.’ He then announces that ‘Nvidia is now helping us with the project and it seems they are giving us their blessings.’ Why would Nvidia do that? Regeneration reckons that ‘they probably want to take on Intel with CUDA and to deal with the latest Havok threat from both AMD and Intel,’ and he may well have a point.
We asked Nvidia’s product PR manager for Northern Europe, Ben Berraondo, if Nvidia was indeed helping NGOHQ with the project, and he said that he couldn’t confirm if that was the case at the moment. However, he added that ‘Nvidia do approve the use of CUDA for all these kinds of projects,’ and said that Nvidia would still be quite happy for AMD to port PhysX across using CUDA.
Interestingly, however, NGOHQ claims that AMD is ‘not being cooperative’ with the driver mod. ‘We get the feeling that they want this project to fail,’ says Regeneration. He then adds that he thinks AMD has plans ‘to strangle PhysX since AMD and Intel have Havok.’
Should AMD take up Nvidia on the offer of official PhysX support, or has it got the right idea by cooperating with Intel and Havok? Let us know your thoughts.
Reddit | Technorati
The only reason for AMD/ATI not to co-operate with Nvidia over physx is if Intel are pressuring them not too because of their involvement with Havok... it would obviously be better for AMD to support both CPU Havok and GPU PhysX. Shame to see AMD bowing to pressure from Intel
Comment by NewParadigm at 12:08pm 10th July 2008
This is really interesting, Now I just hope that it all goes well, and Game devs will definately have a bigger choice with what tools/APIs they want to use, which means that we'll have much better games since devs can work on their Games how they want to!!
Comment by NikoBellic at 9:00pm 8th July 2008
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/nvidia-ati-physx,news-28687.html
Comment by NikoBellic at 8:59pm 8th July 2008
I would have thought Nvidia wouldn't ask ATI to license physx to run on their cards, rather they would require each games developer using it to license it, much in the same way they do for game engines. Similarly, I would have thought that this is the way Havok would be licensed as well (as it was before Intel bought it). If its cpu processed, and x86 processors can all accept the same instructions, surely Havok will run on any CPU regardless of who makes it, after all Havok has always been CPU based, and it didn't matter what processor you used before Intel bought it.
Comment by NewParadigm at 3:35pm 8th July 2008
in that AMDATi would be in a good position if their hardware could use both methods, however I think AMDATi are shooting themselves in the foot by not giving any backing as they would have nothing to lose. The only thing I can think of is that they are bound by contract to not directly involve themselves with things of an nVidia flavour. Even if this is the case, the real winners are consumers who have a greater choise of technologies and products.
Comment by EdArch at 10:21pm 7th July 2008
if nvidia want the api to work they can never charge for it. it would be nice to see cuda benchmarks on both cards.
Comment by TBallS at 9:43pm 6th July 2008
AMD/ATi don't want this to work since they've already jumped in bed with Intel because of Havok. Nvidia don't really care as they are STILL completely dominating the GPU market on all fronts. They openly offered PhysX to anyone when they bought it but had no takers. AMD/ATi don't want to sore their preferred deal with Havok, so they have to distance themselves from this completely. Nvidia just see it as another bad PR exercise for AMD and are all too happy to help. Welldone Nvidia for showing again how badly run AMD/ATi is. This would cost AMD/ATi nothing if they helped out but it would gain them huge kudos for pushing differences aside for the sake of developement. I'm sure the developers at ATi would really like to help but would be held back by the management who don't know how to run a company effectively or efficiently. Shame really
Comment by crazyceo at 9:58pm 5th July 2008
You see, with CUDA, they could increase the competitive performance of the CPU line by offloading many tasks to the GPU; something that Intel would have to do with Larabee, as and when it comes, or with a discrete graphics package, or with the integrated GPU that they plan to integrate into the Nehalem package at a later date. However, AMD, with a Fusion part, the GPU is part of the CPU die package meaning that it would be a better performing C/GPU product to compete with Intel's CPU products, and later C/GPU products. ATI are also ahead of the game in terms of price/performance on the graphics front too, and may also take the lead in pure performance next month too. Having Fusion with CUDA and application optimisations loaded to the GPU part of the C/GPU would give Fusion a performance advantage over Intel without necessarily having the better CPU, leading to them taking some of the CPU performance lead away from Intel.
Comment by Assassin8or at 5:58pm 5th July 2008
accepting this deal would put AMD in a very strong position, as it would have the resources to support both formats ie intel are offering them havok, nvidia are offering them physx. this would give them full coverage of the physics market. i think theyd be stupid to turn this offer down, unless intel threatens to cancel AMD havok support because of it
Comment by soddit113 at 7:09am 5th July 2008
I like this idea very much, even if ati/amd don't see it yet, a truce with nvidia, to combat the overbearing and dated intel x86(ie larabee for graphics, with cpu everything else), could- in the long term diversify and strengthen the industry (competition... plus x86 has many weaknesses)(Also sorry for the long sentence!). CUDA "could" be the start of a new era, pushing for more specialised usage of different processors strengths. If they don't work together intel might pick them off 1 by 1. (I still think Via will have it's day! Go Isaiah!)
Comment by mr_nips at 2:44am 5th July 2008
haha, amd/ati must be dizzy after hearing this, bet they dont even know what to do. support intel and nvidia could potentially be finished in the next few years, but then intel will just target them and they will be finished as well. support nvidia, and nvidia may well get the market dominance very quickly again, leaving them to sit in the uncomfortable ditch they've been sitting in... this is a real mess
Comment by Zhaoman at 10:25pm 4th July 2008
Well if you think about it, it would make sence that they're scared of Nvidia, because Nvidia develop some of the best Chipsets!, so imagine how good their CPUs woul be if they did develop them!!.
Comment by NikoBellic at 10:20pm 4th July 2008
Do you think Intel and AMD are trying to kill off Nvidia before they start developing CPUs or Help VIA to make better CPUs than AMD and Intel?... But like I said, Just a thought!
Comment by NikoBellic at 8:21pm 4th July 2008
if AMD and ATi were more like Intel and nVidia. I just mean in the way that Intel bought nVidia, but they still compete and they're still separate companies. ATi are fully owned by AMD and cards are now often referred to as AMD Radeon. This means that AMD have the last word on things that ATi do, and I doubt they'll start supporting this fully. I wonder if AMD's long term plan is to focus on low-spec media centre PCs, using ATi technology for onboard graphics, leaving Intel to hold the monopoly on the high-end market. I hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Comment by TWeaKoR at 8:11pm 4th July 2008
If AMD hold the key to who dominates then I would think that it would make more sence if they tried to take out Intel because Intel is leading in the CPU Wars where as Nvidia aren't half as much a worry for AMD right now!
Comment by NikoBellic at 8:04pm 4th July 2008
Nvidia are desperate to stop Intel dominating the physics software market. If that means giving away physx to AMD, then in their view, it's worth it.
Comment by l3v1ck at 6:43pm 4th July 2008
Makes perfect sense. They want physx to become dominant, then they charge for it later.
Comment by NotFred at 6:00pm 4th July 2008
It's just like a bar fight, two people scrapping it out (AMD and Nvidia) and then someone points and laughs (Intel) so they both take swings at him :D
Comment by JoeLiles at 5:29pm 4th July 2008
Lets not forget that Havok at the moment is still CPU based not GPU, with only the possibility of it moving to GPU in the future, and that CUDA is aimed at a wider application than just physics processing, which brings it in competition with CPU based applications. Intel haven't offered AMD/ATI anything that offers them an advantage over Nvidia in the graphics card dept., if havok processing works on cpu's it wont help sell more ATI cards than Nvidia at all (it will help balance AMD to Intel processor sales though). I don't believe we are seeing a move by AMD/ATI to block physx as it would make no difference to them which one won, so long as they could support both on their CPU's and GPU's. I think it is more a move to stop CUDA in general coming in to competition with uses traditionally associated with CPU calculations.
Comment by NewParadigm at 5:00pm 4th July 2008
Its good to see things finally looking up for AMD, if they can support both, they will be in a good position whatever the outcome.
Comment by lxstuart at 4:17pm 4th July 2008
it seems that amd cant loose atm both intel and nvidia need amd/ati to be o their side so i think amd need to cash in on this frenzy and make them pay 4 their support
Comment by WTF_NL at 4:03pm 4th July 2008
Make a Comment
- Have your PC upgraded by Custom PC
- Nvidia has license to make Nehalem QPI chipsets
- Rumour control: AMD readying new Athlon branded CPU
- More Wiimote-style controllers headed to the PC
- Antec shows off its Skeleton
- Rumour control: Abit exiting motherboard business this year
- British Army reveals its latest training simulator is based on a PC game
- Black screens for pirate copies of Windows
- SLI can run on any X58 board, even without NF200 chip
- Microsoft reveals more details about DirectX 11 tesselation
These are the most popular news articles over the past seven days.
- Top 10 PC games chart
- Black screens for pirate copies of Windows
- Microsoft to launch new mouse technology next month
- Nvidia GPUs responsible for 42% of Folding@home output
- MSI unveils X58 Eclipse motherboard
- Arctic Cooling introduces Fusion PSU for £56
- Asus Matrix graphics cards to feature dedicated overclocking chip
- Nvidia CEO demos Minority Report style interface at Nvision keynote
- SLI can run on any X58 board, even without NF200 chip
- Microsoft reveals more details about DirectX 11 tesselation
Broadband Dongles
Fastest, cheapest 3G mobile broadband dongles from 3, Vodafone, T-Mobile and Orange
from just £10/month
