UPDATED: Nvidia releases second GeForce Power Pack

what really bugs me is that Nvidia have offered PhysX support to AMD, but they seem very slow to even look at it. Surely it would be in their interests to support physx... if they are being held over a barrel by intel over this, by being threatened with no Havok support, I think they are backing the wrong horse.

Comment by NewParadigm at 2:31pm 5th December 2008

Feather663, actually last I heard Havok wasn't being shifted to GPU's. AMD have very little to say in the matter, they have an 'agreement' with Intel to support Havok, and I suspect they only did this because they dont want their CPU's to get any further behind in terms of usefulness. Intel have actually stated that, at the moment, they have no intention of working on a GPU version of Havok, although they are not ruling it out.

Comment by NewParadigm at 2:31pm 5th December 2008

Hi Lightning_Pete - sorry, only just seen your comment - our site was down at the time I updated the link on the CMS, so I hadn't seen that you'd already posted it.

Comment by hardwidge at 12:16am 4th December 2008

needed ;)

Comment by Lightning_Pete at 10:17pm 3rd December 2008

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/content/graphicsplus/uk/download.asp :)

Comment by Lightning_Pete at 1:14pm 3rd December 2008

@frontline I agree! Crysis & Unreal 3 run so much better since I upgraded to quad core. Multicore physics is really the best solution since you don't have this ATI versus Nvidia conflict. @NewParadigm ATI are trying to shift Havok onto the GPU, right? I suspect that GPU physics allows a far greater level of sophistication than CPU physics at the moment. I have a nightmarish vision of a gaming PC with Nvidia or ATI GPU with a second GPU for Ageia physics and a 3rd GPU for ATI Havok FX. Just imagine the extra power consumption and driver instabilities! I suppose when you consider the original Ageia concept of physics on a plug-in card, it begins to look more attractive. It's just a shame that Ageia priced themselves out of the market & failed to promote the system with games companies. Perhaps the future really lies with CPU graphics & physics? It would be ironic if the GPU eventually became obsolete with graphics rendering was done on CPU as it was originally. I guess for my own selfish reasons, I am happy with the Nvidia fizzics because I have always preferred Nvidia graphics. If ATI bring their Havok system onto the GPU then ultimately one of the systems will fail. Most games now carry the Nvidia logo and they have wasted no time in bringing fizzX to new game releases. It's not looking so good for ATI. @droitwichdosser I guess that was the reason my 9800 pro didn't overclock then (not that my subsequent Nvidia's overclocked much either). ATI catalyst drivers had a long history of instability and compatibility issues. I like running 3d demos from the demoscene and many failed to run on ATI. The ATI drivers also wouldn't load custom gamma settings at startup. I contacted ATI about it and they said they were trying to fix it. Meanwhile a 3rd party app called ATITOOL was able to load custom gamma settings without problem. I also experienced a percentage of games that wouldn't run with my ATI drivers until new versions were released. Also the catalyst drivers would crash constantly. One of my friends has always used ATI (until last year) and he was always uninstalling and reinstalling his ATI drivers because they caused problems in some way. I have never experienced this with the Nvidia drivers. There were far fewer compatibility issues and the drivers were mostly stable for me on Nvidia. Having chosen a budget ATI card for someone recently, it looks like they have improved considerably. I like the built-in overclocking feature on catalyst as well. I don't think I'd have a problem recommending ATI these days. For the time being I stick with Nvidia though because I like this physX thing.

Comment by feathers633 at 11:13am 3rd December 2008

What yo need to do is expand on the 'Pipe dream'. A larger pipe is called a tunnel, and everyone looks for the light at the end of one. So keep optimistic and you never know. Personally I don't give a rat's @#?% about the company name. What I want is something that works and does a good job for the price that I paid for it. In my mind, all high end products are punching way below their monetrey value. I'm running an OC'd Palit 9600GT and it plays everything @1680x1050 on max except Crysis (of course). That card cost me less than £100 six months over six months ago. I don't care about my card being able to run things that aren't even used in most games or even at all. I want the benefits of my purchase now. Not in a years time when my card is half the price.

Comment by PokerMuppet at 11:18am 3rd December 2008

would be if I could buy a dirt cheap 8 series card and run it just for physX while keeping my 4870 for graphics duties. Just a pipe dream...

Comment by mi1ez at 8:26am 3rd December 2008

How is that any different to when PhysX was being conceived by Ageia? Havok runs on the cpu, the whole point of PhysX, with either a dedicated card or on a GPU was that it DIDN'T run on the processor. At the moment EVERY game already has CPU physics, irrespective of whether it is Havok or not. Surely there was a reason for this, and whilst I don't know the reasons why, but I'd wait to see a direct comparison before saying Havok is an equivalent option. The question still remains exactly the same as when Ageia owned physx, is physx better than cpu physics, but from what we have seen so far of physx compared to the cpu based physics in every game out at the moment, yes it is.

Comment by NewParadigm at 5:35am 3rd December 2008

from what i remember back then the 9800s were the cards to have, and i would assume that top of the range ones were pushed to the limit (hence no more Oclocking headroom). I'm also sure that i remember the ATI drivers being alot better than the Nvidia ones at that time, i certainly had no troubles with them :)

Comment by droitwichdosser at 11:23pm 2nd December 2008

There is an alternative solution, Havok Physics on the CPU, where everyone can join the party. Especially as most people's multi-core CPU's are generally sat there doing next to nothing in half the games out there at the moment.

Comment by frontline at 10:12pm 2nd December 2008

Was a 9800 pro 256 smeg with water and peltier cooling. It had almost no overclock capability, a large percentage of games and 3d demos failed to work with it and the drivers were awful. I recently chose an inexpensive ATI for someone on a budget and it was quite impressive. Ran GRID and COD4 very well and overclocked impressively. I guess ATI have improved and they always did offer better value for money. I can't see myself switching to ATI solely because of hardware performance/cost. Phys-X is a big pull for me and I also like the stereoscopic 3d feature of Nvidia once in a while (3d shutter glasses). I have a watercooled 8800gt BFG OC2 which overclocks way beyond the BFG factory overclock. If FizzX takes off then I could get a 2nd 8xxx series GPU to use for fizzics.

Comment by feathers633 at 9:48pm 2nd December 2008

I would rather use ATI, they tend to be at the front with technology (over the long term, it's not as if I was in a cave when the 8800GTX reigned supreme), having been the first to adopt GDDR4, GDDR5 and DX10.1. However, I'm currently running an 8800GT, and even though I'm tempted to upgrade to a 4870, setting aside the fact that my girlfriend would go ballistic, I probably wouldn't. Even though NVidia aren't quite the top right now, they've got the best all round package with games designed for them, PhysX and with the best scores in F@H. Until ATI comes up with a better package all round, I don't think I'll be switching back to them in a hurry. Shame really, as I have very fond memories of my old 9800 Pro.

Comment by TWeaKoR at 8:59pm 2nd December 2008

thats kind of my point. nvidia are using physx in a good way, and as a genuine selling point by getting developers to include hardware acceleration. it not like ATI dont have attractions of their own, its just they arent convincing nearly enough developers to use Dx10.1.

Comment by vulcanproject at 8:47pm 2nd December 2008

Perhaps if ATI offered a via physics solution then you wouldn't have to? At least Nvidia got off their butts and provided a working GPU physics system and also managed to persuade many game developers to adopt it.

Comment by feathers633 at 7:36pm 2nd December 2008

Whilst you can't blame Nvidia for pushing it's own Physics solution, it's just a shame that whenever i see a game being optimised for use on Nvidia cards, i just cross it off my 'to buy' list. Hopefully developers will eventually realise that not all gamers use Nvidia cards.

Comment by frontline at 6:53pm 2nd December 2008

I think the Nvidia tech demos are pretty lame. They look like they were made some time ago and have been sitting around gathering dust. To the "Just Wondering" dude, you won't get FizzX working unless you have Nvidia physics drivers installed and I doubt that is possible with your setup. I remember reading about some hackers who got fizzX working on ATI but that's a whole nuther story. If you have Nvidia drivers installed then you have option to use Ageia PPU or Nvidia GPU for fizzics. You can't use both and I don't think you will get Nvidia physX drivers installed without detection of Nvidia GPU.

Comment by feathers633 at 6:40pm 2nd December 2008

what if any of this download I'm going to be able to play with....I've got an Ageia PPU card and ati graphics?

Comment by technogiant at 6:31pm 2nd December 2008

im glad nvidia have got hold of physx. the idea was great, the idea of using a specialised piece of hardware, was not. nvidia pushing this is only a good thing. makes me wonder why ATI havent done anything to really push DX10.1, looks like nvidia were right on that score too

Comment by vulcanproject at 5:14pm 2nd December 2008

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