Did NVIDIA cripple its CPU gaming physics library to spite Intel?

Read the rest at:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...cpu-gaming-physics-library-to-spite-intel.ars

 

They have a website mocking Intel! What did you expect

The competition between Nvidia & Intel is worse than AMD vs Nvidia. But that still doesn't justify what they've done.

 

I agree with a lot of the commentors on the ars page. The technology behind Physx was old. They are aiming to use a newer instruction set in release 3.0 and changing the architecture could result in many bugs for the developers currently using Physx.

I really don't think Nvidia cares that their software doesn't perform well on Intel CPU's but I also don't think they did it intentionally.

 

Whatever they do, heavy PhysX-enhanced titles still need ppu for max performance, hence it all doesn't matter to me. No software is perfect, no corporation is fair. That's the world we live in, so why bother?

 

o yes they did.

 

How can you be so sure? wasn't ageia working on their software like early 2002 so makes sense they used x87, cause sse wasn't so widely used an quite new back then.

 

they need to come out with a new version hands down.

deltatux

 

boll*x, Nvidia cant say they didnt do this intentionally,if they didnt why do they block heavy physx for ati users and why cant we have the same effects for intell/amd cpu's? Its not like our cpu's are underpwered, its obvious its a marketing scam, NVIDIA= ALL YOUR PHYSX ARE BELONG TO US!!!!!!!!

 

Lol :wanker:, Ageia made their physx to run on their hardware like way back in 2002 before widespread use of SSE an used x87 code path. Nvidia are graphics card company, so it's not in their interest to optimize physx to run extremely well on cpu's since theirs nothing in it for them. Why waste their own $$$ an resources to make physx run well on cpu's, they don't make cpu's.

 

Basically, I don't think there's any reason most GPU physx games can't do their effects on a quad core of 6 core processor. I just don't see why. All of Red Faction Guerilla is done on the CPU with Havok and the physics in that game are beyond anything.

Smoke, maybe, I can understand. Smoke has a lot of particles and to make it behave extra-realistically, it would have to be heavily multi-threaded. But stuff bouncing around a room? Come on, a few extra sparks coming off a ricochet? These things are easily doable on the CPU.

There needs to be 3 options for Physx games. Basic, Heavy, and GPU.

Basic is normal stuff like moving boxes, Heavy is sparks and maybe some additional stuff laying around that can be moved or kicked or shot and GPU needs to be for the real hardcore stuff, like Cryostasis' water or Dark void's Smoke.

 

For me the most important question about this matter is:

Who cares about Physx???

 

Why is that even a question? Nearly half of newly released games that run 3rd party physics run PhysX. It's a technology that looks like it's here to stay for quite some time and is probably the most advanced physics platform out (for gaming), not to mention it's completely free to implement.

 

C´mon there are only a handfull of titles tha use Physx and the use of it his almost insignificant, it´s just some "special" effects that have no influence on the gameplay.

So for me, Physx, for now, doens´t really matters.

 

Every Unreal 3 based game uses PhysX, alone that's more than a handful - not to mention others found here:

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_all.html

 

You don't know what Physx is. Physx is not JUST GPU acceleration.

Physx is exactly the same as Havok. It's a ready-made physics implementation that can be put into a game at low cost/easy configuration.

Physx has the option of GPU acceleration, but not all games require or even use it. For instance, Dark Void, Cryostasis, Metro 2033, they use Physx regardless of whether you have an Nvidia GPU or not. However, if you have an Nvidia GPU, you'll get a few extra effects.

 

If NV really hates Intel that much...explain the Ion platform to me. Had no other choice other than to use atom? they make Tegra arm, so i'm sure they could license x86 architecture and make their own CPU or go VIA or PPC.

but regardless, sounds like its too much money to invest R&D just to make sure physx does poorly on INtel cpu's on purpose.

 

Surely Intel can pay game developers a bit extra to avoid Physx

 

but only these require hw acceleration,
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_home.html

still nothing special... half of those games are pos anyway:bang: lol

and its obvious they crippled in and made it singe threaded, or it would compare to gpu levels at some points.
cpu phsyx in Cryostasis is caped at around 13-21fps, i bet if it where multi threaded and in real x86 code those numbers would be much much higher.

 

The article isn't about GPU acceleration. I'm fully aware there are only a few that support the GPU. The point is, there are lots of games that use PhysX and can benefit from having a modern day code base and there will be more in the future.

 

are you serious? NVidia bought Ageia for quite a large sum of money... took over PhysX and implemented it into THEIR Cuda architecture (and as far as i'm aware offered PhysX to ATI, who didn't want anything to do with it)... and you're wondering why they blocked access to ATI, when people were paying out the yang for an ATI card and getting the cheapest NVidia card they could get just to run PhysX? It's not a marketing scam. It's no different from a copyright/patent. Why spend an insane amount of money getting somethign working that you paid an insane amount of money for so your ONLY competition can use it for absolutely zilch? Protection of assets.... not "marketing scam".

Two words.... Crysis: Warhead. or just plain Crysis. Granted the latter was relatively shoddily coded.... but Warhead ran rather well in comparison.... but still at low framerates, and has NO PhysX or hardware-assisted physics for that matter. Yes... it had awesome physics interactions (and some glitchy ones... like being able to rather frequently get the top of a tree to stay in the air).... but did you ever notice that once all hell started to remotely break loose, so did the steady framerate?