Friday, March 20th 2009
AMD to Demonstrate GPU Havok Physics Acceleration at GDC
GPU-accelerated physics is turning out to be the one part of specifications AMD is yearning for. One of NVIDIA's most profitable acquisitions in recent times, has been that of Ageia technologies, and its PhysX middleware API. NVIDIA went on to port the API to its proprietary CUDA GPGPU architecture, and is now using it as a significant PR-tool apart from a feature that is genuinely grabbing game developers' attention. In response to this move, AMD's initial reaction was to build strategic technology alliance with the main competitor of PhysX: Havok, despite its acquisition by Intel.
In the upcoming Game Developers Conference (GDC) event, AMD may materialize its plans to bring a GPU-accelerated version of Havok, which has till now been CPU-accelerated. The API has featured in several popular game titles such as Half Life 2, Max Payne II, and some other Valve Source-based titles. ATI's Terry Makedon, in his Twitter-feed has revealed that AMD would put forth its "ATI GPU Physics strategy." He also added that the company would present a tech-demonstration of Havok technology working in conjunction with ATI hardware. The physics API is expected to utilize OpenCL and AMD Stream.
Source:
bit-tech.net
In the upcoming Game Developers Conference (GDC) event, AMD may materialize its plans to bring a GPU-accelerated version of Havok, which has till now been CPU-accelerated. The API has featured in several popular game titles such as Half Life 2, Max Payne II, and some other Valve Source-based titles. ATI's Terry Makedon, in his Twitter-feed has revealed that AMD would put forth its "ATI GPU Physics strategy." He also added that the company would present a tech-demonstration of Havok technology working in conjunction with ATI hardware. The physics API is expected to utilize OpenCL and AMD Stream.
226 Comments on AMD to Demonstrate GPU Havok Physics Acceleration at GDC
The ATi logos from Valve's games were removed about a year or more ago.
Now the question , is it going to be just as good as physx or better ? i know it's wide spread in a lot of games so it should be the guru of physics but i don't know , hope it's good.
For now physics being hardware or software didn't impressed me in any way , explosions are exagerated by physx or any software/hardware physics engine , graphics effects didn't improved to the point of being much better , it's just a thing there that is hardly noticeable afetr some playing time or anoying with over the top explosions and a stick breaking in 100 pieces.
This rush for physics is not explicable by me , if hardware got so performant to the point every pixel on the image need some physics calculations then go ahead and do it but , games still look like cartoons and trees are made from a few bitmaps.
Well it's the new gimmick that Nvidia has over Ati and will try to make it as important as they can but in reality it's hardly of any matter for the final game , the simple physics we had until now have becomed greatly exagerated and not at all life like , it still looks like a computer generated physics.
Anyway, before I get off-topic too much, they should get some drivers in to invent a technology with Havok to finally counteract with CUDA in F@H or 3DMark. Should we create a thread for codenames if ATI is already underway?
For me, the games I like to play and enjoy and that would really make a deal out of this gpu accelerated physics are... few... those that use PhysX are GRAW 1 & 2, MoH and UT3 and those that use Havok are Assasin's Creed, HL:OB, MoH (also), Saints Row 2 (only X360?) and The Godfather.
And I bet a lot of other gamers play also only a few titles in this sense.
But agree, can anyone show those type of physics aegia bragged about in their videos, in a real game, real situation ?.
Even tho Havok is on pretty much everything(all the consoles have it).
Havok has the big marketshare
PhysX isn't that bad, but once it gets included in more titles and the developers really try and bring it out in games, it would be great.
True, there are a lot of games on each side, but I know that only a few people like to play EVERYTHING... and the rest play a few select games.
In this sense, how much does it really matter?
AMD adopt Havok pretty much proved this.
On topic: I dont like this whole phyzX Vs Havok thing the fact that there will be 2 different API's competing for for dominance. This means some of us are gonna miss out as some games will support havok and others will support phyzx, ATi or nvidia. Developers are not gonna spend the extra cash or dev time to incorporate both in the same game.
And about the episode pack, valve did sport the nvidia logo for a short time awhile after portal came out, they gave nvidia owners a demo of it, woo hoo :rolleyes:
I would love to see what they're gonna do when dx 11 comes out.
Open CL could render phyzx dead.
Physx and havok, I doubt there is much to miss there but moving cloth, so be it a PhysX or Havok game we'll all still be able to experience the best out of all the good games to come.