AMD and Creative Assembly to Deliver the Ultimate Alien: Isolation Experience

[arbiter]

Wouldn't matter if Mantle was open source - although anyone with any knowledge of tech history would know that AMD are keeping it closed currently to retain a marketing edge. AMD aren't a software company as they've proved many times - you think that if Intel, and particularly Nvidia, with their software teams, had code access they couldn't accelerate the code refining process?
Do you also think that AMD could run the risk of Nvidia tuning Mantle to a degree that it rivals or exceeds what AMD are achieving? What kind of marketing edge does that bestow on a company that developed the API.

Anyhow, as I said it a moot point. Unless the API is truly open - i.e. development and future spec changes are handled by a consortium of partners, neither Intel or Nvidia would sign up for the exact same reason that AMD wouldn't buy into PhysX. The company might be privy to code and its usage but you are trusting development and your future to a competitor which is a big gamble for any company. If you think that is an exaggeration then tech history is littered with similar examples.

I agree, AMD is keeping it closed as long as they can, Hiding behind the "its beta" as an excuse to keep it closed. Nvidia has the resources and the money to take it and pass AMD in very short time if they had.

 

[ZoneDymo]

No one seems to even know if this new Alien: Isolation game will even be worth playing and I see a whole lot of arguing about stuff that seems like arguing for the sake of arguing.

So AMD bought ATI and tried to make the best of it.

So nVidia bought Ageia and tried to make the best of it (PhysX)

So nVidia bought 3DFX and tried to make the best of it (SLI)

So what?

I buy both AMD and nVidia video cards and I just don't care if there is a proprietary subset of features for said cards.

Just for Ageia, "make the best of it" translates here to "fuck over people who bought an Ageia physics card" and "make a propitiatory physics engine that does is nothing but an added gimmick (because it is propitiatory) to make their product seem more appealing but not actually move anything forward at all"

I want Nvidia to make PhysX free to use for all and AMD to make Mantle free to use, you can still have your games start up with "PhysX brought to you by Nvidia" etc to make your advertisement and at last we can make some progress.

Equally nVidia can already beat AMD in games running Mantle anyway. Besides it's AMD trying to make their CPU's more relevant seeing as nVidia don't sell weaker CPU's that play second fiddle to Intel.

With DX12 coming I'd say they have no good reason to support Mantle either.

Price Performance wise (which is the only way you should look at it) AMD is doing quite alright in the cpu department

 

[Relayer]

The problem is a lot of those effects ARE PhysX effects, really the onus should then be on the dev to implement those effects (or cut down versions of) for people who choose to buy an AMD card instead.

PhysX gets a lot of hate but it offers nice effects and as you say realistic physics don't come cheap, but when people start moaning that can't get those effects then frankly the dev and or AMD need to offer a alternative frankly, not nV.

The difference being when AMD adds an effect (TressFX for instance) it is allowed to run on nVidia hardware. AMD stops short of optimizing it for nVidia's hardware, but they don't lock it out of competitor's hardware (which nVidia has done) and even make the source code available.

For the Record Nvidia was open to licensing PhysX, MS and Sony did for xbone/PS4's. AMD refused to purchase a license cause they believed nvidia should gave it out for free and that is kinda stupid for a company to have some net tech and give it away for free. AMD claims to make their stuff open although mantle has been far from it, and their profits are a fraction what nvidia is, wonder why?

The key there is they have to license it and that in and of itself puts limits on their ability to use it. Never mind the cost. AMD offers their stuff without license. You or I can use it, if we want to.

Don't confuse things by injecting PhysX run on the CPU with GPU PhysX. Everyone is discussing GPU PhysX.

Mantle is still in Beta. It's not finished. AMD can't afford to offer the kind of support you have to for a Beta to 7 billion people. They have 70-some-odd devs they are working with now. Resources are not infinite.

Mantle does cost extra cause you have to modify the game code to use it, which also requires more time to debug etc. Most games with mantle now got a check from AMD to add it.

I'll bet you that you can't give a single source to back this claim. I'll save you some time to. Don't bother regurgitating the Fudzilla 5-8 mil article as any kind of proof of anything. First, it has no source. It is simply Fud doing what they do and creating page hits. Second, Even Fud says the payment was exclusive rights to Market BF4. Nowhere does it say that Dice, the people who coded Mantle into the game got anything at all from AMD except support. Mantle is as much Johan's baby as it is AMD's.

 

[ZoneDymo]

take your troll shit to an AMD forums where people will care what you say. there are plenty of games that some what crippled on nvidia hardware cause they are AMD game.

for everyone else lets not feed this troll anymore.

instead of saying "plenty of games", give us a list (preferably with some benchmark proof etc)
(honestly one would assume with what you are responding to you would have done so by default but whatevz)

AMD also said GameWorks particuarly on Watch_Dogs was intentially gimping their performance, but the game runs better on AMD hardware, sure the game is poo, but the whole Forbes AMD is the golden light article was a lie and pure FUD.

With that said, who really cares anyway. /shrug

The fact that it runs better on AMD does not mean its not gimped, if it was for example 50 fps on Nvidia and 80 fps on AMD it could still be that it could have been 100fps on AMD if it was not gimped.
Not saying its the case obviously (but in the sad days we live in today I have to make such a thing clear) but just pointing out it proves nothing.

Guys stop with the "Troll" and "Fanboy" names. Get along or move on or just have a healthy debate with out name calling. This is an AMD thread not an Nvidia thread.

that end sentence perplexes me, could you tell me what you meant by that?

For the Record Nvidia was open to licensing PhysX, MS and Sony did for xbone/PS4's. AMD refused to purchase a license cause they believed nvidia should gave it out for free and that is kinda stupid for a company to have some net tech and give it away for free. AMD claims to make their stuff open although mantle has been far from it, and their profits are a fraction what nvidia is, wonder why?

Well lets first get out of the way that Nvidia bought out a company that was separate, developed it for all who bought their cards, and Nvidia made it for their cards only, alienated a lot from what could have been a great leap in tech development.

and that profit sentence, it always stuns me to see that people speak highly of companies that think of nothing but money rather then the improvement of mankind.
you have no hand in that company, you dont gain anything of it (although maybe you are a shareholder, who knows) yet you approve of methods to make the company earn more but at the same time hold development and evolution back?

Its kinda like EA buying Bullfrog (although there most people agree it was ass), buy out the competition and that's it. Guess we have to approve of EA's action because they are making more money now?
If a company would rise now and it would make a card capable of rendering Ray Tracing in real time and Nvidia would buy it up and make it only work for their card (meaning pretty much not a single game would have be made using it), you would still cheer them on?

 

[esrever]

Wouldn't matter if Mantle was open source - although anyone with any knowledge of tech history would know that AMD are keeping it closed currently to retain a marketing edge. AMD aren't a software company as they've proved many times - you think that if Intel, and particularly Nvidia, with their software teams, had code access they couldn't accelerate the code refining process?
Do you also think that AMD could run the risk of Nvidia tuning Mantle to a degree that it rivals or exceeds what AMD are achieving? What kind of marketing edge does that bestow on a company that developed the API.

Anyhow, as I said it a moot point. Unless the API is truly open - i.e. development and future spec changes are handled by a consortium of partners, neither Intel or Nvidia would sign up for the exact same reason that AMD wouldn't buy into PhysX. The company might be privy to code and its usage but you are trusting development and your future to a competitor which is a big gamble for any company. If you think that is an exaggeration then tech history is littered with similar examples.

Truly open standards already exist in opengl, no point in putting in another. AMD's position with mantle is simply that it allows they to direct where it goes and since they are so close to the hardware, they are able to iterate the API much faster than a truly open standard. OpenGL had years to get all the things mantle has and it will come even slower than DX12 because it needs to worry about opinions from everyone.

Adding people to a project don't just make things faster. Having 2 heads just drives things in different directions a lot of the time. AMD is working with people actually making the games, they don't really need nvidia's input when all nvidia has been doing since mantle's launch is put it down. Anyways, you already seem to have made up your mind about nvidia being somehow superior, there is nowhere to go from there.

If nvidia can make mantle better, they should be pursuing it by asking to get in. They would benefit as well in the long run to not have to be depending on Microsoft. Its unlikely to cost nvidia much and they get to have a checkbox saying "The best mantle support".

 

[HumanSmoke]

Truly open standards already exist in opengl, no point in putting in another.

Nah. I'm going to have to check the "Strongly Disagree" box there.

AMD's position with mantle is simply that it allows they to direct where it goes and since they are so close to the hardware, they are able to iterate the API much faster than a truly open standard.

Nah. They are optimizing for their GCN architecture only. They want a head start before letting anyone else near it (which is understandable), and they certainly aren't coding to help Intel or Nvidia

Adding people to a project don't just make things faster

Having access to the code would still allow Intel and Nvidia to work towards their own implementation even if AMD controls the API - which Huddy is already on record as saying will be the case. The fact that AMD will always control Mantle and be able to change the specification without consultation means that it remains what AMD intended - an AMD feature. Do I disagree with AMD's stance? No. It is what any sane management would do to preserve or increase their visibility in a cut-throat market.
Do AMD do it less than other companies? Yes they do, but then, they aren't a software company. They've always relied upon third parties to develop for them - which is why when their hardware has always been first rate they still can't make serious inroads into the pro markets.

They would benefit as well in the long run to not have to be depending on Microsoft. Its unlikely to cost nvidia much and they get to have a checkbox saying "The best mantle support".

Wouldn't happen. What would stop AMD from revising Mantle just before the release of a major game? AMD already tried the delay tactic with TressFX so it wouldn't be completely out of character

The difference being when AMD adds an effect (TressFX for instance) it is allowed to run on nVidia hardware.

When they had access to it you mean?

UPDATE: I know that some of our readers, and some contacts and NVIDIA, took note of Huddy's comments about TressFX from our interview. Essentially, NVIDIA denied that TressFX was actually made available before the release of Tomb Raider. When I asked AMD for clarification, Richard Huddy provided me with the following statement.
I would like to take the opportunity to correct a false impression that I inadvertently created during the interview. Contrary to what I said, it turns out that TressFX was first published in AMD's SDK _after_ the release of Tomb Raider.

Anyways, you already seem to have made up your mind about nvidia being somehow superior, there is nowhere to go from there.

Well, we're talking about software- and in that context I would say yes they are, as well as general gaming-centric features
Adaptive V-Sync /frame pacing whose solution came first, Nvidia or AMD ?
Global game profiles in the CP - whose solution came first, Nvidia or AMD?
Which gaming SDK came first TWIMTBP or GITG ? (and who stopped their gaming dev program out of lack of interest?)
GeForce Experience or Raptr - which came first ?
Shadowplay or Game DVR - which came first ?
Nvidia CUDA or AMD OpenCL ? Which came first and which has added more value to the respective portfolio ?

The fact that some of AMD's answers for Nvidia's software - and Mantle itself for that matter - have more input from third party devs than AMD itself should be a fairly good indicator in itself on the relative strengths of the software teams, and that 's without adding in the pro software suites like OptiX, SceniX, and CompleX, and their Mental Ray and iRay ray tracing programs ( do AMD have comparable software suites....or any software suites outside of an OpenCL kit?), or PhysX program..........so yeah, on the balance of the evidence I'd say that Nvidia's dev's are superior to AMD's when it comes to software, so call it what you want, but the self evident range of software is a fact, not an opinion.

 

[Arjai]

To all of you folks that have GPU experience that is much greater than mine own, this is interesting. However, how germain are some of these arguments?

I am not a fanboi of either color. I have AMD cpu's, Nvidia cards and Intel CPU's.

If AMD works with a Game developer, is it not good? It is. Mantle is a real thing. Why must people shoot it down? If I were able, I see no reason not to buy a 290. Sure, a 780ti is also a good card. But, do either suck?

NO.

I understand the reason to debate. But, talking shit is only that.

Be civil, not everybody has to agree with you, rarely will they.

Does not mean they are stupid or ignorant.

Can we all just get along? As the Breeders sang so well?

 

[LeonVolcove]

I hope that i dont have to buy a $300 VGA(AMD or Nvidia) just to play this game at medium/higher and 1080p

 

[The Von Matrices]

I hope that i dont have to buy a $300 VGA(AMD or Nvidia) just to play this game at medium/higher and 1080p

This is the same thinking that gives the Crysis franchise a bad name; you need to look at overall graphical fidelity rather than arbitrary names for settings.

If your current card can run the game only on "low" settings yet "low" still looks better than any other game, would that be a problem? Essentially, you're asking them to put a cap on graphical fidelity so that you have the ability to say that you run the game on "medium/high."

 

[Relayer]

When they had access to it you mean?


UPDATE: I know that some of our readers, and some contacts and NVIDIA, took note of Huddy's comments about TressFX from our interview. Essentially, NVIDIA denied that TressFX was actually made available before the release of Tomb Raider. When I asked AMD for clarification, Richard Huddy provided me with the following statement.
I would like to take the opportunity to correct a false impression that I inadvertently created during the interview.Contrary to what I said, it turns out that TressFX was first published in AMD's SDK _after_ the release of Tomb Raider.

I see you are one of these posters that claims to be refuting what someone said by posting a response that doesn't actually address their position.


I never said they released TressFX source before Tomb Raider was released. They have released it though and nVidia has been able to optimize their drivers for it. When is the Game Works source going to be made public so AMD and Intel can do the same?

 

[HumanSmoke]

I see you are one of these posters that claims to be refuting what someone said by posting a response that doesn't actually address their position.

I refuted nothing. What I did was point out that while AMD does allow access to its TressFX code, it was delayed in order to gain a slim marketing advantage upon release. You are talking absolutes - Yes/No. I'm including that area that exists in between.

When is the Game Works source going to be made public so AMD and Intel can do the same?

Probably never, but then why would I think otherwise? For some reason you seem to think a standard marketing strategy is somehow unheard of for AMD and that anyone suggesting such a thing is deriding the company. That is not the case - as I mentioned above if you could get past the red mist in front of you.

They want a head start before letting anyone else near it (which is understandable), and they certainly aren't coding to help Intel or Nvidia......[snip].....Do I disagree with AMD's stance? No. It is what any sane management would do to preserve or increase their visibility in a cut-throat market.

If anything AMD need to show a bit more mongrel. If they plan on taking the world by storm they certainly wont achieve it by playing mister nice guy -although that is a relative term in the tech industry in any case.

 

[Relayer]

I don't advocate cutthroat marketing in order to create some artificial hardware advantage. I'm on our side, the consumer, the ones who pay the bills. I'm not going to give props to nVidia for screwing over half the gamers in the world for their own gains. Just imagine if all the players did this. It's divisive and taken to it's logical conclusion would destroy the game industry through fragmentation.

 

[HumanSmoke]

I don't advocate cutthroat marketing in order to create some artificial hardware advantage. I'm on our side, the consumer, the ones who pay the bills. I'm not going to give props to nVidia for screwing over half the gamers in the world for their own gains. Just imagine if all the players did this. It's divisive and taken to it's logical conclusion would destroy the game industry through fragmentation.

But you're perfectly OK with AMD withholding code at and after game launch, just so long as it is made available at some point in the future. That's a pretty narrow distinction at best given the effective lifespan of the current crop of PC games.

 

[arbiter]

But you're perfectly OK with AMD withholding code at and after game launch, just so long as it is made available at some point in the future. That's a pretty narrow distinction at best given the effective lifespan of the current crop of PC games.

Funny how AMD does it its fine no problem, nvidia does it and all amd fans come out in droves attacking. Game works source is available to license out same with physx but amd doesn't feel like they have to pay for it.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Funny how AMD does it its fine no problem, nvidia does it and all amd fans come out in droves attacking. Game works source is available to license out same with physx but amd doesn't feel like they have to pay for it.

It's always been this way. Some Nvidia fans act out in the same way. The primary difference I've noticed is that everyone knows and largely agrees that Nvidia has faults and runs an aggressive business model (they wouldn't have survived otherwise- certainly no other discrete graphics maker has managed to grow their business since the mid-nineties), but for some reason AMD is always given a pass - being an "underdog" absolves a few sins it would seem. Given that the company has in the past been found guilty of price fixing, false advertising, IP theft, and a company president who voted himself company stock options without the board being aware of the fact, it seems that guerrilla marketing does actually work. Of course it still pales alongside the predatory tactics of Intel, Samsung, and most Japanese electronics companies that got their start through blatant theft of U.S. semicon IP, but neither is it as lily white as some paint it.

I think PhysX is now a part of Gameworks. Nvidia has had sample code available for download for some time if anyone were really interested.

 

[Recus]

Wow, you found one single game after looking for it for 3 hours. I can tell you 50 games ruined by NVIDIA right now. And TressFX just makes fuckin hair look nice. How does that affect you as an NVIDIA user? I'm AMD user and i don't give a shit about it.

There in more than 20 GPU Physx games not 50. If so I also can find 50 games which ruined by AMD. And Physx makes particles act like in real world. How does that affect you as an AMD user? You can't enable them so you don't lose performance. That's the problem?

Spoiler

I doubt this game will be good since AVP sucked hard and seeing from the trailer that was released a while ago it seemed slow paced.

You can hide and avoid from alien. Aliens philosophy is you can't hide from them.

Trolls don't give valid arguments mind you. When has AMD removed (one thing is adding exclusive efects and another removing those that have been present in games since the early age of PC gaming) entire effects just to make their shit look better? For NVIDIA, that's prety much every single PhysX powered game from Mirror's Edge to Alice's Madness Returns to Batman Arkham, Watch_Dogs and the list can go on and on. Because no one in this friggin world will convience me that my system without HW PhysX is incapable of rendering some shitty shattered glass on the ground. Play some Mirror's Edge or Watch_Dogs and then play Red Faction from year 2001. Be amazed, the most realistic glass shattering even for today's standards done on a friggin single core CPU with clocks hardly surpassing 1GHz mark. And NVIDIA wants me to believe my 4GHz quad core can't do it today. Up yours NVIDIA.

Watch_Dogs doesn't use Physx.

Here is your glass

Spoiler

I buy whatever price suggests and the company general attitude towards gaming scene. NVIDIA is just ruining it with their anal pushing of "exclusive" proprietary crap. I'd never mind anything PhysX related. Like liquid simulations or some other heavy particles shit that actually needs horsepower to calculate. But when they start removing shattered glass on the ground, fog and smoke effects altogether, removing flying debris like pieces of paper carried by wind for anyone other than GeForce users, that's the kind of company i don't want to support to even encourage them to continue with their crap. Actually i don't mind ANY kind of proprietary crap for as long as someone doesn't go and intentionally dumb down the base game and effects. be it AMD or NVIDIA. Add crazy effects that only work on Geforce or Radeon cards, but for the love of God, don't remove stuff that we had in games for decades just to make your proprietary crap look so awesome and spectacular. NVIDIA is especially obsessed with their side to side comparison videos which always make me vomit. Fancy floating smoke on one side and blank vent on the other. At least make a static smoke efefct there, is that too much to ask, every bloody game from the 90's had that. Glass shattering and falling on the ground, staying there on one side and on the other glass shattering and disappearing in thin air even before it hits the ground. That's the kind of bullshit i hate, not the proprietary stuff itself.

About what removing you are talking about?

For the Record Nvidia was open to licensing PhysX, MS and Sony did for xbone/PS4's. AMD refused to purchase a license cause they believed nvidia should gave it out for free and that is kinda stupid for a company to have some net tech and give it away for free. AMD claims to make their stuff open although mantle has been far from it, and their profits are a fraction what nvidia is, wonder why?

AMD labels products as free but you must pay for them. For FreeSync you will need new monitor. Free HSA.

AMD never refused to purchase a license for physx, physx was just never relevant enough in gaming for AMD to bother. AMD always seem to have no problem putting other companies' IPs into their designs, they just don't bother putting physx in because there is no good reason to.

AMD and fanboys philosophy is simple: "If AMD doesn't support it, it must die".
http://physxinfo.com/news/2279/amd-and-physx-history-of-the-problem/

I'll bet you that you can't give a single source to back this claim. I'll save you some time to. Don't bother regurgitating the Fudzilla 5-8 mil article as any kind of proof of anything. First, it has no source. It is simply Fud doing what they do and creating page hits. Second, Even Fud says the payment was exclusive rights to Market BF4. Nowhere does it say that Dice, the people who coded Mantle into the game got anything at all from AMD except support. Mantle is as much Johan's baby as it is AMD's.

AMD also said that developers asked them to make something like Mantle but haven't named those developers. So such claim is also could be BS.

Well lets first get out of the way that Nvidia bought out a company that was separate, developed it for all who bought their cards, and Nvidia made it for their cards only, alienated a lot from what could have been a great leap in tech development.

and that profit sentence, it always stuns me to see that people speak highly of companies that think of nothing but money rather then the improvement of mankind.
you have no hand in that company, you dont gain anything of it (although maybe you are a shareholder, who knows) yet you approve of methods to make the company earn more but at the same time hold development and evolution back?

Its kinda like EA buying Bullfrog (although there most people agree it was ass), buy out the competition and that's it. Guess we have to approve of EA's action because they are making more money now?
If a company would rise now and it would make a card capable of rendering Ray Tracing in real time and Nvidia would buy it up and make it only work for their card (meaning pretty much not a single game would have be made using it), you would still cheer them on?

So why not just buy Nvidia GPU and save mankind?

 

[jigar2speed]

AMD labels products as free but you must pay for them. For FreeSync you will need new monitor. Free HSA.

AMD and fanboys philosophy is simple: "If AMD doesn't support it, it must die".
http://physxinfo.com/news/2279/amd-and-physx-history-of-the-problem/

AMD also said that developers asked them to make something like Mantle but haven't named those developers. So such claim is also could be BS.



So why not just buy Nvidia GPU and save mankind?

WOW Recus, did you just mixed up HSA to Mantle ??? Are you seriously that high with Nvidia cool aid ??

Can you explain why apart from Nvidia and Intel - almost every big gun is a part of HSA foundation ???

 

[Mindweaver]

that end sentence perplexes me, could you tell me what you meant by that?

It means that this is not a "Nvidia" or "AMD" is better thread. This is a news thread. Also, in the future edit your post do not double post.

 

[Relayer]

AMD also said that developers asked them to make something like Mantle but haven't named those developers. So such claim is also could be BS.

What does this have to do with AMD paying every developer that's using Mantle?

Chris Roberts and Johan Andersson are both on record stating that they had asked for a low level API approach from Msft and were turned down.

 

[RejZoR]

Ahahahaha, realistic particles. Ahahaha. Anyone remembers the lightning bolt tech demo for GeForce 2 back in its days. That was done on a non-pixel shaded graphic card and single core processors way below 1GHz mark. And it looked wicked sick back then and still does today.

Or the InstaGib mod for Quake 3 Arena. When the railgun hit the wall, hundreds of sparks were flying around and they were physically affected (bouncing off walls and ground depending on angle). And that was like 15 years ago... Showing some sparks today as something amazing is just laughable.

I still can't believe how people fall for the "uh oh you need GPU to calculate that". You just don't. Glass shatering and geometry destruction in Red Faction (2001) is one proof. It's age is another proof by itself. Or wall destruction in Red Ocean game. Old and a bit crappy but some walls were so awesome when being shot at. Or the liquids simulation in Portal 2 where you shoot that goo around. The liquid actually looks really amazing and the blobs interact with eachother in incredibly realistic way. Realistic water? Play Hydrophobia and be amazed. Rooms getting filled with water as waves flush you through corridors. Released in 2010/2011 and is not using any of the HW accelerated physics crap.

People would be so amazed how much stuff you can calculate with just CPU and since quad cores are pretty standard today, you get the point...

 

[Ferrum Master]

I just imagined AMD joining with Creative Labs...

They would be the worst driver makers in the whole galaxy with not even a close competitor

 

[jigar2speed]

I just imagined AMD joining with Creative Labs...

They would be the worst driver makers in the whole galaxy with not even a close competitor

You should meet the zonar audio cards driver team - you will simply fall in love with Creative labs drivers.

 

[Recus]

WOW Recus, did you just mixed up HSA to Mantle ??? Are you seriously that high with Nvidia cool aid ??

Can you explain why apart from Nvidia and Intel - almost every big gun is a part of HSA foundation ???

You must overdose AMD cool aid because I never did that.

Here Nike and Fly Emirates logos. Does it mean they are in football? No they are sponsors.

What does this have to do with AMD paying every developer that's using Mantle?

Chris Roberts and Johan Andersson are both on record stating that they had asked for a low level API approach from Msft and were turned down.

I was referring to "Mantle does cost extra cause you have to modify the game code to use it".

Ahahahaha, realistic particles. Ahahaha. Anyone remembers the lightning bolt tech demo for GeForce 2 back in its days. That was done on a non-pixel shaded graphic card and single core processors way below 1GHz mark. And it looked wicked sick back then and still does today.

Or the InstaGib mod for Quake 3 Arena. When the railgun hit the wall, hundreds of sparks were flying around and they were physically affected (bouncing off walls and ground depending on angle). And that was like 15 years ago... Showing some sparks today as something amazing is just laughable.

I still can't believe how people fall for the "uh oh you need GPU to calculate that". You just don't. Glass shatering and geometry destruction in Red Faction (2001) is one proof. It's age is another proof by itself. Or wall destruction in Red Ocean game. Old and a bit crappy but some walls were so awesome when being shot at. Or the liquids simulation in Portal 2 where you shoot that goo around. The liquid actually looks really amazing and the blobs interact with eachother in incredibly realistic way. Realistic water? Play Hydrophobia and be amazed. Rooms getting filled with water as waves flush you through corridors. Released in 2010/2011 and is not using any of the HW accelerated physics crap.

People would be so amazed how much stuff you can calculate with just CPU and since quad cores are pretty standard today, you get the point...

What?

In case you missed but same effects to make in these days require a lot more compute power. That's why there is 4 cores CPUs, maybe GPUs someday if you let go your belief.

 

[RejZoR]

You should meet the zonar audio cards driver team - you will simply fall in love with Creative labs drivers.

This. I had the ASUS Xonar Essence STX and i hate it. Awesome sound quality ruined by shitty drivers. I actually had less problems with all Creative cards combined from SB Live! 5.1 up to current SB Z compared to that STX. Bugged control panel with god awful ugly trey icon that i had to hack by myself using icon designed by me (black icon with white STX text) to constant and continuous game crashes because of GX2 mode which was also very buggy as EAX efefcts never worked as they should when applied (unlike ALchemy which still works flawlessly). And driver updates were just as sporadic as with Creative. But like i said, with so little problems, i can live with rare driver updates.

@Recus
I said InstaGib mod, not instagib mode. It was a special mod that allowed you to add railgun reflection (shooting around corners) and it also allowed hit particles. If you missed the target and hit the wall, shitloads of sparks were emitted from the blast and they bounced off the walls and ground. Unfortunately i can't find any videos on YT. But i know it existed, because i was playing it a lot. You could also make the railgun look the way it was in Quake 2 with that spiral around it when fired. Might be the CorkScrew mod, not sure.

And yet again, NO, you don't need 4 cores to do the same effects or at least get simillar end effect. The difference is, PhysX wants to calculate physics accurate to 50 decimals, in the old days, they've done it to 1 decimal. Even if they'd do it to just 2 these days, hardly anyone would ever notice, yet we could have awesome destructive and interactive worlds as standard instead of static shit we still have on quad cores in freakin year 2014.

Proof are Red Faction 3 and later games. Sure physics were a bit funky sometimes, but they were doing full world destruction model. Which is freakin amazing by itself even if it sometimes does something stupid. Once you taste such stuff done on CPU alone, you feel like returning to 1985 when you play other games that don't have any of that and shooting a bazooka or blowing up C4 does absolutely nothing to the world.

 

[hardcore_gamer]

What about all those PS4 and Xbox one games ruined by AMD ? They only run on AMD hardware.