Nvidia GPU required for PhysX (Blocked out ATI in Win 7 FAIL)

[jamesrt2004]

http://www.ngohq.com/graphic-cards/16223-nvidia-disables-physx-when-ati-card-is-present.html

Well for all those who have have used Nvidia cards for PhysX and ATI cards to render graphics in Windows 7...All that is about to change.

Since the release of 186 graphics drivers Nvidia has decided to disable PhysX anytime a Non-Nvidia GPU is even present in the same PC. Nvidia again has shot themselves in the foot here and showed they are not customer oriented. Since they are pushing Physx this will not win over any ATI fanboys with this latest decision.

Here is a copy of the email I received from Nvidia support confirming what they have done.

"Hello JC,

Ill explain why this function was disabled.

Physx is an open software standard any company can freely develop hardware or software that supports it. Nvidia supports GPU accelerated Physx on NVIDIA GPUs while using NVIDIA GPUs for graphics. NVIDIA performs extensive Engineering, Development, and QA work that makes Physx a great experience for customers. For a variety of reasons - some development expense some quality assurance and some business reasons NVIDIA will not support GPU accelerated Physx with NVIDIA GPUs while GPU rendering is happening on non- NVIDIA GPUs. I'm sorry for any inconvenience caused but I hope you can understand.

Best Regards,
Troy
NVIDIA Customer Care"

So this really confirms that PhysX will be doomed as an adopted API regardless how hard Nvidia pushes it as a result of action like this.

Well done Nvidia Way to shoot yourself in the foot,

(Admin move to News if can as it wouldn't let me post ..)

 

[qubit]

Incredible. The only real reason for doing this is because of "business reasons" ie to shut out the competition. Period. I agree that PhysX is likely to be doomed by this action.

I'm a long time ati user recently gone nvidia and even I'm not happy about this. Blocking competition is always bad for the consumer.

They should get done for antitrust.

 

[W1zzard]

this is not relevant for most of the users.. only a few use ati + nvidia in one system .. but if nvidia opened it, people would switch in large numbers. it would help them keep their api alive at the cost of lower sales of their high end cards

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I was thinking about this earlier this morning. I'm thinking NVIDIA is on the verge of getting sued (anti-trust style).


Again, I am waiting for Larrabee. Intel bought out Havok which has been used for physics since 2000. Havok could single handedly kill PhysX and Intel most likely won't pick favorites.

 

[jamesrt2004]

this is not relevant for most of the users.. only a few use ati + nvidia in one system .. but if nvidia opened it, people would switch in large numbers. it would help them keep their api alive at the cost of lower sales of their high end cards

I and many other people have ati cards and are thinking about buying a nvidia card just to try out physx, and by locking them/us out they believe we will upgrade to gt300 or w/e AND buy one for physx :/ its ludicris...

I know a lot of nvidia fan boys are even pissed off by them doing this as it's just stupid,

now people who have brought cards will sell them second hand or w/e so nvidia get no money from that and the people who want/have a 4 series or 5 series cards wont buy a nvidia gfx card, its just stupid

I was thinking about this earlier this morning. I'm thinking NVIDIA is on the verge of getting sued (anti-trust style).

Thing is as it's Nvidia's "thing" they can put whatever locks they want on it, BUT they said it's open software/standard so they still might get sued by EU or something.. hope so tbh

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It is okay for small companies to do that but when you have market dominance, it goes from alright to illegal. Since PhysX is the only GPU accelerated technology currently on the market, NVIDIA is in serious threat of having an 800 lb gorilla jump on its back.


If your drivers are shutting out a feature just because of the presence of a rivals product, that is anti-competitive behavior.


PhysX is not an open standard. It is proprietary in hardware (only NVIDIA can make hardware for it) and software (only NVIDIA can update the API). That statement was a blatant lie.

 

[Easo]

Looks so damn idiotic...

 

[jamesrt2004]

It is okay for small companies to do that but when you have market dominance, it goes from alright to illegal. Since PhysX is the only GPU accelerated technology currently on the market, NVIDIA is in serious threat of having an 800 lb gorilla jump on its back.


If your drivers are shutting out a feature just because of the presence of a rivals product, that is anti-competitive behavior.


PhysX is not an open standard. It is proprietary in hardware (only NVIDIA can make hardware for it) and software (only NVIDIA can update the API). That statement was a blatant lie.

I agree with first bit.

and I see so it was just a marketing fail asaying its open etc..

 

[KainXS]

they just accidentally pulled out physx's life support, It was already a doomed API but now its gonna die alot faster.

they're desperate to make sales on their cards now.

 

[hat]

Does anyone actually use physx? I don't...

 

[Mussels]

i use PhysX games, but not hardware physx. even when i had an nvidia card (and my housemate still does) we never enabled it.


The game *has* to run fine without hardware acceleration, which tends to mean there is zero benefit to turning it on - it normally slows the game down with a few added effects that have zero gameplay impact, and is therefore worthless.

 

[newtekie1]

It doesn't matter anyway as several users here have already confirmed that Microsoft disabled the ability to use GPUs from different manufacturers in their latest builds of Win7 anyway, just like Vista.

The ability was only left unlocked in the initial builds made available to the public, the final version will have this ability locked.

 

[qubit]

It doesn't matter anyway as several users here have already confirmed that Microsoft disabled the ability to use GPUs from different manufacturers in their latest builds of Win7 anyway, just like Vista.

The ability was only left unlocked in the initial builds made available to the public, the final version will have this ability locked.

Why would Microsoft want to do this? I can only imagine nvidia wanting to.

 

[Mussels]

Why would Microsoft want to do this? I can only imagine nvidia wanting to.

because it was a major cause of instability with XP, when two video drivers tried to remain active at the same time.

edit: as newtekie said, this was the reasoning for vista. The behaviour seems to have been carried across to windows 7 - time will tell if Nvidia and ATI cards can run together without needing any dodgy hacks.

 

[newtekie1]

because it was a major cause of instability with XP, when two video drivers tried to remain active at the same time.

The same reason they did it with Vista...

 

[jamesrt2004]

It doesn't matter anyway as several users here have already confirmed that Microsoft disabled the ability to use GPUs from different manufacturers in their latest builds of Win7 anyway, just like Vista.

The ability was only left unlocked in the initial builds made available to the public, the final version will have this ability locked.

noo it works ... even in rtm :/ people over at XS have done it

 

[newtekie1]

noo it works ... even in rtm :/ people over at XS have done it

Can you show me?

And even still, I put the blame on ATi for this situation. Once the hacker managed to get physx working on ATi GPUs, nVidia said it would be more than happy to work with ATi to get it officially working, and ATi actually threatened to sue the hacker any anyone else that attempted to get Physx running on ATi cards... It's wouldn't be surprising that after being threatened with lawsuits nVidia took it to the next level and locked out ATi GPUs completely from the picture.

 

[Mussels]

sure, nvidia might have been willing to let them do it - for a big old paycheck.

ATI would have been forced to stop them, because if ATI approved (even with silence) nvidia could have sued their pants off.

 

[newtekie1]

sure, nvidia might have been willing to let them do it - for a big old paycheck.

ATI would have been forced to stop them, because if ATI approved (even with silence) nvidia could have sued their pants off.

According to reports, the royalties would have been pennies per GPU.

Yes, it would have added up to a large sum, but it would also have boosted ATi's sales. As being able to advertise an extra feature always helps sales.

Physx would have only succeeded if it was an open standard that ran on all GPUs, nVidia knows this.

 

[qubit]

And even still, I put the blame on ATi for this situation. Once the hacker managed to get physx working on ATi GPUs, nVidia said it would be more than happy to work with ATi to get it officially working, and ATi actually threatened to sue the hacker any anyone else that attempted to get Physx running on ATi cards... It's wouldn't be surprising that after being threatened with lawsuits nVidia took it to the next level and locked out ATi GPUs completely from the picture.

That's quite enlightening. It's yet another example of how dirty politics gets.

While I'm currently running nvidia, I'd love to have every software standard, including PhysX, run on all hardware.

 

[newtekie1]

That's quite enlightening. It's yet another example of how dirty politics gets.

While I'm currently running nvidia, I'd love to have every software standard, including PhysX, run on all hardware.

Me too, I really wanted Physx to run on ATi, mainly because that is the only way the standard was going to be truly successful.

And I really hate political BS like this, I especially hate it relating to SLi and Crossfire...

 

[KainXS]

Can you show me?

And even still, I put the blame on ATi for this situation. Once the hacker managed to get physx working on ATi GPUs, nVidia said it would be more than happy to work with ATi to get it officially working, and ATi actually threatened to sue the hacker any anyone else that attempted to get Physx running on ATi cards... It's wouldn't be surprising that after being threatened with lawsuits nVidia took it to the next level and locked out ATi GPUs completely from the picture.

If your talking about that ngohq physx crap, there is 0 proof they actually managed to do it, and it was very easy to edit the physx software and get the pictures they had, you can't blame ATI for something that probably never even happened.