AMD: 'Why Don’t We Buy Ageia?'

[Grings]

The same guy from AMD (richard huddy, an ATI man) claims in another article that it was intel buying havok that killed off the idea of gpu physics

http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/601677/gpu-physics-dead-says-amd.html

 

[insider]

The same guy from AMD (richard huddy, an ATI man) claims in another article that it was intel buying havok that killed off the idea of gpu physics

http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/601677/gpu-physics-dead-says-amd.html

Of course, Nvidia and ATI could talk to the other big player in physics, Ageia, about accelerating the PhysX API on GPUs, but Huddy claims that this isn’t really an option. ‘We talked to Ageia,’ admits Huddy, ‘and asked them whether they would like our GPU acceleration in the software case, but it would be somewhat embarrassing for them if we run it much faster, and certainly for the eye candy physics we do.’

Huddy pointed out that there are two main categories of physics in games – eye candy and interactive physics that actually change the way in which the game is played. The latter ‘tends to be better done on the CPU, or Ageia would argue the PPU,’ says Huddy, ‘but the rest can all be turfed off onto the GPU.’ Unsurprisingly, Huddy said that ‘Ageia aren’t really enthusiastic about that, because it does show just how much faster we are then them, and it undermines their message, so I see us having quite major problems in that kind of market dynamic.’

Get the picture people?

 

[TheLostSwede]

Their PPU's might not be a great sucess, but you guys forget about the fact that there are quite a few games, not only on the PC, but also on the Xbox that uses Ageia's software, since they have a software physics engine just like Havoc. This would be a nice asset as well and it's a market that's likely to grow, with or without PPU's.

 

[imperialreign]

"If you design it, they will come . . ."

Seriously, though - I really do forsee physics processing becoming a major requirement for games withing the next couple of years. Just over the last 2 years alone we've seen the number of games that use some form of physics well more than double, and notice with each new game title to hit the shelves, the physics are becoming more and more involved as more static meshes and actors are given some form of physics model within the game engine. Take Crysis for example . . . just how much crap could you interact with in some way shape or form? Although, many of the world objects are probably static until they are "touched," but as soon as you've touched them . . . that can easily become a massive load on a CPU.

 

[Darknova]

Hmm....You would think that AMD fired the guy in charge of finances and they now just have a couple of 4 year olds who like shiny things in charge. :\

 

[TheGuruStud]

Also, combine that with running a Phenom with an FSB of 333MHz or faster, suddenly seems quite tasty eh? I bet a Phenom with an FSB to match a C2D at a comparable clock to a C2D would see both CPUs neck and neck. People all too easily forget Phenom is running on a lousy 200MHz.

Bandwidth isn't the issue. AMD doesn't have FSB anymore, it's HT and it's a lot faster than you have imagined. Do some research. The problem is the massive cache allowed to the intel proc.
and L3 latency on the K10.