After NVIDIA acquired game distributor Electronic Arts to the physics acceleration technology PhysX many have been preparing themselves for similar announcements from other game developers. AMD has instead decided to hand out some hard blows by foreseeing the death of PhysX, which is said to be unavoidable if it is not made an open standard. It claims that Havok is the standard that both AMD and game developers at large prefers, something that raises some questions about why EA and 2K Games recently licensed the PhysX technology.
In an interview with Bit-tech.net AMD’s Godfrey Cheng also hands out some harsh words against NVIDIA and PhysX view of GPU accelerated physics;
”It should be noted that title support for GPU accelerated physics simulation is NOT the end game. The end game is having GPU physics as an integral part of game play and not just eye candy. If it is optional eye candy, GPU physics will not gain traction. The titles we have seen today with shattering glass and cloth waving in the wind is not integral to game play and the impact on the game’s experience is minimal. We are looking for ways to integrate GPU physics better into game play. Or even things like AI instead of focusing on eye candy / effects physics.”
There are some truths to what Cheng is saying, but at the same time we are waiting to see some sort of Havok effects on ATI’s Radeon series. Even if NIVIDA is nowhere near the full potential of PhysX it still has more to show than AMD does at the moment. We will have to wait and see how this develops.
