Nvidia: Hybrid PhysX Is Technically Impossible

[Final8ty]

Once it is done, it doesn't take much to detect if an NV card is the main card. The only thing that are getting it to work are hacks, which might take a bit of man power to control, but alot less than making sure their are no compatibility issues with competitors hardware.

Making it work with AMD cards is a more complex issue because it is a driver to a different driver issue. AMD cards have to communicate with NV cards over resources. I would imagine such allocating would be alot easier when NV knows their drivers so well and it is entirely NV hardware.

Not getting it to work on AMD hardware when it is the primary videocard is simply a matter of detecting if an AMD card is the primary videocard, a very simple task. Simply update the detection for new AMD cards and you don't have something that takes much work.

PhysX only value to Nvidia is a marketing tool and when you allow the competitors to use that exclusive feature, then you have something that is lower than worthless, as it cost money to run and you are just helping out the competition.

If there is a driver to driver issue then NV would have to state that there cards are not compatible with other makes of GPUs in the system period, & not just BS under PhysX.

The competitor is not using the exclusive feature as its not running on the competitors hardware & neither is the competitors hardware aware of PhysX running.
And if competitors wanted to play the same game as NV & your views then AMD/ATI should be doing the same & block NV cards running on AMD mobos because that would make things fair & equal.
Why should AMD invest time & money in a product that there competition can benefit from.

[Eastcoasthandle]

so, is it possible to setup gtx480 (primary card) and HD5970 as secondary?
will it bottleneck?

That doesn't make much sense

[saaya]

they should be more honest imo...
i dont get what the big deal is...

their statement should read: "customer satisfaction is of utmost importance to us, since we cannot possibly validate and support all system configurations, we disabled physix support on unsupported and not validated platforms. We feel this is in the best interest of our customers since we dont want you, our customers, to experience compatibility and performance issues that are possible on non validated platforms. If you have any further questions or would like us to add support for other platform configurations please contact our support"

there, was that so hard?
even if the demand is big, they can still CHOOSE to ignore it... but they will know how big the demand is and can make an EDUCATED decision based on facts...
instead they come up with wild theories and open an Xfile everytime they get asked a question they dont want to answer...
they should at least PRETEND they care about their customers and listen to them...
total marketing/pr fail once again

with stupid statements like this they only wind up customers and annoy them and drive them to the red camp...

[tajoh111]

If there is a driver to driver issue then NV would have to state that there cards are not compatible with other makes of GPUs in the system period, & not just BS under PhysX.

The competitor is not using the exclusive feature as its not running on the competitors hardware & neither is the competitors hardware aware of PhysX running.
And if competitors wanted to play the same game as NV & your views then AMD/ATI should be doing the same & block NV cards running on AMD mobos because that would make things fair & equal.
Why should AMD invest time & money in a product that there competition can benefit from.

Blocking NV hardware on the AMD CPU platform would do them far more harm then good. AMD is already an inferior platform to the general public compared to Intel. They would be shooting themselves in the foot, then putting a bomb on it whenever NV came out with new hardware. If NV came out with substantially superior videocard hardware, then AMD would be screwed. Especially to the gaming population, the videocard is the most important component and is enough to screw a CPU platform over for. Hell, the success financially of SLI supporting chipsets in the past is proof enough of this. AMD knows alot of NV card owners are very loyal and the Intel platform is not exactly crappy at games.

Something like physX is a marketing feature that is considered non essential. Having more than one brand of videocard work in a system is completely essential feature for everyone except the most hardened fanboy.

Additionally it a totally different scenario. Chipsets and x86 CPU are stable enough, that once the standards are set, all the work done for the maintanence of the GPU hardware is usually done by NV and ATI and generally the rest of the companies. Very little is done on the CPU end for maintanance, hence the little to no need for CPU drivers. Everyone else is doing the work to get stuff to work with the CPU.

[Hockster]

Who really cares? Physx is supported in what, 15 games? WHOOP DEE EFFING DO. Other than Batman AA, and maybe UT3, does anyone even play any of these games anymore? Or ever?
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_home.html

[Final8ty]

Blocking NV hardware on the AMD CPU platform would do them far more harm then good. AMD is already an inferior platform to the general public compared to Intel. They would be shooting themselves in the foot, then putting a bomb on it whenever NV came out with new hardware. If NV came out with substantially superior videocard hardware, then AMD would be screwed. Especially to the gaming population, the videocard is the most important component and is enough to screw a CPU platform over for. Hell, the success financially of SLI supporting chipsets in the past is proof enough of this. AMD knows alot of NV card owners are very loyal and the Intel platform is not exactly crappy at games.

Something like physX is a marketing feature that is considered non essential. Having more than one brand of videocard work in a system is completely essential feature for everyone except the most hardened fanboy.

Additionally it a totally different scenario. Chipsets and x86 CPU are stable enough, that once the standards are set, all the work done for the maintanence of the GPU hardware is usually done by NV and ATI and generally the rest of the companies. Very little is done on the CPU end for maintanance, hence the little to no need for CPU drivers. Everyone else is doing the work to get stuff to work with the CPU.

The general public do not see AMD as inferior platform as it more a case of awareness & the same goes for the GPU at non enthusiast level.
So the only people who would care are enthusiasts that the high end NV card does not work & only the minority would want to pay the premium anyway & AMD would be quite capable of staggering support for NV cards if they felt the need to as not all are willing to drop everything to have the fastest or best as then everyone would of been using 5970s before now & many people buy what is compatable with what they already have which is exactly what NVs strategy is with PhysX & its 3D implementations regardless if there cards are superior or not, that's the point of lock-in.

[tajoh111]

The general public do not see AMD as inferior platform as it more a case of awareness & the same goes for the GPU at non enthusiast level.
So the only people who would care are enthusiasts that the high end NV card does not work & only the minority would want to pay the premium anyway & AMD would be quite capable of staggering support for NV cards if they felt the need to as not all are willing to drop everything to have the fastest or best as then everyone would of been using 5970s before now & many people buy what is compatable with what they already have which is exactly what NVs strategy is with PhysX & its 3D implementations regardless if there cards are superior or not, that's the point of lock-in.

Right.......

Whether it is a case of awareness does change the fact the general public likes intel more than AMD. If the public buys more Intel, even if AMD did perform, what matters most? The dollars spent of course.

[Final8ty]

Right.......

Whether it is a case of awareness is the same thing. The general public likes intel more than AMD.

To like something or not to like requires that you first know about it.
So no the like more is the wrong definition.

[tajoh111]

To like something or not to like requires that you first know about it.
So no the like more is the wrong definition.

Not particularly, case in point which most of us can agree on is Apple products. People are willing to pay extra money, most do it for image reason, not the hardware. Same thing with pretty much any high end brand.

All of marketing is to take advantage of the public's ignorance. The general consumer rarely knows everything they are getting when they are making a purchase.

If you talk to alot of people, they still associate AMD platform as junk and budget. This might have been true a couple years ago, but it has made strides. But at the same time, the marketshare has not moved with it.

[Final8ty]

Not particularly, case in point which most of us can agree on is Apple products. People are willing to pay extra money, most do it for image reason, not the hardware. Same thing with pretty much any high end brand.

All of marketing is to take advantage of the public's ignorance. The general consumer rarely knows everything they are getting when they are making a purchase.

If you talk to alot of people, they still associate AMD platform as junk and budget. This might have been true a couple years ago, but it has made strides. But at the same time, the marketshare has not moved with it.

I think you replied to the wrong quote.

The only people who associate AMD platform as junk and budget are people who know about them.
You cant form an opinion on or buy something that you don't know the existence of.

[aztec]

Wrong. You can run PhysX on one card only if it's powerful enough...ie a GTX 285/470/480 etc.

Which may be more card than you needed/intended, and/or runs like with single card PhysX anyway. Put down the Nv crack pipe, yo.

[Xoulz]

Still, no free eyecandy for you guys. Beggars can't be choosers. Be glad it's still hackable. We can argue as long as we want, it's their tech and they can do whatever they want with it, especially when they are giving it out for free. If someone here has paid money for PhysX technology and the hardware is still under warranty or they were promised in writing that it will be supported forever and all future games will be compatible with it, raise your hand! And I will pay the legal fees for a lawsuit against Nvidia.

Many here forget, that the core aspect of physx (Ageia) is not governed by the GPU PhysX middleware.

CPU rendered PhysX happens every day on all types of systems. Unrelated to what video card you have. I had to install PhysX on my system to beta test Mortal Online. I have a 4870. But this PhysX renders on CPU & quite well.


Katia, u are too sucked up in the marketing. It is technically possible. Therefore, Nvidia's statement is nothing other than lip-service. A lie. The reason's don't matter. They lied!

Secondly, Nvidia doesn't want physx near the CPU.. if that happens, or Open standard come to fruition (under Windows 7), then Nvidia ceases to exist in the PC market. So.. they really don't want to pimp PhysX as a multi-platform technology just yet... some people still believe the hype.

[trinibwoy]

Nvidia pimps PhysX as multi-platform all the time. As a matter of fact the only hardware they don't tout is AMD GPU's.

[Carfax]

So that excuse is void.

Void to you perhaps, but you're thinking like a disgruntled consumer rather than a major corporation with liability and marketing concerns.

Nvidia would never do what you suggest, since PhysX is an open standard software that can be licensed for practically nothing by any company that wants to use it.

AMD could even conceivably make their own drivers using CUDA (with little or no cost) that take advantage of PhysX without using Nvidia hardware..

With that said, what incentive does Nvidia have to do AMD's work for them when AMD can do it themselves if they wanted?

I also find it absurdly ironic and laughable that AMD would rather partner with their biggest competitor Intel (Havok) than Nvidia when it comes to developing game physics..

[Katanai]

Katia, u are too sucked up in the marketing. It is technically possible. Therefore, Nvidia's statement is nothing other than lip-service. A lie. The reason's don't matter. They lied!

Secondly, Nvidia doesn't want physx near the CPU.. if that happens, or Open standard come to fruition (under Windows 7), then Nvidia ceases to exist in the PC market. So.. they really don't want to pimp PhysX as a multi-platform technology just yet... some people still believe the hype.

First of all Xena, my name is not Katia. Second: you are the one sucked up here. Sucked up by a thread title. Do read that statement from Nvidia and tell me where it says it's technically impossible. I dunno, we're all sitting here and argue because Regeneration, whoever that might be, just posted some random piece out of a Nvidia FAQ with a bombastic title to incite some flame wars...

[Carfax]

your point would be valid if say some1 made physX work on an ati gpu but that isnt happening.

This is the best route for AMD to take. They could use CUDA to develop their own drivers for PhysX if they wanted to, with very little if any cost..

But nooooo. They prefer to partner with Intel's Havok instead

[Carfax]

If you want crappy performance, sure.

Not necessarily. Depending on what resolution you game at, even the lowly GTS 250 is enough to get full blown PhysX in Batman Arkham Asylum at very playable frames.

[Carfax]

Which may be more card than you needed/intended, and/or runs like with single card PhysX anyway. Put down the Nv crack pipe, yo.

LOL, you can spin it whatever way you want, it still doesn't validate your comment

And single cards can easily run both PhysX and 3D depending on what resolution you game at.

[Carfax]

First of all Xena, my name is not Katia

Made me laugh

[Andrew LB]

And that point has already been answered with a plausible solution that NV does not have to.

There are many times that Officially supported is used to mean that if it works unofficially then so be it, but if it does not then there is no obligation to fix it in unofficial circumstances & you see that with allot of software & games with what OS version is Officially supported, but they don't deliberately block it from installing because its not on the official OS list.

I have more games & software ruining on Windows 7 64bit that are not Officially supported than ones that are.
So that excuse is void.

In addition to his point regarding driver support, the fact that nVidia bought the patent for physX just like SLI, and they have every right to keep these technologies restricted to being used on their own hardware. Now i'm sure if ATi were to write a nice fat check to nVidia for usage rights for said technologies, you just might see them chance their current position on this matter.

[saaya]

This is the best route for AMD to take. They could use CUDA to develop their own drivers for PhysX if they wanted to, with very little if any cost..

But nooooo. They prefer to partner with Intel's Havok instead

and you blame them? who HASNT nvidia burned or tried to burn in recent years?

Not necessarily. Depending on what resolution you game at, even the lowly GTS 250 is enough to get full blown PhysX in Batman Arkham Asylum at very playable frames.

bs... if you set physix to max even a dedicated 250 isnt enough... even with a dedicated 260 the fps drop below 30 in physix heavy scenes... if those scenes would look mouthwatering, who would care... but they dont... not at all...

gpu physix are dead imo... gpu physix this and that... all the hype... for almost 10 years now... and still, today gpu physics cant offer anything worth the effort that cpu physix couldnt do as well...

sure the gpu CAN do physix as well, im sure there are a lot of things it can do better than a cpu... but do those things really matter and add value to a game that is in any reasonable ratio to the work it requires to implement? clearly not...

if you spend enough time and work, you can probably do all kinds of things on a gpu, heck, people even manage to get windows xp running on old game consoles if they have enough time on their hands... but whats the point?

on one hand nvidia pimps physix as THE physics tool to use... that works on all sorts of platforms and processors...
and then on the other hand limits its use artificially... lol
and they dont even limit it to not run on ati hardware, which would be understandable... they block any platforms that use an ati vga...
which causes the same developers that actually support physix and especially gpu physix, a headache...
cause they artificially limit the customer base that can actually use the effects they spend so much time on implementing...

[Cookiesowns]

Nvidia wouldn't have to support ATI/AMD with physics, but they sure as hell shouldn't restrict ATI users from being able to use physics.

They should just add a disclaimer saying that "we do not support the use of a non-nvidia primary display adapter running side with Nvidia Physics, bla bla bla, bs"

My take is that, it would kinda be like AMD forcing users of AMD CPU's to use only ATI vid cards on their platform, would they do that? HELL NO, it would hurt their marketshare.

[seamumc]

There's a lot a heat in this thread but here's my 2 cents:

This move can only hurt PhysX adoption. When there's a possibility that machines with either NVidia or ATI gpu's can have it a developer has more incentive to allocate valuable resources to use it.

Of course even with Nvidia's incentive program not many developers are supporting it. Ultimately its a fairly poor tech and does not increase game sales.

This whole discussion is silly as only a handful of folks get dedicated cards for PhysX in the first place. This isn't going to affect NVidia's bottom line at all. PhysX will continue to be nothing more then a checkbox on the spec list for NVidia cards for 99.9% of the folks buying NVidia GPU's.

[Final8ty]

In addition to his point regarding driver support, the fact that nVidia bought the patent for physX just like SLI, and they have every right to keep these technologies restricted to being used on their own hardware. Now i'm sure if ATi were to write a nice fat check to nVidia for usage rights for said technologies, you just might see them chance their current position on this matter.

PhysX is restricted & only runs on NV hardware anyway so you have no point at all.

[Final8ty]

Void to you perhaps, but you're thinking like a disgruntled consumer rather than a major corporation with liability and marketing concerns.

Nvidia would never do what you suggest, since PhysX is an open standard software that can be licensed for practically nothing by any company that wants to use it.

AMD could even conceivably make their own drivers using CUDA (with little or no cost) that take advantage of PhysX without using Nvidia hardware..

With that said, what incentive does Nvidia have to do AMD's work for them when AMD can do it themselves if they wanted?

I also find it absurdly ironic and laughable that AMD would rather partner with their biggest competitor Intel (Havok) than Nvidia when it comes to developing game physics..

Wrong! in this context. Free to implement in software but not free to run on any hardware.
Most here are customers of hardware & not partners so it only makes sense that we take consumer side of this because thats the only part in the matter that most will be involved in, in use & financially.