AMD gets beaten by NVidia, any plans?

[RealNC]

You're forgetting that we're talking about gaming cards here. If PhysX will dominate the gaming market, then it doesn't matter if it's Windows or Linux.

And about open-ness: ATI Catalyst is NOT open! Just because something runs on Linux doesn't mean it's open. And not everyone cares about open-ness; you speak for yourself.

PS:
And what's so exciting about opencl if the gaming industry ain't gonna use it? I didn't buy an expensive gaming GPU to run OpenGL screensavers on it. I bought it to play the latest high-tech games. And AMD has let me down here, because PhysX is part of the high-tech. Again: "NVidia: The Way it's Meant to be Played."

[Ex-Cyber]

So, the question is, why did I buy an AMD/ATI in the first place?

Considering that you seem to evaluate GPUs solely on how well they support APIs controlled by Nvidia, that is indeed the question.

[RealNC]

Considering that you seem to evaluate GPUs solely on how well they support APIs that became de-facto standards.

Fixed it for you.

[StringCheesian]

Wow RealNC and energyman (mostly RealNC), you guys are really extreme. I guess you can stretch almost anything into meaning that one company or the other is worthless.

[energyman]

so - and with which of the games physx makes any difference?

also, and that is VERY important, amd CAN'T USE CUDA BECAUSE IT IS NVIDIA'S TECH.
Maybe you should think a moment before you start edit-quoting people like in #13?
Same with PhysX. They BOUGHT THE DAMN COMPANY. IT IS THEIRS. What should AMD do about it. Please answer that.

And OpenCL - well if a game shall run on MacOSX - opencl is the way to go. Linux? opencl. Any other non-MS platform? opencl.

[Pahanilmanlintu]

For some time now i've had the impression that CUDA is fading out pretty soon. Obviously people in games and 3d learned their lesson from the Glide3d crap and such. Correct me if i'm wrong, but hasn't CUDA been having problems getting adopted exactly because it's proprietary? And also, isn't the future of CUDA in a compatibility layer or such, on top of their OpenCL solution (or inside it, whatever makes sense for them)?

Of course if you search hard enough, you'll find web pages for projects that are/were going to use CUDA for all sorts of funky shit that's coming out "any day now", but ends up with couple of pretty tech demos at best (read: vaporware). There's always the first mover advantage that people would try to use, while things that are soon becoming common everyday stuff are still new and fresh. I bet RealNC is just aching for a piece of the glamor, while it's still there, in having something new and cool before other kids in the neighborhood have it.

I have to admit i haven't much idea how physics engines are implemented, but isn't OpenCL the definitive answer to that too? Like general purpose physics engines for any use reagrdless of drivers or anything, really? So who cares about physx anyway?

[BlackStar]

List (probably incomplete) of games supporting PhysX:
[...]
Does this answer your question?

You are mistaken. Exactly *one* game uses Nvidia's hardware PhysX support and that is Mirror's Edge. The rest run on software PhysX which is supported equally by both vendors.

Despite what Nvidia wants you to believe, you, as an end-user, don't actually benefit from CUDA. Unless you are developing some kinds of very specialized software (and if you did, you would actually know that Amd offers its own, arguably superior solution - Stream), CUDA is nothing a marketing gimick.

Please, don't buy into marketing bullshit (the way it's meant to be played, yeah right!) Hardware PhysX is nice, but hardly essential - unless you like Mirror's Edge all that much . Once OpenCL drivers are released and you'll find that the field is more even than it seems.

[Kano]

Well Nvidia provides great support for game developers - the it's ment to be played program - which ATI doesn't. Of course they try to convince those devs to user Physx too. ATI+Intel prefer Havok, pure CPU based. Before Intel bought Havok there was Havok FX, with GPU accelleration. The UT3 engine can use it - the 3 example levels look pretty cool with Physx enabled, but as they want to sell the game to ATI users too it will never be required. CUDA was used by several apps, more than Steam, but time will tell how successful the open standard OpenCL will be. For Linux users usually playback is more important then encoding and there is currently VDPAU, not perfect, but in a working state. UVD(2) for Linux is only discussed but an implementation is missing. If ATI thinks the Linux market share is not big enough, they forget the new market for small Linux solutions like Splashtop, HyperSpace which could be used for BlueRay playback with hardware accelleration. They should think about that...

[octoberblu3]

OK, as of late I'm pretty much fed up. I can't activate PhysX with my ATI card, and the world is moving towards CUDA.

PhysX is NVidia technology. It will most likely never be accelerated on an ATI card. But currently only a single game (Mirror's Edge) uses the GPU acceleration anyways, and it's just for pretty effects that don't change the game a whole lot. Trying to use an underpowered CPU to run software PhysX is what is killing your framerates, not the ATI card. You will have to play the game without it on your current setup.

CUDA is also NVidia technology. It will most likely never be executed on an ATI card. CUDA is currently better supported by industry, but not a whole lot of end user programs ever use it.

So, the question is, why did I buy an AMD/ATI in the first place? It starts to feel outdated lately (no PhysX, no CUDA.) Will AMD do something here? Will you allow us to enable PhysX in our games? I'm not talking about some future-wonder-tech to appear next year. I'm talking about RIGHT NOW. Because right now, I want to get an NVidia since my ATI runs like s***t with the latest PhysX games and no one supports ATI Stream out there, only CUDA.

PS:
I feel ripped-off by AMD. Where's the support for the COOL stuff?

So in other words, you bought the wrong graphics card because you didn't do any research whatsoever, and now you are blaming ATI for your own mistake. Both companies make some fantastic hardware, but they are not making identical hardware. If you want everything NVidia offers, then return your ATI card and get an NVidia one. You will be doing all of us a great favor.

[panda84]

Boy, that's the "Phoronix: The Way it's Meant to be Flamed." thread!