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NVidia Cripples PhysX "Open" API

An anonymous reader writes "In a foot-meet-bullet type move, NVidia is going to disable PhysX engine if you are using a display adapter other than one that came from their company. This despite the fact that you may have an NVidia card on your system specifically to do this type of processing. '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.' Time to say hello to Microsoft dx physics or Intel's Havok engine."

3 of 393 comments (clear)

  1. Good luck with that by Flowstone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First they scoop up PhysX and try to create a market for PPUs. Now the only way PhysX is ever going to get any use is out of pure coincidence. Not the smartest move for Nvidia to make when Ati/AMD is on their heels with a new line of cards.

  2. Re:Can someone explain this more clearly? by BitZtream · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Its anti-consumer, but that doesn't trigger an anti-trust charge, they don't have a monopoly.

    Why does everyone scream like its illegal when a company does something they don't like? Unless they are king of the hill and using their powers to force others into capitulating with them, its not an issue for the courts. You don't have to buy nVidia. You don't have to use PhysX. You don't have to buy a Voodoo 3 card. Sure a game may only support one of the above, but thats not something that justifies going after nVidia unless they owned the market.

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  3. Re:CRT? Are you from the past? by OrangeTide · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What about a CRT is outdated? It has better black levels, faster refresh, and higher brightness than an LCD. It's analog but good cabling will still result in a crystal clear image. I think the primary disadvantages of CRTs is that widescreen is so costly as to be impractical. They are heavy. And they suck a lot of power. but in terms of image quality a CRT is still extremely good.

    CRTs are "outdated" because businesses want to sell LCDs. Flat and light is sexy. And LCDs sold like crazy back when the image quality was dramatically inferior to a CRT, and it took them years to catch up.

    CRT technology is not obsolete, but the marketing of CRTs is dead. If you want to argue that we should use technology based on marketability alone, be my guest. I suspect most slashdotters will rip into you pretty brutally.

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