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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."
Havok is a better engine anyway.
But that's the problem with corporate buyings anyway. Even if its kinda wrong to stop supporting the other platforms, they have every right to do so.
Why is this not anti-trust? When you paid for the nVidia card to put into your machine why should its functions depend on whether or not a competitors hardware is present? What if Windows said uh-oh you have Linux installed on another partition, disabling Windows...
Shh.
At least he was 33.3% truthful.
...will it my $TERM faster?
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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.
It is no standard. PhysX was an API made by a company (Ageia) who wanted to cell physics acceleration cards. Their cards never sold well, but the free beer software libraries were used by a number of people (the libraries supported CPU execution as well). Then NVIDIA bought them and ported the thing to run on their GPUs. So I see this ending up like the 3Dfx Glide API for 3D graphics - some historic games used it, such as Mechwarrior, but no one uses it anymore.
Heres some thoughts on the meaning of this. The PC is an open-architecture, you are free to put whatever you want into your machine. If nVidia can dictate what their hardware works with then they are effectively creating a "nVidia-Approved" list of hardware. First step down the slippery slope of closing the PC's openness. In the software world an equivalent would be Windows refusing to connect to network shares that were based off of Samba or the other way around a Windows box refusing connections from Linux machines. Standards apply to hardware as well as software and if any manufacturer gets away with an "approved" list then the platform as a whole will eventually suffer for it.
Shh.
physx seemed nice until they tried to close source it. Does Nvidia have anything left this round? Bad Yields, physx being stupid and abusive when disabled (it only uses 1 cpu core when on AMD for example instead of even all threads). Not to mention their crippling of batman as well.
So what's left for Nvidia? I don't see a whole lot.
No. The framework would only run on their GPUs. However, you could have one of their cards in the system to do purely physics calculations, and then use a competitor's card to do the actual display and 3d rendering. They've now disabled this, so if your monitors are connected to, say, and ATI card, you can no longer use the Nvidia card in your system for physics processing.
Before you discount this as an unlikely scenario, consider motherboards with onboard NVidia chipsets. These are usually underpowered for full time duty, but are perfectly suited to being used for physics calculations while a more powerful ATI card in the PCI-E slot does the graphics rendering. This is actually a fairly likely setup these days, and NVidia has just said they're going to block it.
Personally, I agree with others who have pointed out this must be an anti-trust issue. Intel and Microsoft have both been fined heavily recently for doing exactly this kind of anti-competitive behaviour.
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Stop things like this from working?
Who on earth has a graphics card from two different manufacturers? Regardless though, it means they've directly tied PhysX to their hardware, and I just don't care for them anymore. ATI all the way baby!
I'm currently avoiding PhysX due to the fact that the license requires that credit be given to nVidia/PhysX in any advertisement that mentions the advertised product's physics capabilities. It's a real shame, because I hear that PhysX has pretty robust physics implementation.
The current state of physics acceleration reminds me of the days when hardware-accelerated 3D graphics (except for high-end OpenGL stuff) were only supported through manufacturer-specific APIs. Hopefully, DirectX physics will be good enough that PhysX will ultimately become mostly irrelevant to game developers -- I'm just not convinced that Microsoft can pull it off.
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Between the full stack (CPU+Chipset+GPU) provided by AMD and the full stack that will be Intel (with Larrabee in 2010) Nvidia has no future in either Chipsets or GPUs. Any other outcome is a bet against integration and in electronics integration always wins.
Good thing too; both Intel and AMD are vastly more open (at least recently) with their hardware.
Techspot AMD has been working hard to develop Open Physics. Furthermore Bullet Physics has been shown running on Cuda. So that sounds to me like doom for physx...
It's kind of crazy that this is even going to get attention. This is only going to affect people using PhysX (which requires an nVidia GPU at the moment) with an ATI card for rendering. I'm sure the two people with this configuration are going to be crushed. Yes, I realize more than 2 will have a mix of cards, and 2 is probably a bit of a low guess, but only a handful are going to actually be affected by the lack of PhysX support for the config, so please, let's not get all in a huff about it. From a support perspective, I can understand where nVidia is coming from. This could be a true support nightmare for them.
Once the big game engines and physics libraries get generic support for GPU programming through OpenCL, this will all be pretty moot anyway. From what I can tell, the bullet physics library is already developing this, and I am sure closed source competitors are doing that as well. Relying on anything that will only run on a single vendor's hardware is just a losing business proposition (unless that vendor pays you for it, which I guess is how PhysX got going).
http://www.bulletphysics.com/
I don't have any affiliation with the project other than I've used it in my homegrown game engine that has never left my hard drive. It is however rather easy to use. When I was looking for a physics engine, Bullet turned out to be the best license, code base, and documentation set out there for no cost.
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I don't see what the big deal is. They currently only support their cloth simulation on the GPU, so whether or not GPU is being used doesn't affect rigid body physics at all. Havok is ridiculously expensive and they've dropped GPU support for their HavokFX system. I wouldn't discount PhysX based on this announcement alone unless all you care about is cloth.
From the NVIDIA PhysX FAQ:
Can I use an NVIDIA GPU as a PhysX processor and a non-NVIDIA GPU for regular display graphics?
No. There are multiple technical connections between PhysX processing and graphics that require tight collaboration between the two technologies. To deliver a good experience for users, NVIDIA PhysX technology has been fully verified and enabled using only NVIDIA GPUs for graphics.
Nvidia releases announcement that they will no longer provide free driver support to ATI for interaction between Nvidia hardware and ATI competing hardware. Notes that software APIs are available for ATI to pay for and release their own damn drivers.
NEWS AT 11!!!
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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PhysX was trying to make a market for PPUs (and relatively failing). nVidia bought them up to make the technology another marketing bullet point for their GPU parts, not to sell GPU parts as mere physics calculations. Sure, they'll take the business as it comes incidently, but they have no interest in anything that could remotely be construed as putting something other than their role as a graphics adapter vendor first.
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Microsoft and Intel are monopolies. Nvidia is not. You also can't designate a company as a monopoly by narrowly defining some market niche either. Barriers to entry for the market in question are also a consideration. It's not an issue here. If you are not a monopoly than you can engage in a broader set of behaviors. What got Microsoft in trouble is that they continued their anti-competitive behavior after they gained their monopoly and attempted to leverage their existing monopoly to gain unfair advantages in other markets, i.e. web browsers. If Apple had done that it would have been perfectly legal because they don't have a monopoly. If Microsoft had not had a monopoly what they did to Netscape would have been legal.
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How can it be anti-trust if (a) they aren't a monopoly, and (b) they are disabling their own hardware ?
If they caused the ATI card to not function then I could understand it, but a secondary function on their own card ?
You express a desire for an API from Microsoft to become dominant?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I still use a 22" CRT I bought years ago for $800. What, I should throw away a perfectly good monitor and buy an LCD because you'll stick your nose in the air?
No, but you can't blame a company for not wanting to support outdated technology.
That's like complaining that Microsoft won't release security updates for Windows 98. Sure, some people are still using it, and it might work perfectly well for them, but that doesn't mean MS is evil for not patching it.
No, the framework also has a software renderer and on many cards you get significantly better overall game performance by using it (I know this is true for my 9600 GSO 384, I got an ~22% FPS boost by uninstalling the driver component for PhysX and using the software renderer). The software renderer is also significantly less likely to crash your system. So unless you have a slow CPU with a monster GPU and are willing to accept more crashes there's really not a lot of reason to use the GPU tied renderer.
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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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If you think about it, physx works on all 8 series and up.
That's a $30 card for physx support. I wonder if I can do this since I have a spare x16 port on my machine.
I don't really know if this will work though.
They're using their grammar skills there.
They didn't drop support for "CRT's". They decided that their stereographics driver would only work in the following configurations:
- anaglyph glasses with a "whatever" monitor (horrible color distortion and headache-inducing ghosting ensues).
- *THEIR* shutter glasses, with *THEIR* overpriced "partnered" LCD monitors.
Now, what is the difference (tech-wise) between their shutter glasses and mine? Only the fact that theirs send a specific "yes I'm nvidia" signal back to the card. What is the capability difference between their overpriced "partnered" LCD monitors and my 120Hz-capable CRT? Two things: Jack and Shit.
This is not about "dropping support for outdated technology." Prior to what they pulled, I could plug in an industry-standard shutter glasses set made by any of a number of manufacturers, combine them with any monitor capable of 120-Hz refresh (whether CRT, LCD, certain televisions, or even a few projector models), and enjoy stereoscopic gaming. After their "update" to the drivers and subsequent "update" to the stereoscopic drivers, the Nvidia cards would only recognize *THEIR* proprietary glasses (which again, hardware-wise are no different than the old type save for sending a "hi I'm from nvidia" signal to the card) and would only interoperate with a precious few "specially chosen" 120Hz LCD's.
This had nothing to do with "dropping support" for "obsolete equipment" (which wasn't in any way, shape, or form) and everything to do with trying to milk people for $500+ on a new rig by forcibly crippling industry-standard hardware.
Nicely done. You had me until this line:
And XP sold like crazy back when its stability was dramatically inferior to Windows 98, and it took them two service packs to catch up.
I just couldn't suspend disbelief anymore after that. ;-)
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Its anti-consumer, but that doesn't trigger an anti-trust charge, they don't have a monopoly.
The perpetrator doesn't have to have a monopoly for tying to be illegal - in U.S., for example, you only need "sufficient market power" to affect "not insubstantial amount of interstate commerce in the tied product market". I dare say that NVidia has pretty damn substantial market power in GPU niche, and it is quite likely to affect sales of all other GPUs in a significant way. In the end, of course, it's up to the courts to decide, if it comes to that, but the allegation is not without merit.
Nvidia says they support any 100+Hz CRT.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/3D_Vision_Requirements.html
I wonder if CRT persistence would become a problem at that high of a refresh rate. I had a similar system (Asus had 3D goggles that were tied to a dongle on the VGA port, pre-DVI) but the 3D would get really blurry at refresh rates higher than 60Hz due to phosphor persistence (essentially 30Hz per eye, though it's probably not that simple since they're alternating). IIRC, that 60Hz was interlaced as well.
Made for some serious migraines, but it was neat to play Descent II in 3D for 15 minutes at a time until my head asplode.
I do have a 120Hz LCD monitor now, but I haven't sunk the extra dollars in for the 3D glasses. I love the frame rates I'm getting now - movement in FPSers are liquid smooth... very reminiscent of my CRT days, but I'm not sure I want to revisit the 3D stuff again until I see more user feedback.
This comment does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the author.
That's quite a contradiction you made there.
22" CRT monitor: $800
Your eyes: priceless
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He doesn't care if they are on the up and up, he cares that they (from his point of view) arbitrarily removed functionality, that, for all he could tell, was working just fine. They don't have to be dishonest to make stupid decisions that make them worth avoiding as a supplier.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
That was a ridiculous thing to post.
A CRT doesn't need support, it needs to not be sabotaged.
His glasses don't need support, they need to not be sabotaged.
Not supporting both of them takes more effort than ignoring them.
Competent support of all that hardware would take less space in code than this comment window is high. Going to the trouble to restrict it was much more... *after* the meetings, licenses, and money exchanges had all taken place.
The cynic in me believes that someone with a debugger is probably a single (or two) flipped bit(s) away from a working setup.
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