Nvidia Disables PhysX in Presence of ATI GPU

Psyndrome

Psyndrome

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Saw this coming a mile away!

ATI? NO PHYSX FOR YOU!!

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Nvidia and ATI – longtime rivals who do not play nice together. Although having both ATI and Nvidia hardware inside a PC is unlikely, there's now clear evidence trouble happens when you put the two together.

Those with the very rare configuration of having an ATI GPU for rendering graphics and a Nvidia chip for processing hardware PhysX will find themselves unable to compute.

Anyone running Nvidia driver version 186 will find PhysX acceleration disabled when ATI hardware is also present in the system, SlashGear reported.

Nvidia customer service responded to a user regarding the issue, saying, "Nvidia supports GPU accelerated Physx on NVIDIA GPUs while using NVIDIA GPUs for graphics. NVIDIA performs extensive Engineering, Development, and QA work that makes Physx a great experience for customers."

The email continued to list a couple of reasons why the Nvidia GPU would refuse to accelerate PhysX, with one of them being, of course, for business.

"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," it read. "I’m sorry for any inconvenience caused but I hope you can understand."

It's a rare setup and a rare problem – probably affecting only the most hardcore – and it's unfortunate that it's no longer an option for those wanting the best of both worlds.
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Source : Tom's Hardware US
 
why? it is now their IP which they own. you going to stop using windows just because ms don't share their core components with every jack, jill and joe ?

*side note, physx was never really a publicly shared technology for any gpu maker just to apply; AGEIA.
 
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Bad move. What a way to alienate even more potential nVidia buyers. If they keep this up physx won't last very long.
 
Necuno said:
why? it is now their IP which they own. you going to stop using windows just because ms don't share their core components with every jack, jill and joe ?

*side note, physx was never really a publicly shared technology for any gpu maker just to apply; AGEIA.
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Did you even read the article....? Did you understand it?
 
ZenbaaS said:
Did you even read the article....? Did you understand it?
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i find your maonfest illogical, let see:

physx was never an open ip;
A) first made by AGEIA with their pci cards.
B) nvidia bought it.​

How please enlighten me how nvidia not wanting to share it now makes them bad ? Seriously now, what idiot runs an ati and nvidia at same time ? Should i now k** my pants because i'm not allowed access to the core components of ms's IPs ?
 
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Necuno said:
i find your maonfest illogical, let see:

physx was never an open ip;
A) first made by AGEIA with their pci cards.
B) nvidia bought it.​

How please enlighten me how nvidia not wanting to share it now makes them bad ? Seriously now, what idiot runs an ati and nvidia at same time ? Should i now k** my pants because i'm not allowed access to the core components of ms's IPs ?
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So you don't see it as completely uncompetitive behavior...? And yes quite a few people have ATI cards with Nvidia cards doing the PhysX calculations separately. Why must we be forced to only have Nvidia cards in our machines and if we don't some of the cards features are disabled on purpose...?

So this honestly makes sense to you...?
 
ZenbaaS said:
So you don't see it as completely uncompetitive behavior...? And yes quite a few people have ATI cards with Nvidia cards doing the PhysX calculations separately. Why must we be forced to only have Nvidia cards in our machines and if we don't some of the cards features are disabled on purpose...?

So this honestly makes sense to you...?
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sure completely uncompetitive as too why i cant have a amd and intel cpu on the same board, i want to disable some of the features on the one and use the other :rolleyes:
 
It may be a closed standard but if I paid money for a physx capable nVidia card, then I expect to get physx support like everyone else. My using an ati card for graphics doesn't factor. Problem is that if ati ever gets round to hardware accelerating havok physics then that will pretty much be the doom of physx. Keeping it so closed is only going to hurt them in the long run.
 
Isengard said:
It may be a closed standard but if I paid money for a physx capable nVidia card, then I expect to get physx support like everyone else. My using an ati card for graphics doesn't factor. Problem is that if ati ever gets round to hardware accelerating havok physics then that will pretty much be the doom of physx. Keeping it so closed is only going to hurt them in the long run.
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Then finally intel can gobbel them up.
 
DirectCompute will Kill Physx off, why pay nvidia and MS when you can just use one API Meaning DIrectX11 and everyone is Happy and compatible.
 
Doesnt microsoft own directX 11... You end up giving them money anyway for complying to standards they set. As for nVidia blocking off the PhysX acceleration in the presence of ATI hardware is not anti-competitive, is exclusive to thier card. Makes it more interesting to buy lol if you wat that. And in any event, it didnt make much difference anyway people who boought their nVidia GPUs had the function as where people that had ATI ones didnt... I dont see why you guys argue about things like this sometimes.
 
ZAP_Tech said:
Doesnt microsoft own directX 11... You end up giving them money anyway for complying to standards they set. As for nVidia blocking off the PhysX acceleration in the presence of ATI hardware is not anti-competitive, is exclusive to thier card. Makes it more interesting to buy lol if you wat that. And in any event, it didnt make much difference anyway people who boought their nVidia GPUs had the function as where people that had ATI ones didnt... I dont see why you guys argue about things like this sometimes.
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Yes it is EXCLUSIVE to their card, which is why I may BUY one and own it. But now they are also telling me that there are a set of T&C under which the card won't perform as originally promised and sold...?

Im sure this has a lot to do with that new chip that will allow ATI and Nvidia cards to run in a type of hybrid SLI/Xfire setup.
 
It allowed for you to have a top end ATI card and a real cheapo budget nVidia card with PhysX capability. It was actually a good way to get around the problem. Nvidia doesn't want you buying their budget cards though, they want you buying their premium ones.

However, even worse than this, is that all ATI cards released in the last few years are capable of PhysX. There are drivers you can download (now very outdated because development of the driver was stopped by Nvidia) to enable PhysX on ATI cards. Yes, 100% functional PhysX on your ATI card.

PhysX (Nvidia) and Havok (ATI) physics processing is worrying, because at the end of the day, we are going to wind up with a "console wars" type situation. You'll need to buy two top end graphics cards, one from ATI and one from Nvidia, just so you can play different games with their full physics. Both sets of cards are capable of both types of physics processing, but support has been left out of the drivers (for obvious reasons).
 
Six months ago, AMD and Havok were together at the Game Developers Conference demonstrating OpenCL-accelerated cloth physics. Today, AMD has announced another partnership with a different physics middleware developer: Pixelux Entertainment.
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http://www.techreport.com/discussions.x/17680

ATI Announces “Open” Physics Initiative

ATI, graphics business unit of Advanced Micro Devices, said on Wednesday that it had teamed up with Pixelux Entertainment to enable Bullet Physics and Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) physics engine compatible with industry-standard DirectCompute 11 and OpenCL application programming interfaces.
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http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multim..._OpenCL_DirectCompute_11_Physics_Engines.html

This is the right direction. Give us 1 or 2 API's that will work with any CPU or GPGPUs

(Credit to Unknown Soldier on Prophecy)
 
Blackhand said:
It allowed for you to have a top end ATI card and a real cheapo budget nVidia card with PhysX capability. It was actually a good way to get around the problem. Nvidia doesn't want you buying their budget cards though, they want you buying their premium ones.

However, even worse than this, is that all ATI cards released in the last few years are capable of PhysX. There are drivers you can download (now very outdated because development of the driver was stopped by Nvidia) to enable PhysX on ATI cards. Yes, 100% functional PhysX on your ATI card.

PhysX (Nvidia) and Havok (ATI) physics processing is worrying, because at the end of the day, we are going to wind up with a "console wars" type situation. You'll need to buy two top end graphics cards, one from ATI and one from Nvidia, just so you can play different games with their full physics. Both sets of cards are capable of both types of physics processing, but support has been left out of the drivers (for obvious reasons).
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correction; Havok currently owned by intel.
Havok Physics is a physics engine developed by Irish company Havok. It is designed for computer and video games by allowing interaction between objects or other characters in real-time and by giving objects physics-based qualities in three dimensions. By using dynamical simulation, Havok allows for more lifelike worlds and animation, such as ragdoll physics or intelligence in massive falling objects. The company has also released a Havok Animation.

On Sept. 14, 2007 – Intel announced[2] it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Havok Inc.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havok_(software)
 
I don't know any person stupid enough to buy a stand alone physX card. Big up to Nvidia for infuriating the dumb ;)
 
It's rather easy actually: get a 8800gt for less than R500 and hook that up to your new ATI card. Voila. Dedicated physx card.

This is just such a stupid move. If Nvidia wanted physX to be mainstream, they shouldn't have lock this down. Funny thing is, I can't believe they didn't learn from 3DFX on Glide vs Nvidia on Direct3D debacle. They making the same mistakes as 3DFX now.
 
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SpoOkie said:
I don't know any person stupid enough to buy a stand alone physX card. Big up to Nvidia for infuriating the dumb ;)
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Why? If you already have 4870x2, it makes much less sense to buy another top end GTX 295 at its premium price for PhysX when you already have a top end card.

You can pick up an old budget Nvidia card for peanuts and let it do the PhysX, Nvidia don't like this being an option.
 
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