2K Games, EA hop on the PhysX bandwagon

[layte]

Of course Nvidia are trying to talk their own chips up. They know AMD and Intel are working on combined solutions that will make their limited GPU approach old news. There used to be a number of companies that made x87 FPU chips.

Feel free to continue quoting Nvidia PR though.

 

[queamin]

Today Nvidia’s CEO fired the first shot by introducing what it calls “The World’s Most Affordable Vista Premium PC,” a low-cost platform containing a Nvidia graphics processor and a lower-end CPU from Via Technologies. Nvidia isn’t only snubbing Intel, it’s trying to prove that PC buyers are better off with functional CPUs, and that high-performance tasks can be trusted to a graphics processor.

The trouble is intel got quite a hold on the dells and such (but not as much as a few years ago) most people off the high street know about intel and not via/nvidia, you think intel will let their strangle hold slip.

 

[queamin]

I'm not convinced I feel it is the other way around; bringing the gpu onto the processor (for the mainstream) is where I would lay my money.

I could be so far off its untrue; the test of time will enlighten us no doubt.

That is why nvidia are worried, intel and amd are working on their chips

 

[mmj_uk]

The trouble is intel got quite a hold on the dells and such (but not as much as a few years ago) most people off the high street know about intel and not via/nvidia, you think intel will let their strangle hold slip.

I have no idea.

All I can say is what I see happening right now with NVidia posing a big threat to the CPU makers, NVidia have the better technology but yeah Intel also have great marketing.

 

[Vince]

I wouldn't say that they are posing a threat to intel, this year they have had dwindling market share, losing sales to AMD. They have had problems with laptop chips that have cost them many millions of $ and a hit to their pride. I'm no Nvidia hater either, they are good cards, in fact the laptop I am on right now is using one of their chips.

What they do have on their side at the moment is "TWIMTBP", by convincing game developers to use their API they are digging a good foothold for their newly acquired technology. My problem is that with no X86 license and what looks like a market that is set in one direction, they are fighting a battle against time, unless they can convince AMD(ATI) to move in and embrace Physx I fear that as time progresses they will get left behind.

As I said before, this is all speculation but I’m pretty sure that AMD are in just the position they would like to be in. Nvidia have offered them Physx but had AMD accepted it may have meant architecture changes to accommodate, in turn that could have a detrimental effect not only on performance but also their relationship with Intel who have an opposing technology.

 

[Rroff]

tbh intel have never been much good at things that needed a decent combination of software and hardware design to succeed, their CPUs own but their GPUs are mediocre and lacking a lot of features and drivers are rarely updated, same with their motherboards, etc. I don't really see them putting together a physics system that will be easy to use, feature rich and regularly updated.

 

[Final8y]

I find your belief as to the importance of physics and the baring it will have on future CPU use laughable.

That is all, back to insulting each other now.

Voodoo1 launches- Wow we wont need such rapid CPU speed increases now
GeForce 1 - Now the GPU will do all the work, who needs a fast CPU?
PhysX on the GPU - lolCPU its all on the GPU now!!! lolintel lolamd
Dedicated Sound cards - who needs a fast CPU
Dedicated Nic cards- who needs a fast CPU
Dedicated RAID Cards who needs a fast CPU
DX10 & up takes more of the GUI load off the CPU & on to the gfx card- who needs a fast CPU.
Windows 8 will be entirely coded in physics-who needs a fast CPU.

Fixed you missed some.

 

[Final8y]

Physics is one of many things that the GPU is far superior at, do you think it will end with Physx?

I'll leave you with some quotes from the article:

In order to survive, Nvidia needs to find an end market that values graphics processors for something beyond graphics. Or push graphics processors into compute-intensive applications in hopes of relegating x86 chips to running the OS and nothing else.

Today Nvidia’s CEO fired the first shot by introducing what it calls “The World’s Most Affordable Vista Premium PC,” a low-cost platform containing a Nvidia graphics processor and a lower-end CPU from Via Technologies. Nvidia isn’t only snubbing Intel, it’s trying to prove that PC buyers are better off with functional CPUs, and that high-performance tasks can be trusted to a graphics processor.

There's a whole host of other things that can be offloaded to the GPU for superior performance, CPU's are in danger of becoming largely redundant.

And you have a list of those in development.
Beside that Creative is finding it harder to make a reason for people to upgrade soundcards or to even buy one with the majority using onboard & tried to make a reason artificiality.
But that Xfi chip is powerful & its far better for sound than the CPU & its only the start as now coming with its own ram, it will be accelerating apps in no time.

 

[queamin]

tbh intel have never been much good at things that needed a decent combination of software and hardware design to succeed, their CPUs own but their GPUs are mediocre and lacking a lot of features and drivers are rarely updated, same with their motherboards, etc. I don't really see them putting together a physics system that will be easy to use, feature rich and regularly updated.

To be honest do they really need to at moment most use their cpu's and chipsets.
I wonder why they brought havok is it because of Larrabe, if they get it up to speed in a couple of generations i do think nvidia better watch out.

 

[bradeh]

Hopefully it can make the NBA2K games better.