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Better OpenCL support in NVIDIA's CUDA SDK

Sin_Chase said:
We have had physics simulation for years, be it software or hardware based.

There does not appear to have been demand for physics beyond what we have now that REQUIRES hardware acceleration to provide.
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I meant a game which has been built ground up with hardware accelerated physics, for which we haven't, ergo impossible to gauge the response.

But we've had physics based games which have proved successful ; World Of Goo.
 
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Not that I'm aware of, I could be wrong.
I know Intel have/had a significant stake in Havok, but I'm pretty sure the amount of games using Havok has started to dwindle in new releases.

I did find this ; http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2009/03/27/amd-demonstrates-gpu-physics-at-gdc/1

But that's using OpenCL still?

EDIT :

This is from their site ;

Havok Physics is fully multi-threaded and cross-platform optimized for leading game platforms including, Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system, Playstation® 4, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, PC Games for Windows, PlayStation Vita®, Wii™, Wii U™, Android™, iOS, Apple Mac OS and Linux. - See more at: http://www.havok.com/products/physics#sthash.V1IEiF7N.dpuf
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Sin_Chase said:
The comedy is AMD is fighting the "Good guy" corner with OpenCL, something they support but never developed as their own.

I find it pretty comical they chuck mud at nVidia with their in-house CUDA standing on the foundation of something AMD put nothing into.

I find the double standards comical also. PhysX is crap/in hardly any games/not needed/not worth the extra but on the flip side we WANT Physics but only if it's on an open standard and nVidia support it.
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I find it funny that AMD on the one hand bangs on about open standards and how games shouldn't be designed so features are tied to one vendor then on the other hand puts out stuff like this http://www.techpowerup.com/185479/thief-optimized-for-amd-technologies.html while not even putting the effort behind OpenCL thats needed to really push it into the mainstream.

Then taking pot shots at CUDA which for all its faults atleast nVidia have put their money where their mouth is and put the support behind it to make it a mainstream product and likewise PhysX - they snipe at it but if you look at the tech demos for fur and hair rendering nVidia have been devloping for the witcher and a couple of other titles they make TressFX look very amatuer - even the older version they did for CCP or the version in Alice Madness Returns while a little more primitive looks more natural and less buggy.
 
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deuse said:
As I said the only people who want this is ATI people. All good 3D\Photo\Video software uses Cuda

As we all know hardware is faster then software. Why not ask ATI to get OpenCL working like Cuda does?

And as for "open standards are better for everyone" did that guy ever work in the network trade when it first started?

This just AMD fan boys wanting something for nothing AGAIN.
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Wrong, very little uses CUDA anymore, everything is now moving to OpenCL.

All Adobe software, video encoding software.... the lot.
 
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humbug said:
Wrong, very little uses CUDA anymore, everything is now moving to OpenCL.

All Adobe software, video encoding software.... the lot.
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I understand the way you mean that - a lot of desktop stuff is moving towards OpenCL - saying "very little uses CUDA anymore" is a bit misleading in a general sense as 1000s of projects, specialised software/bespoke applications and so on including general use in industry CUDA is still extensively used and still growing fast.
 
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The fact is companies competing against each other are never going to just play happy families and share. Would it benefit the consumer? Of course, but unfortunately these companies are businesses and money comes first.
 
Rroff said:
I understand the way you mean that - a lot of desktop stuff is moving towards OpenCL - saying "very little uses CUDA anymore" is a bit misleading in a general sense as 1000s of projects, specialised software, bespoke applications and so on including general use in industry CUDA is still extensively used and still growing fast.
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OpenCL at hardware level is now used by Intel, its a part of HSA, its going to be a key component of high density cluster servers, Microsoft and Google also use OpenCL in cloud infrastructures.

At the software level its not just Handbrake and stuff like that using OpenCL, its Adobe
Apple can see where things are heading

This is just the infant that is Nvidia crossing its arms and stamping its feet because its not happy about what's going on around it, this is Nvidia yet again trying to throw a spanner in the works of progress.
They are #### holes.
Nvidia don't want anything on the market that is not controlled solely by themselves.
 
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humbug said:
Wrong, very little uses CUDA anymore, everything is now moving to OpenCL.

All Adobe software, video encoding software.... the lot.
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I see you edited out the childish rant.

Nvidia put the time and effort into getting GPGPU off of the ground rather than pay lip service like ATI/AMD. As it stands right now they have a very mature and supported system. Why should they now put in time and effort into helping their competitors just because they cry open standards.

CUDA still has huge market share in financial and petrochemical business and in education as well. To say nothing much uses it anymore is ridiculous.

Desktop apps are shifting to opencl as it allows them to target everything with the least amount of effort, even though more targeted methods would offer increased performance. Bespoke solutions not so much.
 
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layte said:
I see you edited out the childish rant.

Nvidia put the time and effort into getting GPGPU off of the ground rather than pay lip service like ATI/AMD. As it stands right now they have a very mature and supported system. Why should they now put in time and effort into helping their competitors just because they cry open standards.

CUDA still has huge market share in financial and petrochemical business and in education as well. To say nothing much uses it anymore is ridiculous.

Desktop apps are shifting to opencl as it allows them to target everything with the least amount of effort, even though more targeted methods would offer increased performance. Bespoke solutions not so much.
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AMD have put huge amounts of time and money into developing OpenCL for the benefit of everyone, and it is paying off with technological advancements.
The problem for Nvidia is increasingly you don't need Nvidia for GPGPU, whats more AMD's standard £350 GPU's have a lot more grunt than Nvidia's equivalent, if you want that level of GPGPU with CUDA it will cost you £3000 for an Nvidia Tesla GPU.
 
Suarez7 said:
The fact is companies competing against each other are never going to just play happy families and share. Would it benefit the consumer? Of course, but unfortunately these companies are businesses and money comes first.
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The problem with Nvidia's strategy is that it probably cannibalises its own future sales. Yes in the short-term adopting closed standards while being market leader gives it the edge in terms of sales and adoption, but if it shrinks the future PC gaming market then it hasn't really won anything has it? Problem is companies are so often reactive instead of forward-looking, and the impact of such things as Physx is hard to predict. So sure Nvidia's doing the right thing in terms of profit, but it's not doing much for the future. Also say more games would incorporate highly detailed physics if both companies adopted an open standard and actively competed over physics development and performance. Then both companies would presumably sell more high-end graphics cards to consumers who now universally want good performance including physics. In this scenario Nvidia would achieve higher sales (but so would AMD). I obviously dunno anything specific, I'm just giving examples of why adopting open standards may be good or bad for Nvidia.

Martini1991 said:
How can AMD fight back? Make their own proprietary standard? But then what about the Nvidia users? They lose out, etc, etc. It's a no win situation.

You need an open standard (Which Nvidia don't want to support), or two separate API's in a game which activates depending on the GPU vendor, (Which probably isn't viable).

Like I say, in the end, we lose.

At any rate, with consoles being AMD, there's no reason they won't be using OpenCL for hardware accelerated physics (Assuming developers want to) which would make Nvidia users at a disadvantage.

It's a very crappy scenario.
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They don't necessarily have to fight back with Physx or OpenCL. They can just fight back with much more compelling products that negate Nvidia exclusives, and perhaps come up with and promote more things like TressFX which draw on AMD hardware strengths.

Sin_Chase said:
The comedy is AMD is fighting the "Good guy" corner with OpenCL, something they support but never developed as their own.

I find it pretty comical they chuck mud at nVidia with their in-house CUDA standing on the foundation of something AMD put nothing into.

I find the double standards comical also. PhysX is crap/in hardly any games/not needed/not worth the extra but on the flip side we WANT Physics but only if it's on an open standard and nVidia support it.
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Partly I think it's part of AMD's marketing to play the "good guy". Partly it might be because AMD don't have to resources to create directly competing technologies in some cases. But closed standards are also undeniably bad for competition (and game/software development), which means it's bad for the consumer.
 
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