Nvidia making GameWorks Source Code Publicly available

Rroff · 17 Mar 2016 at 17:46

They also have extensive Vulkan documentation and example code, etc. https://developer.nvidia.com/Vulkan which seems to have gone under the radar for many people.

nashathedog said:
That's actually funny coming from someone who just one post earlier was moaning about others making claims without a shred of evidence. Unless of course your tin foil theories are somehow different.

Hardly needs to produce evidence for that its an established industry practise and stuff like nVidia's perfkit and the likes are well known.

humbug · 17 Mar 2016 at 17:49

D.P. said:
I think you are reading too much in to this. Nvidia have a long history of sharing source code and putting example programs on their website. They present a lot of their stuff at conferences and provide source code for other researchers and developers (for many conferences it is a requirement). Last year they released the source code for CPU PhysX and they have always offered the course code for Gamesworks under special licensing.

With AMD marketing GPUOpen and getting positive feedback it probably made sense for Nvidia to do the same and preempt any further criticism.

PhysX for vendors outside of Nvidia ran on the CPU only, the closed source side of it ran on the GPU.
Bullet Physics does everything PhysX does and a lot more besides only far more efficiently.

Rroff · 17 Mar 2016 at 17:52

humbug said:
PhysX for vendors outside of Nvidia ran on the CPU only, the closed source side of it ran on the GPU.
Bullet Physics does everything PhysX does and a lot more besides only far more efficiently.

Last time I checked Bullet was still missing a few soft body and fluid dynamics features and unable to perform anything like close to GPU PhysX for those kind of features even though it does well performance wise with rigid bodies and moderately complex soft body simulations.

I also preferred PhysX over Bullet for game use - though Bullet could look more realistic and things looked a bit more like they were correctly weighted PhysX stuff tended to get in the way of gameplay less even if stuff could look a bit floaty or bouncing ball like.

Klunt Bumskrint · 17 Mar 2016 at 18:04

Didn't Tom Peterson just say they weren't going to do this as they want to protect their IP?

D.P. · 17 Mar 2016 at 18:11

humbug said:
What a load of hyperbolic old crap. You sound like someone whose more than a little miffed at nvidia's discsion to go open source with game works, is it because AMD now get the source code?

Anyway, good move nvidia, good for developer's and gamers

PhysX only works on NVidia GPUs because PhysX requires support for CUDA which AMD have not implemented. Its possible in the future AMD will go that route but its understandable that they don't want to support a competitor's technology. nvidia really wanted PhysX to work on ATI cards, offered licensing deals, and even actively supported an unofficial project to get PhysX on radeon cards but it was turned away by ATI.

http://www.techpowerup.com/64787/ra...ffered-to-help-us-expected-more-from-amd.html

D.P. · 17 Mar 2016 at 18:18

Klunt Bumskrint said:
Didn't Tom Peterson just say they weren't going to do this as they want to protect their IP?

Without knowing what he said he was probably just explaining why gamesworks was closed source - to protect IP.

humbug · 17 Mar 2016 at 18:20

At D.P, what were the details of that CUDA licening deal? What did Nvidia want in return?

Rroff said:
Last time I checked Bullet was still missing a few soft body and fluid dynamics features and unable to perform anything like close to GPU PhysX for those kind of features even though it does well performance wise with rigid bodies and moderately complex soft body simulations.

I also preferred PhysX over Bullet for game use - though Bullet could look more realistic and things looked a bit more like they were correctly weighted PhysX stuff tended to get in the way of gameplay less even if stuff could look a bit floaty or bouncing ball like.

You don't use it much do you? Bullet has soft body and fluid dynamics, have a play with blender. Or even Cryengine.

Waigting Bullet ridged body physics is very accurate, at least these days, it behaves very true to life.

AlamoX · 17 Mar 2016 at 18:22

the funny part is that, the ones available right now are physx

, the thing not cross vendor compatible
HBAO+, Hairworks that are cross vendor, are (coming soon), i guess we know what code need modification before being public

nevertheless this is a good news, brings more transparency, that was rightfully needed for gimpworks, and just hope Nvidia doesnt find a way to ruin it by doing something shady.

nashathedog · 17 Mar 2016 at 18:23

Rroff said:
They also have extensive Vulkan documentation and example code, etc. https://developer.nvidia.com/Vulkan which seems to have gone under the radar for many people.

Hardly needs to produce evidence for that its an established industry practise and stuff like nVidia's perfkit and the likes are well known.

I was talking about the claim that AMD were running a feel sorry for us campaign, It's no more proven than anything others claim. Unless you are saying that's an established industry practise?

D.P. · 17 Mar 2016 at 18:44

humbug said:
At D.P, what were the details of that CUDA licening deal? What did Nvidia want in return?

CUDA is licensed under freeware, it is an industry standard which is why other companies can make CUDA compilers and AMD have made a CUDA translator of sorts. No cost involved at all, but no redistribution rights etc.

D.P. · 17 Mar 2016 at 18:46

AlamoX said:
the funny part is that, the ones available right now are physx , the thing not cross vendor compatible
HBAO+, Hairworks that are cross vendor, are (coming soon), i guess we know what code need modification before being public
nevertheless this is a good news, brings more transparency, that was rightfully needed for gimpworks, and just hope Nvidia doesnt find a way to ruin it by doing something shady.

with PhysX being open sourced then there is the possibility AMD will decide to support it but its unlikely since they weren't willing to license it before.

LoadsaMoney · 17 Mar 2016 at 18:53

*rubs eyes*, nope, i read it correctly! :eek:

Rroff · 17 Mar 2016 at 18:58

humbug said:
At D.P, what were the details of that CUDA licening deal? What did Nvidia want in return?

You don't use it much do you? Bullet has soft body and fluid dynamics, have a play with blender. Or even Cryengine.

Waigting Bullet ridged body physics is very accurate, at least these days, it behaves very true to life.

Not saying they don't have them - but that Bullet had/has a more limited sub-set of those features and missing some of the more complex features of those effects compared to PhysX.

smogsy · 17 Mar 2016 at 19:02

i see this as good,

But i see it as "get more games to use Gameworks, sell more GPU's" which is what it should be like.

Their just helping their investment & killing AMD PR in the process.

Until Nvidia Support Freesync, many of cant us swap back to AMD without adding addition charge (gsync users) anyway.

Lets be fair a LOT of the gamework feature could be GPU purchase worthy, *IF* their better optimized aka Developers that can tweak it which is what this should hopefully help with

AlamoX · 17 Mar 2016 at 19:27

D.P. said:
with PhysX being open sourced then there is the possibility AMD will decide to support it but its unlikely since they weren't willing to license it before.

where did you get that it's open source ? the code is open to the public to see, that doesnt change the licensing policy of the library, it's just not a blackbox anymore

Ayahuasca · 17 Mar 2016 at 19:28

Will this allow AMD to optimise for gameworks? If not I really don't see how it will change anything.

D.P. · 17 Mar 2016 at 19:33

AlamoX said:
where did you get that it's open source ? the code is open to the public to see, that doesnt change the licensing policy of the library, it's just not a blackbox anymore

I know, I realized after I posted that it was badly worded. My point still stands though, AMD wont support PhysX because they just don't want to.

Sin_Chase · 17 Mar 2016 at 19:36

Well, that now removes any excuses about Gameworks being the reason for poor AMD perf.

AlamoX · 17 Mar 2016 at 19:36

Ayahuasca said:
Will this allow AMD to optimise for gameworks? If not I really don't see how it will change anything.

it will allow AMD to give Devs pointers on how they could optimize better, but after that, you have to see how much control over the licence Devs do have, if they can modify it, or suggest to Nvidia modifications, if nvidia follow up on them, as i said this is a good start, unless Nvidia does something shady to turn it all into a marketing stunt, with no real benefits behind if they put a lot of hurdles on the way

shankly1985 · 17 Mar 2016 at 19:58

Then it's not open source it's still down to Nvidia pulling the strings lol

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