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PhysX GPU Acceleration on Radeon Update
 
Posted by Regeneration on July 3rd, 2008, 10:36 PM

I would like to update you about what’s going on. First, we were very pleased to see so many users and readers have applied to our Beta Test Program! To be specific: 191 users, 5 spies and 2 double agents have submitted applications during the last week. Those that will be chosen will be informed early before the beta is available – we can’t still point to “when” at this stage.

The bad news is we still don’t have access to any HD 4800 hardware yet. It is very important for this project to receive AMD’s support on both developer and PR levels. It seems that AMD still is not being cooperative, we get the feeling that they want this project to fail. Perhaps their plans are to strangle PhysX since AMD and Intel have Havok. We truly hope this is not the case since “format wars” are really bad for the consumers (For example: Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD).

Before we get to the good news, I’m going to ask you to hold on to something steady as some of you are going to feel a bit dizzy after you hear this. The truth is… Nvidia is now helping us with the project and it seems they are giving us their blessings. It’s very impressive, inspiring and motivating to see Nvidia's view on this. Why they help us? My best guess would be: They probably want to take on Intel with CUDA and to deal with the latest Havok threat from both AMD and Intel.

Some other good news, we are getting a lot of help from cool journalists like Theo Valich to address the HD 4800 access issue. I can confirm that our CUDA Radeon library is almost done and everything is going as planned on this side. There are some issues that need to be addressed, since adding Radeon support in CUDA isn’t a big deal - but it’s not enough! We also need to add CUDA support on AMD’s driver level and its being addressed as we speak.

Last edited by Regeneration; July 8th, 2008 at 01:02 PM.

228 Comments
Posted by technogiant on July 3rd, 2008, 10:59 PM
I guessed the politics would pan out sort of like this...well support is support regardless of which camp it comes from ... hope things continue to go well with your project...no pressure but the eyes of the world are on you.
Posted by Spyral on July 3rd, 2008, 11:11 PM
Regen

Thank you for the update I was starting to become skeptic about the release because of the Hd 4800 issue Thank you for reassuring me, and many others that everything is on track.
Posted by Unregistered on July 3rd, 2008, 11:29 PM
word,, this is great news hope i get in on the beta,, my 3870x2 is ready to go and so am i

Ninjaboy
Posted by Arklon on July 4th, 2008, 12:04 AM
OMGHAX.
Posted by Olly on July 4th, 2008, 12:09 AM
Nice, I'll be watching out for this. Interesting responses from the companies as well!
Posted by Unregistered on July 4th, 2008, 12:10 AM
wow, thats the most shocking news i have read in teh last few days. i guess nvidia is desperate to make cuda a success . hats off to them .


i too was skeptic if this project would ever be released.
Posted by headkase on July 4th, 2008, 12:23 AM
I would not have guessed that nVidia would step up to the plate to help you but now that they have it does make a kind of logic. They simply want their physics implementation to become widely accepted. With that as a goal providing support to third-parties to facilitate that becomes a lot more reasonable.
Posted by Zandro on July 4th, 2008, 12:32 AM
5 spies? 007 wouldnt be one of them? :P

But seriously Nvidia embracing this was quite a supprise.
Posted by blindartist on July 4th, 2008, 12:33 AM
I KNEW nvidia would support this, they would never miss the opertunity to get their physx api on ATI cards long before ATI has havok ready to go, they would be seriously stupid to pass up an opertunity like this.

Out of curiosity, how do you know who is a spy or a double agent?
Posted by n3omatrix on July 4th, 2008, 01:03 AM
That is awesome Regen, keep up the hard work..........hmm....Me thinks Nvidia may clip havoks wings before it can fly?
Posted by Unregistered on July 4th, 2008, 05:15 AM
well it is a surprising event . I never would have guessed that Nvidia would remotly help out . So a good cheers goes out to Regen For his tireless efforts and also to nvidia .
Posted by Opter on July 4th, 2008, 05:50 AM
Wow! I wish the moment comes when my pair of 3850 accelerate both PhysX (thanx to You, Rege) & Havok (officially)! So We'll be able to choose in which mode to play games )) Then Radeons will become the most universal cards to use... Maybe )))
Anyways - I'm ready to help testing beta in both modes - crossfire & separate.
If all that worx I'll switch to AMD790FX or Intel X48 (X58) to be able to have two my overclocked 3850 cards in crossfire rendering + one 3870 card on PhysX acceleraton.
... Nice dreams by me
Posted by Kelli on July 4th, 2008, 06:56 AM
Great news, I only have a single HD3870 but I’m itching to give your driver a whirl.

Surprisingly, the idea of adding PhysX capabilities to my HD3870 has to some extent diminished my overall disappointment with this card & its usability with AMD’s current drivers.

Who knows, AMD’s lack of assistance may actually be a blessing in disguise, I wouldn’t be surprised if your project succeeds in adding PhysX, performance & stability. From my perspective you certainly couldn’t do any worse than AMD.

Regards, Kelli

Last edited by Kelli; July 4th, 2008 at 06:59 AM..
Posted by 3870 on July 4th, 2008, 07:07 AM
Where it is possible to download physx for radeon3870?
Posted by decarusz on July 4th, 2008, 07:56 AM
lol...nvidia....Good to hear that...hope they can help u with ur codings...
Posted by Basty on July 4th, 2008, 08:50 AM
i never see havok performed ... will it better ?
long time ago nvidia also with havok..

Last edited by Basty; July 4th, 2008 at 10:15 AM..
Posted by StriderVM on July 4th, 2008, 08:53 AM
Wow, impressive. I was thinking both companies might not help at all due to the possible double-edged sword of this "test". Good luck.
Posted by Unregistered on July 4th, 2008, 09:37 AM
ok . this show a good side of the company once again

but do i smell the option that nivida whas Extra people for the PhysX team ?:P

could be other wise.. !!

ill hope people working on this "hack" as i prefer to call it can work for Nvidia

Whould be freeking awesome!!!

just like the guys Who made Desertcombat for Bf1942 Thaks to that whe have. Battfield 2 / Badcompany!

What will this Bring out in the near future :O?!!

Gonne keep this close Good luck all with the 4800 samples'!
Posted by urbanplanet on July 4th, 2008, 10:43 AM
keep on going guys. if you will do it i am sure ngohq will move into the radeon heaven like the 9800 pro :-)
Posted by Unregistered on July 4th, 2008, 01:57 PM
I found this site just 2 weeks ago while reading up on the 4800 series cards. I knew about physx and how nvidia had bought them and was going to implement it on their cards and really felt a little left out as I have a 3870. But after reading about all this, I am excited to try all this out. Thanks for all your hard work on this project and I look forward to giving this go.

Also, great site by the way. I visit here often now. Wish I had knew about it long ago. Thanks again.
Posted by Boomer on July 4th, 2008, 02:12 PM
Just wanted to say thanks for all your hard work on this project. Looking forward to giving this a go.
Discovered this site 2 weeks ago reading up on the 4800 series from amd and the work you are doing on this project. I like amd/ati and have been a loyal user since my 9700pro ( which I am still using in an older computer ) but felt a little left out in the cold with nvidia buying physx and enabling it on their cards. But after reading about your work here, I got all excited again. Great work and thank you again.
Posted by nCaine on July 4th, 2008, 02:20 PM
Nice Eran , good to see You still have it , About nVidia , nice to see that , but its in ther bissnes so no suprice here. Anyway , we users can only benefit from that
Posted by darthcyclonis on July 4th, 2008, 02:28 PM
well it's too bad AMD has not cotacted you yet with support. It's no surprise though. And Cudo's to Nvidia! They have not always been supportive when it comes to open or modified drivers/code in the past but I think with Intel and AMD in bed together with Havok they really did not have a choice. Let's just hope AMD does not get a hair across their butts and lock out physix/cuda with a bios or driver update.

I up the big 4 realize that a unified physics platform is the only real viable option for consumers. But the longer they fight the less chance that game developers will implement either one.
Posted by Zyro on July 4th, 2008, 03:03 PM
Sent in my app to the BETA test program! Really excited at the prospect of testing this and other cool lil proggies and being able to give feedback and pitch in!

A few posts back it was asked how you guys know who's a spy and whos a double agent.... +1 to that! How do you know? lol

Does that make me a spy? I been lurking in various forums but never sign up to them.... MSI and most recently this one are the exception lol
Posted by blindartist on July 4th, 2008, 04:21 PM
Am i the only one not suprised by any of this? Of course nvidia will help, they want their api on the competitions cards before the competition has their api read, your handing them the market on a silver plater, and of course amd is gonna ignore you or even fight you, they dont want their competitors api working on their cards when their havok api isnt even ready, all of this is just business
Posted by Unregistered on July 4th, 2008, 05:06 PM
Why don`t you try making Havok running on Geforce, and see how cooperative Nvidia will be.
Posted by Unregistered on July 4th, 2008, 06:09 PM
lets not play one company after another, what these guys are doing is great and if it works , it seems we might have a choice of either using havok, or Physx on ati. So lets just show some support for the little guys here.
Posted by Hueristic on July 4th, 2008, 06:20 PM
"To be specific: 191 users, 5 spies and 2 double agents"
NOW this u have to start a thread on! Inquiring minds want to know! ROTFLMFAO!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Unregistered on July 4th, 2008, 11:42 PM
it's more than obvious that nvidia will help, if they get CUDA work at ATI cards they get one step closer to cuda reach the standard status. On the other hand if ATI help you guys I'm sure the lawyers from Nvidia are waiting for an opportunity like that to sue them up...
Posted by Xerock on July 5th, 2008, 12:47 AM
Do I understand it correctly when I say that you're going for full cuda support on ati? So regardless of it being physx or some other application that uses cuda to do certain stuff...You're planning to mke it work on ati cards?

That would be awesome! There are already apps popping up using cuda to speed things up like video encoding and what not. To be able to use this on both brands would give you lots of freedom.
Posted by HcoolP on July 5th, 2008, 01:38 AM
imm sure that if he had the sdk for havok he would try it as well but have you seen any signs of havok api anywhere??? maybe thats why he tried this in the first place?
Posted by n3omatrix on July 5th, 2008, 02:00 AM
couldn't agree more , maybe when Havok is here it can be attempted , but for the time being Physx is all we got....... but that in itself is a good point !! ATI is all uncooperative about this but seriously Where Is Havok?? i think nv won the race and deserve the kudo's for it , slap a sticker on it and make it the standard for physics.... Intel just wants to keep it's share of the market and ATI sold it's soul to the devil....oh wait, or is it nv that's the devil??.....never quite sure?????? Lol......
Posted by [Carl] on July 5th, 2008, 03:27 AM
I am happy to see all the companies at war once more. I just wish that the X2's would arrive soon, never mind about all this physics stuff. I wonder if you had the Ageia PhysX card in with a 4800 series card, will they work together or even at all? Hmmm. Must try this when I get my hands on a 48xx card.
Posted by technogiant on July 5th, 2008, 07:55 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by [Carl] View Post
I am happy to see all the companies at war once more. I just wish that the X2's would arrive soon, never mind about all this physics stuff. I wonder if you had the Ageia PhysX card in with a 4800 series card, will they work together or even at all? Hmmm. Must try this when I get my hands on a 48xx card.
Well I've got an ageia PPU physx card in my system with an ATI 3870X2 using catalyst 8.6 graphic driver and nvidia's physx driver...works fine....they are independant of each other....Actually the PHYsx driver I'm using is Nvidias latest one that supports both the ageia card and Geforce graphics cards as physx accelerators....sort of makes me wonder if it would be possible to put a Nvidia graphics card in as a dedicated physx card to work along side ATI cards that are doing the graphics?

Would be interested in Regen's view on this.
Posted by n3omatrix on July 5th, 2008, 08:39 AM
like a cheap little 8600 when the drivers support it?
Posted by technogiant on July 5th, 2008, 09:24 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by n3omatrix View Post
like a cheap little 8600 when the drivers support it?
Yeah...Precisely.
Posted by n3omatrix on July 5th, 2008, 10:02 AM
thought bout' that one meself......
Posted by janos666 on July 5th, 2008, 10:08 AM
I have a 4870. I can not wait to test this wrapper.
Posted by Unregistered on July 5th, 2008, 01:24 PM
I care it much. mostly on when it will be given out for using
Posted by LuxZg on July 5th, 2008, 09:47 PM
I was wondering the same thing as Xerock.
Is this complete CUDA-to-ATI project, or just Physx-2-ATI? And although I'm excited even about just having Physx on 4xxx series Radeons, having complete CUDA compatibility would be AWSOME!

Keep up the good work, now I have no more doubts about buying HD48xx (instead of 9800GTX(+) )

P.S. Say hi to Theo for me ;D
Posted by Unregistered on July 6th, 2008, 02:04 AM
CUDA itself it only optimized code input by developers in C ot utilize the GPU instead of the CPU

But if the drivers can't recognize that code then theres no effect

so in short yes(kinda),
Posted by Milenko on July 6th, 2008, 02:15 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by LuxZg View Post
P.S. Say hi to Theo for me ;D
Huxtable? :-D
Posted by ironleg1963 on July 7th, 2008, 02:51 AM
It would be nice to have a single physix interface that ran on both ATI and Nvidia regardless of cpu or os. maybe throw in apple and linux.



i personally think it would be great to have a hybrid SLI-XFire system with multiple physix GPU`s. After yhe politicos wake up and see that any video device can work regardless of chipset and the extra revenue it would bring in then they would ( or I say should) be more recptive to inovations that make since as well as money. I think it is about time we start offering linux as a game option install as well as other apps. this is just the tip of the iceberg in my opinion.

I want to sign up for beta tester too please - A single HIS HD 3870 512 DDR4 and a ageia/nvidea physix card, bigfoot killer nic too.

You have done an outstanding job! keep up the good work.
ironleg
Posted by Unregistered on July 7th, 2008, 03:38 AM
อ่านไม่ออก
Posted by phxz31 on July 7th, 2008, 07:31 AM
I have a novel idea for you guys in your quest to get PhysX running on ATI 4000 series cards: BUY THE DAMN CARD!

I'm sorry, but you guys are kinda wrong here. OF COURSE ATI won't send you a FREE CARD so that you can get their competitors technology to run on it. First of all, ATI has a business to run. I don't care who you are, what country you're from, etc... if you own a business and you are developing a product, and some guy asks you to send him your flagship card for free so he can make your competitors technology work on it... would you do it? If you said yes, you're business won't make it.

This about it this way. The card costs you, what, $500 MAX? Well AMD/ATI has no-doubt already thrown MILLIONS into their physics technology that isn't even ready yet. Do you think AMD/ATI will just give you that card so you can potentially ruin the millions and millions of dollars they've spent by making a competitors technology work first? Maybe even work better? No, they would be stupid. In fact, I can't even contemplate why you feel they're "not supporting" the site. Its not that they aren't supporting this site, its that this site is potentially damaging AMD/ATI technology.

Why don't you guys get some common sense and stop complaining about EVERYTHING! I'm sick of how what used to be MY FAVORITE SITE (yes, this one) now annoys me cause all I get to read anymore is bickering, complaining, and political BS.

Last edited by phxz31; July 7th, 2008 at 07:38 AM..
Posted by Unregistered on July 7th, 2008, 08:22 AM
Rege's little project could have gotten bigger wheels turning..

http://www.techpowerup.com/64933/Phy...we_Missed.html

If this goes ahead and we get official support it could be a good time to be an ATI card owner.
Posted by Dwarden on July 7th, 2008, 09:37 AM
phx31: AMD should be happy they get huge marketing plus out of this if it works they can easily claim "Our hardware supports all major physics engines on market so pick Your game and enjoy ONLY on AMD.ATI!'
if You can't see it then go and enjoy 'PR talk' support la Havok atm
Posted by phxz31 on July 7th, 2008, 09:57 AM
I don't disagree with your mission, but thinking your going to get corporate backing of a mission to support competitors technology is insane. That would be like asking Microsoft to give you a free copy of Vista Ultimate so you can hack it to run a ported KDE or gnome instead of Explorer.exe and its native GUI.

I think its awesome what this site is trying to accomplish. I hope you are able to get this working on ATI products, as I typically still prefer the ATI brand over nvidia, and this would be an awesome physX support "patch". I think its cool how many people signed up to beta test this, and I wish you all good luck.
Posted by Regeneration on July 7th, 2008, 05:26 PM
Here are some answers to your questions:

Q: Is this complete CUDA-to-ATI project, or just Physx-2-ATI?
A: CUDA-to-ATI project and PhysX.

Q: How come you have screenshots and its taking you so much to finish the project?
A: There is a lot of difference between partial support and full support. We don’t want to release incomplete project with a lot of bugs. We want to finish our project and to offer full support for PhysX and CUDA.

Q: Stop whining! Buy the damn card.
A: Budget/money is not an issue here. The issue here is the lack of world-wide availability of the HD 4800 series. We started this project a few days after AMD launched their HD 4800 series. We can’t acquire cards from AMD because they refuse to sell in low volumes and it’s unavailable via shops in our region (Forget about eBay! my eBay account is banned for no reason and they refuse to tell me why). So our only chance is either waiting for shops or asking from AMD. We don’t like to wait, it slows us down. If you can get AMD/their partners to sell in low volumes, we would love buy that damn card.

Q: It’s not that they aren't supporting this site; it’s that this site is potentially damaging AMD/ATI technology.
A: We emailed AMD before they launched the new HD 4800 family and asked to borrow samples. They ignored our emails and that was before we even thought about this project.

Q: Stop complaining about everything
A: It’s our obligation to report everything to our users/readers.

Q: To get corporate backing of a mission to support competitor’s technology is insane
A: This technology could make their Radeon brand even more attractive. Nvidia will use their popular The Way It Meant to be Played program to promote PhysX and everyone knows that Nvidia has better relations with game developers then AMD. If Radeons would support both PhysX and Havok it should make the brand more attractive to consumers.

Q: AMD/ATI has no-doubt already thrown millions into their physics technology
A: AMD received Havok license for free.

Q: Why don`t you try making Havok running on GeForce, and see how cooperative Nvidia will be.
A: It’s being investigated for some time now.

Q: Would it be possible to put an Nvidia graphics card in as a dedicated PhysX card to work alongside ATI cards that are doing the graphics?
A: No. But I think its possible with some software modifications.

Last edited by Regeneration; July 7th, 2008 at 05:51 PM..
Posted by Yaz on July 7th, 2008, 05:41 PM
Glad that you're working on this, will be keeping my eye out.

And you're 100% correct that this being out could help ATI sales because I for one am a bit weary of jumping over to ATI cards at the moment as several games I play, and I'm sure more coming out soon, are using PhysX and not Havok for physics simulation. It's a great position to be in in the market when you're product can be called the safe choice while a format war takes place. I can see a lot of people looking at it as better go ATI and not have to worry about what the developer chose as opposed to going Nvidia and potentially losing out on the GPU accelerated physics for 50% of games.
Posted by Unregistered on July 7th, 2008, 08:16 PM
Please Count me in ....

My information over here... 3dnow.net forum (not da or spy ,just "3dnow" fans from the old days)
Posted by phxz31 on July 8th, 2008, 12:13 AM
Thanks Rege for addressing some of my comments. I appreciate you being open and honest.

Q: "It’s our obligation to report everything to our users/readers."
A: I agree. I like when information is reported. Its just that the tone can change the meaning.
"ATI still has not sent us a card for us to use"
would be reporting.
"I think ATI must want us to fail as they refuse to acknowledge our project" is whining.

Q: "This technology could make their Radeon brand even more attractive. . . If Radeons would support both PhysX and Havok it should make the brand more attractive to consumers."
A: Yes, I agree with you again. This technology is AWESOME. However, I still don't think you are willing to see their side of the argument. Your project is something that ATI cannot support, regardless of whether or not they want to. Business just doesn't work this way unfortunately.

Q: AMD received Havok license for free.
A: True. The license is free. Implementing that technology in their hardware, in a consistent, reliable manner takes time. Of all people, you should know this. Time is money, and money is hard to come by. Regardless of how little they paid for the technology, the implementation is where the money is burned.
Posted by KainXS on July 8th, 2008, 01:02 PM
"Eran and I have been talking via email and we have invited him to join NVIDIA’s registered developer program. We are delighted at his interest in CUDA and in GPU accelerated physics using PhysX. Eran joins a long line of developers who are now working on using the GPU to run physics and who are doing so with the world's leading physics software - PhysX. "

Do you still want to release the drivers now that your in Nvidia's Dev Program
Posted by Brian Thomason on July 8th, 2008, 05:07 PM
In other news, NGOHQ partners with developers from Falling Leaf Systems, to co-develop the physx port.
Posted by Drakan.BR on July 8th, 2008, 05:58 PM
I have a HD4850 and i would be glad to beta test it were to apply ?
i really hope your efforts succeed!! really amazing stuff and brain you have there.
congratz Eran
Posted by Unregistered on July 8th, 2008, 06:07 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by phxz31 View Post
Q: "This technology could make their Radeon brand even more attractive. . . If Radeons would support both PhysX and Havok it should make the brand more attractive to consumers."
A: Yes, I agree with you again. This technology is AWESOME. However, I still don't think you are willing to see their side of the argument. Your project is something that ATI cannot support, regardless of whether or not they want to. Business just doesn't work this way unfortunately.
Just think of Intel + Havok. Do you think they would like to see ATI + PhysX? Maybe they simply don't allow it....
Posted by Dwarden on July 8th, 2008, 06:14 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Thomason View Post
In other news, NGOHQ partners with developers from Falling Leaf Systems, to co-develop the physx port.
hope that was ironical comment about FLS
tho i heard some russians continue the DX10 @ XP with success to some degree ...
Posted by daltonkamote on July 8th, 2008, 10:31 PM
can i be part of the beta tester of this driver? pls, thanks
Posted by WeD@ on July 9th, 2008, 01:01 AM
Oh, for f*ck sake, can't you spare 200$ and get radeon 4850 ? here is the link:
http://computers.pricegrabber.com/vi.../sortby=priceA
and, Teo Valich is an idiot.
Cheers!

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amd, nvidia, physx

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