NVIDIA shows off Hawken's PhysX capabilities

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
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This almost makes me want to actually give the game a go.
 

DarkStarr

Tech Monkey
No.... Just no. Fuck Nvidia and their proprietary PhysX. If it was GPU accelerated (as in they allowed Radeons to truly utilize PhysX) AMD chips WOULD run it much better, that's why they won't do it.

EDIT: That was before the video, however I still stand by it. The game does look pretty cool. Too bad I dont have my 480 laying around to toss in as a PhysX card to hybrid with my 7970.
 
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Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
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Moderator
"Fuck Nvidia and their proprietary PhysX."

I am not sure I'd call it proprietary really, because if an NVIDIA card is not installed, the effects will be relegated to the CPU instead. A proprietary feature would mean that it couldn't be used at all without the proper hardware.

"If it was GPU accelerated (as in they allowed Radeons to truly utilize PhysX) AMD chips WOULD run it much better, that's why they won't do it."

What leads you to assume this?

I find it a little odd that so many people are at NVIDIA's throat over PhysX. It could have just as easily been AMD that purchased AGEIA and wound up in the same situation. But apparently AMD didn't have the foresight to see value in it, and instead decided to sit back and wait for another open solution to come along. It didn't even try to create a competing solution. If you want an even better example of AMD resting on its laurels, look at GPGPU. NVIDIA was the company that even made that a thing to the mass market. It took years after NVIDIA released CUDA for AMD to follow-up with something tangible.

This all aside, unless the game prevents you from even activating PhysX if no NVIDIA card is installed (unlikely, but it's up to the developer, or the level of NVIDIA pressure on the developer), nothing stops AMD users from enabling it and seeing where it gets them. Borderlands 2 runs just fine with PhysX High for a lot of AMD users. Your luck will improve if you have a good CPU.
 

DarkStarr

Tech Monkey
"because if an NVIDIA card is not installed, the effects will be relegated to the CPU instead."

Not Exactly, as you saw with it on they said the Apex stuff was ONLY on Nvidia hardware, meaning even with a CPU it wouldn't look like that.

"If it was GPU accelerated (as in they allowed Radeons to truly utilize PhysX) AMD chips WOULD run it much better, that's why they won't do it."

What leads you to assume this?

The reason I say Radeons could run it better is because we all know which cards to get to do ANY distributed computing. (Hint its not Nvidia unless its F@H) Personally the big thing for me, is the fact some PhysX stuff only runs on the actual Nvidia hardware. The other thing is say you want AMD but have a decent Nvidia card to run as a PhysX card, too bad Nvidia wont support it and specifically disable things in their drivers if you are running an AMD card.

I mean I had PhysX benchmarks from when I had an AMD chip and a Radeon card and then with a 275 as PhysX. With the PhysX card (with a Hybrid PhysX patch) it scored 3x as high with more effects.

EDIT: I wanted to play Hawken.... Too bad the launcher seems to have an issue (on my system and several others) and no one knows why.
 
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DarkStarr

Tech Monkey
Awesome. Hawken is awesome. Currently been playing it 2 days, earned 10k Credits and got $50 worth of Meteo Credits (I only paid $12, thanks Nvidia!). The PhysX is pretty gimmicky IMO I dont feel like I am missing a thing on my 2700k/7870 setup (Had to RMA blah blah blah) Runs fine however has a aspect ratio issue across my dual screens..... So 1080 it is, runs fine with it all turned up though.
 

zacharyt1122

Obliviot
I don't see why propriotary features is such a bad thing. At the end of the day if you didn't have something to set AMD and Nvidia apart all you'd have is a war over who can squeeze a few more FPS out of the highest resolution.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
Proprietary features don't bother me too much unless I think they should be standard. PhysX is nice, but it's not so important to gaming that I think NVIDIA should have to legally share it. That said, I'd rather have it than not have it... I'm an eye candy whore.

Glad to hear HAWKEN is pretty good!
 

DarkStarr

Tech Monkey
Its more of the only some features are on CPU and the rest can only be enabled on a Nvidia GPU. Other than that I don't mind, its just annoying. I just want to know how hard AMD cards would crush PhysX if they could run it GPU accelerated.
 
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