Intel Buys Havok (Physics Engine)

[Krakrok]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070915/tc_nm/intel_havok_dc_1

Havok already supports multiple cores so it seems like a good fit. Intel will probably add optimized support for their multicore processors. Depreciating support for AMD processors would be lame however.

Seems like there will be more and more big players buying middleware providers and more closely align them with their own technologies. What's next, nVidia buying the Ageia (PhysX Physics Card) or Microsoft buying SpeedTree?

[Big Gulp]

Rumor is that Intel has big plans in physics.  The plan is to used outdated Nvidia video cards as stand alone physics processors when you upgrade to another later and greater Nvidia card.  Great idea, considering old cards usually just go into the Closet of Electrical Junk ^TM.

If this took off it could really be the stake in ATI's heart.  Wouldn't be good news for AMD, who are already on the ropes.

[Yegolev]

Awesome idea for people that have more than one video card slot.  Unless you meant something else that what I think you mean?

[Big Gulp]

Awesome idea for people that have more than one video card slot.  Unless you meant something else that what I think you mean?

Nope, that's the gist of it from what I'm hearing.  So basically you'd almost need an SLI ready mobo, you just wouldn't be running it in SLI mode.

Seems okay to me, since SLI really seems fairly wasteful/of dubious actual utility.

[MisterNoisy]

If this took off it could really be the stake in ATI's heart.  Wouldn't be good news for AMD, who are already on the ropes.

I don't think it'll bother ATI/AMD nearly as much as it would Agiea.

[Big Gulp]

I don't think it'll bother ATI/AMD nearly as much as it would Agiea.

Yeah, but Agiea's business strategy has been shit from the get-go.  No developer is going to invest the time/money to implement dedicated physics cards into their games when only .5% of gamers would be willing to pay the crazy prices Agiea is asking for.  Particularly when AMD and Intel are racing each other to put multiple cores into their processors.

[Stephen Zepp]

I'm not sure how they plan on the implementation, but one of the big downsides to using "old video cards" for physics simulation is that the hardware of video cards is intentionally designed to be slow when pushing data from the card back to the CPU--it's optimized for the other direction. The other problem is that video processing is very very different from physics processing, and I don't know enough about the underlying hardware to have an opinion about how much it can be altered.

I'll definitely admit though that if they pull this part of the issue off, it'll be very interesting.

[TripleDES]

Actually, it was the AGP bus that introduced that limitation.

[Stephen Zepp]

The hardware itself (GPU, internal memory, shader pipes) are all optimized for one way as well--which just adds to the problem.

[Trippy]

GPUs are already being used as floating-point coprocessors such as with the ATI GPUs and Folding@Home. Having a "spare" GPU do physics calculations is just another example of that.

[Falwell]

Yuck, just read this earlier today myself. The last thing Intel needs is a tighter grip on the CPU market. The gods of overpriced, underperforming (pre Core 2) processors won't be toppled anytime soon.

[schild]

Yea, but post Core 2 duo, they're absolute monsters. And frankly, I'm done with AMD/ATI. I've been done with AMD for years, but after purchasing ATI, well, that was the final nail in that coffin.

[Big Gulp]

Yea, but post Core 2 duo, they're absolute monsters. And frankly, I'm done with AMD/ATI. I've been done with AMD for years, but after purchasing ATI, well, that was the final nail in that coffin.

I've got no complaints with my newest AMD processor.  Bang per buck-wise, it's fantastic, and frankly I don't like the idea of Intel and Nvidia owning the computing world.  It's not like any other companies will step up should AMD go under considering how fucking expensive it is to start up chip design/fabrication facilities.

We NEED AMD.

[Falwell]

Yea, but post Core 2 duo, they're absolute monsters. And frankly, I'm done with AMD/ATI. I've been done with AMD for years, but after purchasing ATI, well, that was the final nail in that coffin.

Oh the Core 2's are fucking behemoths, you tell no lies. Much like the FX line was for AMD for some time.

I'm waiting to give the Phenom line a shot later this year / early next when it drops. They gotta bring it big with this line, or AMD is gonna be seriously hurting.

Ditto on ATI for the most part. They've been the bride's maid ever since the 9700 pro went to mid level tech. Nvidia makes better hardware, better drivers, and better support in all my experiences. Nvidia has never given me a reason to go back to ATI, and as long as they don't, I won't.

[Falwell]

Yea, but post Core 2 duo, they're absolute monsters. And frankly, I'm done with AMD/ATI. I've been done with AMD for years, but after purchasing ATI, well, that was the final nail in that coffin.

I've got no complaints with my newest AMD processor.  Bang per buck-wise, it's fantastic, and frankly I don't like the idea of Intel and Nvidia owning the computing world.  It's not like any other companies will step up should AMD go under considering how fucking expensive it is to start up chip design/fabrication facilities.

We NEED AMD.

AMD is needed more than most know. They're the sole reason Intel has lowered their prices on their top end gaming processors even a little.

I just bought a new(ish) AMD processor myself just a couple months ago. FX 60 dual core. Extremely pleased with it. Not to mention I got a hell of a deal off of tiger direct for an OEM one (180 shipped I believe it was.) Runs like a champ and doesn't bottleneck my 8800GTX one bit up to this point.

Yeah I'm still running socket 939. I considered actually making the move to Intel from my 3700+ but I didn't want to be assed to replace the 4 gigs of ram on the swap. So I bought the best 939 processor on the board and it'll treat me well till the end of this year at the soonest.

[Trippy]

Yea, but post Core 2 duo, they're absolute monsters. And frankly, I'm done with AMD/ATI. I've been done with AMD for years, but after purchasing ATI, well, that was the final nail in that coffin.

Oh the Core 2's are fucking behemoths, you tell no lies. Much like the FX line was for AMD for some time.

I'm waiting to give the Phenom line a shot later this year / early next when it drops. They gotta bring it big with this line, or AMD is gonna be seriously hurting.

They are already seriously hurting and its just going to get worse before it gets better (if ever). The Barcelona/Phenom core is only about 15% faster clock speed for clock speed than the current ones which is not nearly enough to catch the Core, uh, cores. The K8 is still the better server chip so AMD will still be competitive there (for a while) but on the desktop side they will continue to lose market share (and tons of money).

Ditto on ATI for the most part. They've been the bride's maid ever since the 9700 pro went to mid level tech. Nvidia makes better hardware, better drivers, and better support in all my experiences. Nvidia has never given me a reason to go back to ATI, and as long as they don't, I won't.

ATI is screwed as well. NVIDIA is coming out with their 9xxx line in November with another substantial boost in performance and ATI doesn't even have anything competitive with the 8800 so they are going to be two generations behind performance-wise very shortly.

[Falwell]

Yep Trippy, and it scares me to death. Wanna see what happens when a company gets a near monopoly on a sector of the computer hardware business? Creative Labs.

God awful customer support, shitty drivers. Granted the hardware in and of itself is pretty decent, but they've become such a mainstay that they can afford to give shit support. Prefect example, I own an Audigy 2 ZS. Fairly topish sound card, 5.1 etc.

Last Vista 32 driver update? Fucking March. And it sure as hell isn't because it runs without flaw.

If Creative is any example of what a company does when it has the market cornered on a hardware component, god help us.

You assholes are really bumming me out btw. I see my inevitable swap to Intel coming sooner rather than later.

[Trippy]

Yep Trippy, and it scares me to death. Wanna see what happens when a company gets a near monopoly on a sector of the computer hardware business? Creative Labs.

AMD's temporary success against Intel with the K8 is just a short blip in the long timeline of Intel's dominance in the microprocessor arena.

[Sky]

Creative Labs.

God awful customer support, shitty drivers. Granted the hardware in and of itself is pretty decent, but they've become such a mainstay that they can afford to give shit support. Prefect example, I own an Audigy 2 ZS. Fairly topish sound card, 5.1 etc.

Last Vista 32 driver update? Fucking March. And it sure as hell isn't because it runs without flaw.

Not to mention the way they clusterfuck digital 5.1. I bought some Creative superawesplendituporous device that had a (massive) breakout box (with cool blue lights!), because it had digital ins/outs. Except the digital connections only do 2.1. WTF. They have some other breakout box that's supposed to actually do 5.1 by sending the analog outs to it and allowing digital optical to the receiver. But at this point I don't believe it for a second, even so it would be DAC to ADC to DAC kinda fucking mess.

I've embraced the fact I live in an EAX-less world. I have optical 5.1DD, though. I guess I could buy a new receiver with analog inputs 

Btw, the drivers for Auzentech are awful, too. It's a total clusterfuck product...but it works. I just wish I could get something like the old Soundstorm onboard chip.