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    Does ATI have its own version of Physx?

    Discussion in 'Sager and Clevo' started by Fociz, Mar 6, 2010.

  1. Fociz

    Fociz Notebook Consultant

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    Im deciding on the GTX 285 or HD 5870.
    I havent owned an ati card since the x1900xt.

    I like nvidia's physx drivers etc.
    Does Ati have a counter and is it supported as much as nvidia's?
     
    Fociz, Mar 6, 2010
    #1
  2. steadfast9661

    steadfast9661 Notebook Evangelist

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    I dont think they do, but all physx does is take some load of the CPU and put it on the gpu...and i think if you do some reading here, you will see its a no brainer, 5870 hands down.
     
    steadfast9661, Mar 6, 2010
    #2
  3. Phinagle

    Phinagle Notebook Prophet

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    Nothing that's their own, or pushed as hard as Physx is, but AMD/ATI does support open source physics engines like Havok (though now owned by Intel), Bullet and Pixelux.

    There's also DirectCompute.
     
    Phinagle, Mar 6, 2010
    #3
  4. IKAS V

    IKAS V Notebook Prophet

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    Nope.
    Their big thing is tesselation with DX11
     
    IKAS V, Mar 6, 2010
    #4
  5. devilcm3

    devilcm3 Notebook Deity

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    Havok is not as popular as Physx
    but well nowadays we dont really need physics anyway
     
    devilcm3, Mar 6, 2010
    #5
  6. fzhfzh

    fzhfzh Notebook Deity

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    PhysX is already open source 1-2 years ago, and free for commercial development as well. From a developer point of view, PhysX is currently the best physics library available with the least problems and the most support as well as features. Having a PhysX card simply unlocks and speeds up more of the features like fluid, cloth physics etc, though not exactly necessary IMO with the speed of processors nowadays.
     
    fzhfzh, Mar 6, 2010
    #6
  7. Eriand

    Eriand Notebook Consultant

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    BF:bad company 2 uses Havok :)
     
    Eriand, Mar 7, 2010
    #7
  8. ettornio

    ettornio Notebook Deity

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    DirectCompute (DX11 API) is Microsoft's attempt at balancing out the playing field. I'm not sure about this, but I think you can do some of the neat things PhysX can do, such as HD video playback over the GPU, with DirectCompute.
     
    ettornio, Mar 7, 2010
    #8
  9. fzhfzh

    fzhfzh Notebook Deity

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    I don't think the purpose of PhysX was ever playing HD video on the GPU, but shifting the physics calculation from the processor to the physics processing unit, as well as it being a physics engine, microsoft won't ever include any sort of developed code such as a physics engine in their directx library, which is a rendering library anyways and have nothing to do with physics.
     
    fzhfzh, Mar 7, 2010
    #9
  10. Phinagle

    Phinagle Notebook Prophet

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    Phinagle, Mar 9, 2010
    #10