NVIDIA made a big fuss about its support for the physics effect engine Havok FX a few days ago. It sent out a press release that told of that by using two video cards in SLI you could dedicate one of the cards to handle physics, an alternative to AGIEA’s dedicated physics expansion card, PhysX. The physics technology it spoke off is called Havok FX and as we mentioned in our new article about NVIDIA’s press release the technology only requires Shader Model 3.0 compatibility to work. Therefore it comes as no surprise that ATI, that has earlier pointed out that the video cards should handle the physics, has entered the game. It has namely announced that its latest Radeon video cards (Shader Model 3.0 compatible) also support Havok FX and according to ATI with even better performance than NVIDIA.
At PC Perspective they’ve published an article that discuss ATI’s view and focus on GPU accelerated physical effects. The article is mainly based on material and some tests supplied by ATI, making the performance test a bit doubtful perhaps, but still interesting. An article covering a subject that has really exploded over the last few days.
They explain how ATI can claim that its RD580 circuit is more efficient than NVIDIA G71 for handling physics. Another interesting part is that if you use two video cards where one focus on the physics the cards doesn’t have to work in Crossfire mode, making also older or slower cards suitable as PhysX substitutes.
“What is most impressive to me is that ATI has assured me that these two cards do not have to run in CrossFire mode, and thus they do not have to be the same GPU. If you have an X1900 XTX now, and in about eight months you buy a new ATI 2800 XTX, you can save your X1900 XTX for physics calculations. As of now, NVIDIA has said they do not support this feature but see the value in doing so.”
The physics handling seems to be the flavor of the month and the question is where it will end, there is a huge potential here for game developers and the gaming experience will most likely become truly extreme.
