Planet Lowyat

AMD AND INTEL are teaming up to backhand Nvidia in the physics arena. They are presenting a unified front to shut out NV for the first time.

If you remember, NV bought Ageia a while ago, and Intel owns Havok. Until today, this left ATI out in the cold; they could do their own and end up with a situation where each GPU has it’s own physics, or simply sit out the fray. They wisely chose to partner with Havok/Intel, and in doing so, marginalise Nvidia.

If the two sides play nice, and I have no doubt they will in the short and medium term, then that leaves the Nvidia/Ageia PhysX API as the red-headed stepchild of the industry. You have the Intel support mechanisms vs the Nvidia ones, Intel financial clout vs Nvidia. Take a guess which one will win that? Since ATI GPUs are in the two leading consoles, owning about 75+% of the installed base for which game devs target, that is a really strong incentive for developers to go Havok.

In the end, this is a political move, likely the first in a string, to cut off Nvidia’s air supply. It forces developers to take sides, Intel or Nvidia, and more importantly, console vs PC. The Intel/NV battle could go either way, likely decided by checkbooks more than anything, but the console/PC decision is done and dusted. NV loses badly here and there is nothing that they can do until the next console generation in 2011 or so.
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