From the Twitter QA tonight...

[Crazyduckling]

Here's the correspondence from the twitter QA:

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dmaix (me)

@planetside2 Tech question for those of us building PCs soon: Will PhysX be software or hardware based? Will we benefit from Nvidia cards?

mhigby

@dmaix @Planetside2 when pushing the bounds of the PhysX system, Nvidia hardware will make it run faster. Normal situations, not much diff.
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So, I guess this means, buy Nvidia? Anyone else have any other interpretations?

(unrelated)
I'm gonna update my PC build thread within a month. Maybe we'll be able to determine whether the cost benefit will be worth it nvidia vs amd/ati by then.

[SKYeXile]

Its never worth nvidia IMO.

[Goku]

If you are planning on planet side being your main game I think going nvidia is the best course due to it being better supported on top of Physx use as well. ATI will have the lead the next few months for a entire line up so for that time period the choice will be harder till nvidias next Gen is released.

[Vancha]

So, I guess this means, buy Nvidia? Anyone else have any other interpretations?

Yeah, "either will be fine, but I have to say Nvidia would be better in some scenario since they pay us."

Just a guess.

Either way, it still depends on what FPS the cards get at max settings. If a 7970 gets 65FPS and Nvidia's equivalent gets 90, then it probably won't matter for anyone not using a 120hz screen (most people), and 25FPS is probably being quite generous.

[Goku]

You still have to take into effect minimum FPS. If Nvidia can provide higher min even if a AMD card is above the refresh rate for the average it will still be a better playing experience on a Nvidia card.

I don't think this is a paid statement type deal either. You can run GPU based PhysX on a CPU, but it cripples the entire system. If that is how PS2 will be you will not be running PhysX on a CPU, but only a GPU.

[Vancha]

Well yeah, I used the 65 and 90FPS examples for a reason. Obviously if the 7970's minimum FPS was 10FPS and Nvidia's equivalent had a minimum of 58FPS, Nvidia would win hands down.

My point was though, until we know how the game runs on an AMD rig, we don't know whether whatever advantage Nvidia has will be relevant. It would suck to buy a $500 Nvidia card in preparation for PS2 and find out a $250 AMD card would have delivered an identical experience.

That said, I'd forgotten GPU PhysX could run off the CPU. Does GPU PhysX still kill CPUs? Even Intel's best offerings?

[Goku]

Well yeah, I used the 65 and 90FPS examples for a reason. Obviously if the 7970's minimum FPS was 10FPS and Nvidia's equivalent had a minimum of 58FPS, Nvidia would win hands down.

My point was though, until we know how the game runs on an AMD rig, we don't know whether whatever advantage Nvidia has will be relevant. It would suck to buy a $500 Nvidia card in preparation for PS2 and find out a $250 AMD card would have delivered an identical experience.

That said, I'd forgotten GPU PhysX could run off the CPU. Does GPU PhysX still kill CPUs? Even Intel's best offerings?

Yes it does still kill it unfortunately, unless something has changed with the latest PhysX version. I know one was in development to get better CPU support, but I don't know if it was released or not. PS2 may not even use that particular one that ups the CPU performance. I saw a review with even the 980X struggling to have playable frame rates with the current version as well.

[Vancha]

Thanks for bumping your thread in the PS2 forum. Reminded me of lots of things I'd forgotten about.

I think I'd still suggest that people wait for people for benchmarks before buying a card solely for the reason that they think it will run PS2 better due to PhysX's implications, but Higby's comment has certainly raised questions.

[Goku]

Thanks for bumping your thread in the PS2 forum. Reminded me of lots of things I'd forgotten about.

I think I'd still suggest that people wait for people for benchmarks before buying a card solely for the reason that they think it will run PS2 better due to PhysX's implications, but Higby's comment has certainly raised questions.

I agree, but I still think people would be better served with a Nvidia card if they will only be playing PS2 as their main game when it comes out. Besides performance there could be driver issues that AMD cards will exhibit as opposed to Nvidia ones. Back when PS was going I remember ATI cards had quite a few issues from graphical glitches to crashing more often compared to Nvidia. Of course AMD cards have far better driver support these days, so hopefully that won't be an issue as much.

[Vancha]

Maybe, but it'd suck to find out someone bought an Nvidia card with your recommendation and then discovered an AMD card would have been just as good for $100 less or something.

[Goku]

I wouldn't be doing that. Nvidia has a good line up price wise comparable to AMD anyway.

[Vancha]

Sorry, I've lost you. What wouldn't you be doing?

[Goku]

Unless I misread your post, I meant I wouldn't be telling people to spend an extra $100 just for a Nvidia card.

[Vancha]

Oh, no. That was a decision by the hypothetical person in question.

"You said an Nvidia card would be better, so I got a 680, but my friend's 7950 plays the game just as well! Dubbleya-tee-eff, Goku?!"

Alright, I confess I'm slightly crossing time streams with that quote, but you get the idea.

[duck]

Go nVidia. They have had a reputation of overpricing their cards, and ATI's were more value but nowadays nVidia price their cards pretty competitively.

[Oryon22]

One thing I do like about nVidia's cards is that they generally offer higher minimum FPS than a comparable AMD card.

[Vancha]

One thing I do like about nVidia's cards is that they generally offer higher minimum FPS than a comparable AMD card.

Aye. The way I see it, Nvidia are muscle cars to AMD's electric cars.

[Mutant]

Looks like the new Nvidia GPU architecture known as Kepler due in a few months has hardware optimisations for PhysX in the shader blocks, even helping along the software API code.


Interesting article from charile over at semiaccurate
Physics hardware makes Kepler/GK104 fast (http://semiaccurate.com/2012/02/01/physics-hardware-makes-keplergk104-fast/)

"How many other games have had this level of attention and optimisation gifted upon them is another open question. One thing we can say is that the list of benchmarks shown off by Nvidia where Kepler has an overwhelming advantage all support PhysX. This is not to say that they are all hardware/GPU PhysX accelerated, they are not, most use the software API.

This is important because it strongly suggests that Nvidia is accelerating their own software APIs on Kepler without pointing it out explicitly. Since Kepler is a new card with new drivers, there is no foul play here, and it is a quite legitimate use of the available hardware. Then again, they have been proven to degrade the performance of the competition through either passive (http://semiaccurate.com/2010/07/07/nvidia-purposefully-hobbles-physx-cpu/) or active methods (http://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/20991-amd-nvidia-batman-arkham-asylum-aa-fiasco-telling-truth/). Since Nvidia controls the APIs and middleware used, the competition can not ‘fix’ these ‘problems with the performance of their hardware’."


It would be interesting to know if SOE have any Nvidia devs working with them on forgelight.

[Oryon22]

I'm personally waiting for Kepler, whether its succeeds or fails, before choosing a team.

[Goku]

I think that article is BS. I'm not buying it. Nvidia isn't that stupid to rely on PhysX to attempt to get the upper hand in a few select games. Maybe PhysX processing has been improved, but it won't be the backbone of this gen. Especially when Nvidia develops these cards for their Tesla and FX lines these days. No reason for them to put old Aegia hardware in such cards as a result, only will be a waste on the die.

[Mutant]

I think that article is BS. I'm not buying it. Nvidia isn't that stupid to rely on PhysX to attempt to get the upper hand in a few select games. Maybe PhysX processing has been improved, but it won't be the backbone of this gen. Especially when Nvidia develops these cards for their Tesla and FX lines these days. No reason for them to put old Aegia hardware in such cards as a result, only will be a waste on the die.

While Charlie is not always 100% (by any means lol) there is normally a good pinch of truth in his articles. I am on the fence with this one it seems a tad far fetched but not impossible.

What the article proposes seems possible; ie that kelper will somehow get some sort of hardware improvement (possible in the shader blocks) that gives improved throughput for the types of instructions that physX uses.

This is not necessarily any more drastic than amd going VLIW5 to VLIW4, this change may well be looking at improving compute but at the same time giving a real benefit to physX.

So while similar sized/price nivida and amd chips will have similar perform the nvidia chips will blow away amd for things using physX.
Nvidia pricing GK104 at $300 would seem fit with this.


Time will tell. If there is a lot of truth in this article is will make a big difference for planetside2 players.

[Goku]

While Charlie is not always 100% (by any means lol) there is normally a good pinch of truth in his articles. I am on the fence with this one it seems a tad far fetched but not impossible.

What the article proposes seems possible; ie that kelper will somehow get some sort of hardware improvement (possible in the shader blocks) that gives improved throughput for the types of instructions that physX uses.

This is not necessarily any more drastic than amd going VLIW5 to VLIW4, this change may well be looking at improving compute but at the same time giving a real benefit to physX.

So while similar sized/price nivida and amd chips will have similar perform the nvidia chips will blow away amd for things using physX.
Nvidia pricing GK104 at $300 would seem fit with this.


Time will tell. If there is a lot of truth in this article is will make a big difference for planetside2 players.

I know Charlie has been right in the past and I do get a kick out of his articles. Don't forget he was "bamboozled" into thinking that the GK104 was the second coming of Christ just last week.