AMD gets beaten by NVidia, any plans?

[RealNC]

OK, as of late I'm pretty much fed up. I can't activate PhysX with my ATI card, and the world is moving towards CUDA. There are CUDA video encoders that are rather good. PhysX and CUDA is something AMD doesn't want to support. AMD is losing the game here. Everyone out there supports NVidia and AMD just sits there and does nothing.

So, the question is, why did I buy an AMD/ATI in the first place? It starts to feel outdated lately (no PhysX, no CUDA.) Will AMD do something here? Will you allow us to enable PhysX in our games? I'm not talking about some future-wonder-tech to appear next year. I'm talking about RIGHT NOW. Because right now, I want to get an NVidia since my ATI runs like s***t with the latest PhysX games and no one supports ATI Stream out there, only CUDA.

PS:
I feel ripped-off by AMD. Where's the support for the COOL stuff?

[gsmd]

Well, the cool stuff (you forgot UVD2) is hard to implement. It requires top-notch developers who are keen on what they are doing. AMD doesn't seem to have such developers to make it. Probably it's the past wrong decisions that are pulling the current devs back. To be honest, ATI control center always sucked to my liking (counter-intuitive, no native look for buttons under WinXP) and it hasn't ever changed much, so it's probably all together.
Let's face it: AMD fails to live up to expectations of the Linux community for now, but they seem to be moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, this takes excessive amounts of time. Hard to blame them as the stuff in fact is next to rocket science .

[RealNC]

They also fail in Windows, not just Linux. No CUDA, no PhysX. Doesn't matter if it's Linux or Windows. AMD lacks it. NVidia has it. The choice for the customer is obvious: NVidia.

[energyman]

well, there is 'cuda' for a long time on ATI hardware. Called 'stream'. Just look around before you make yourself looking like a fool. Also doesn't ATI plan to/supports opencl? Which is a nice, open standard to use the video hardware for computing? Nothing so far from nvidia.
PhysX - well nvidia bought that inc. What do you expect.
Oh - and I read on several places that the upcoming ATI drivers will bring a 20% increase of performance on quad core cpus ... do the math.

[RealNC]

well, there is 'cuda' for a long time on ATI hardware. Called 'stream'. Just look around before you make yourself looking like a fool.

You're the fool if you think you can run CUDA on ATI. No one supports Stream. They support CUDA.

Also doesn't ATI plan to/supports opencl? Which is a nice, open standard to use the video hardware for computing?

Who cares? Right now they have nothing. I can't use PhysX with my ATI. Is the "plan to support opencl" helping me? I just tried again just now; still doesn't work.

Nothing so far from nvidia.

CUDA + PhysX. It's ATI that has nothing.

PhysX - well nvidia bought that inc. What do you expect.
Oh - and I read on several places that the upcoming ATI drivers will bring a 20% increase of performance on quad core cpus ... do the math.

I read everywhere that games went PhysX and video and GPGPU went CUDA. Do the math.

ATI has nothing right now. NOTHING.

[energyman]

are you playing dumb?

If you are so unhappy, go, buy nvidia. You will see what you get. CUDA will be dead soon - because even APPLE wants opencl. And physx brings you what? Does any game on linux use it?

Stream has its applications just because you are not able to google ...

ATI has everything - NVIDIA has a lot of hype and obviously you are failing for it.

[RealNC]

I'm using Windows too, not only Linux. I can't buy NVidia because I bought an ATI. My pocket has limits, you know. I jumped on the wrong train.

What hype? PhysX is there. No hype. A crapload of games uses PhysX. What hype? There are even plans to port x264 to CUDA. No one even mentions ATI. AMD should support CUDA and PhysX and be done with it. There's no hype. Only fanbois who don't see the situation. Again: Right now, the cool stuff is with NVidia.

ATI: We'll be awesome next year!
NVidia: We're awesome RIGHT NOW.

[energyman]

please name the crapload of games. And please show where this games run faster in a way that one can tell it without looking on the FPS.

Oh, and does have CUDA double precision FP? The last time I checked only stream does. Without dp fp CUDA is just a marketing joke. Ok, some fanboys will wet themselves because they can buy a video encoder that runs a bit faster...

[RealNC]

please name the crapload of games. And please show where this games run faster in a way that one can tell it without looking on the FPS.

Mirror's Edge is UNPLAYABLE (2FPS) on ATI with PhysX enabled. Like the majority of other games: "NVidia: The Way it's Meant to be Played".

List (probably incomplete) of games supporting PhysX:

2 Days to Vegas
Adrenalin 2: Rush Hour
Age of Empires III
Age of Empires III
Alpha Prime
Auto Assault
Backbreaker
B.A.S.E. Jumping
Bet on Soldier: Blackout Saigon
Bet on Soldier: Blood of Sahara
Bet on Soldier: Blood Sport
Beowulf
Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War
Captain Blood
Cellfactor: Combat Training
Cellfactor: Revolution
City of Villains
Crazy Machines II
Cryostasis
Dark Physics
Desert Diner
Dragonshard
Dusk 12
Empire Above All
Empire Earth III
Entropia Universe
Fallen Earth
Fury
Gears Of War
Gluk'Oza: Action
GooBall
Gothic 3
Gunship Apocalypse
Heavy Rain
Hero's Jorney
Hour of Victory
Hunt, The
Infernal
Inhabited island: Prisoner of Power
Joint Task Force
Kuma\WAR
Magic ball 3
Mass Effect
Medal of Honor: Airborne
Metro 2033
Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire
Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia
Monster Truck Maniax
Myst Online: URU Live
Open Fire
Paragraph 78
Pirates of the Burning Sea
PT Boats: Knights of the Sea
Rail Simulator
Red Steel
Rise Of Nations: Rise Of Legends
Roboblitz
Sacred 2
Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened
Showdown: Scorpion
Silverfall
Sovereign Symphony
Speedball 2
Stalin Subway, The
Stoked Rider: Alaska Alien
Switchball
Tension
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent
Tortuga: Two Treasures
Two Worlds
Ultra Tubes
Unreal Tournament 3
Warfare
Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction
W.E.L.L. Online
Winterheart's Guild
WorldShift

Does this answer your question?

Oh, and does have CUDA double precision FP?

Who cares? The world supports it anyway.

[EmbraceUnity]

RealNC,

Last time I checked, Phoronix was for linux users. ATI is far superior when it comes to openness. Just today they released 3D specs for all their latest cards... good luck getting that from Nvidia.

Few of those games you listed even run on linux, so nobody here should care about them. The ones that do run on linux are nowhere near demanding enough to actually need dedicated physics processing.

We value freedom, and as such we would rather see OpenCL and ATI's FOSS drivers succeed.

PhysX et al, are just a phase until true heterogenous computing takes over. Intel's Larrabee and AMD's upcoming offerings are far more exciting, and that sort of stuff will require OpenCL to really succeed, and everyone knows it.