Earlier this week, in anticipation of the first real review of Ageia's PhysX card beginning to show up, the folks at rival physics software company Havok sent out a juicy e-mail to the press, including us, talking down Ageia's solution. Havok, you may recall, is working with graphics companies like NVIDIA and ATI on a product called Havok FX that will accelerate in-game physics using a GPU.
The primary focus of the e-mail is the one major game title so far to ship with support for PhysX hardware, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter.
Havok contends in the e-mail message that Ghost Recon uses Havok?s API for all gameplay-impacting physics, on the PC and in the various console releases. They argue Ageia's API is only used for eye candy-type particle effects and only on the game's PPU-accelerated code path. What's more, they claim, those particle effects are unimpressive, with volumes easily achievable in software, yet the game slows down observably when PPU acceleration is active.
The TechReport
Havok contends in the e-mail message that Ghost Recon uses Havok?s API for all gameplay-impacting physics, on the PC and in the various console releases. They argue Ageia's API is only used for eye candy-type particle effects and only on the game's PPU-accelerated code path. What's more, they claim, those particle effects are unimpressive, with volumes easily achievable in software, yet the game slows down observably when PPU acceleration is active.
The TechReport
