DailyTech - Microsoft Says No Physics API

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Hardware Microsoft Says No Physics API
Anh Tuan Huynh (Blog) - July 25, 2006 5:45 AM

22 comment(s) - last by Trisped.. on Jul 26 at 12:01 PM

DirectX Physics rumors denied

Microsoft has denied its working on a DirectX physics API for the upcoming DirectX 10. DailyTech previously reported Microsoft may be interested in developing a physics API due to a job description on Microsoft’s employment page. However, according to a recent interview with Rick Wickham, Director of the Windows Gaming business in the September issue of Maximum PC magazine, such rumors were denied.

Wickham indicated that Microsoft is still planning to hire physics programmers, but the company's intention is to get a jump on physics processing should AGEIA and Havok really take off.

The job description is still posted on Microsoft’s careers webpage. It still wouldn’t be too surprising to see Microsoft add physics processing support to the next version of DirectX. ATI and NVIDIA are both developing GPU accelerated physics processing solutions using HavokFX. Havok has also recently released its Havok 4.0 SDK too. AGEIA also released its PhysX physics process with lukewarm response.

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retarded posters abound

By ElJefe69 on 7/25/2006 11:38:08 AM , Rating: 2

Think about a business that involves thousands of people and many millions of dollars. That's right you cannot as you do not own one. what if you did? you wouldnt have made the aegia thing without it ACTUALLY WORKING. the support for it is lacking severely. Single geek benchmarks of systems and games that do not use the engine mean nothing. It is quite apparent that aegia brought out the card so that developers and directx 10 developers would have a reason to include physics. Not to sell the cards right away. 200 price tag is to STOP people from buying it who would give it bad reviews, kiddies, avg joe poster etc, as they have no use for it. Yet, the price tag makes it looks more luxurious.

RE: retarded posters abound

By masher2

(blog) on 7/25/2006 12:58:38 PM , Rating: 2

> "you wouldnt have made the aegia thing without it ACTUALLY WORKING..."

The card works obviously. In a strict sense at least. The question is whether the implementation is flawed. Is an independent processor on a low-bandwidth bus viable? And- even if it is-- is the Aegia concept simply a too far ahead of its time to be viable? History is filled with examples of products that were released before the market was ready for them. Usually their respective companies go belly-up long before the market comes around.

Blaming game developers is silly. A hardware manufacturer can't assume developers exist to promote their product...they have their own priorities. If you can't get developers on board, its YOUR fault. Not theirs.

At this point in time, we have to assume that either the Aegia hardware implementation is flawed, or that Aegia has done a poor job of giving developers the software tools and information needed to easily implement it.

> "200 price tag is to STOP people from buying it who would give it bad reviews"

So your theory is they overpriced the card to keep sales low? I gotta give this the "tin foil hat" award of the day.

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RE: retarded posters abound

By aos007 on 7/25/2006 3:01:40 PM , Rating: 2

> "200 price tag is to STOP people from buying it who would give it bad reviews"

>So your theory is they overpriced the card to keep sales low? >I gotta give this the "tin foil hat" award of the day.

Uhm... do you ever shop online? Sometimes certain products are given artificially high prices in order to prevent people from buying them in unintended ways. For example, a promotional CD/DVD that is supposed only to come with purchase of a DVD player is listed for $1500 to discourage people from buying it separately, yet allow it to be entered in the database. A workaround for a design flaw in the sales software, yes, but things like this do happen. So his theory (only sales to developers, not to end users) is hardly stupid per se. Of course, there are plenty other indications that show that these are really intended for end users. But then his comment could be a sarcasm - for what the card provides, it's indeed priced way too high, as if not intended for sale to end users anyway.

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RE: retarded posters abound

By DigitalFreak on 7/25/2006 3:48:01 PM , Rating: 1

Uh... yeah...

If they are not intended to be sold to end users, then why is Dell including them in some of their XPS systems?

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RE: retarded posters abound

By Scrogneugneu on 7/25/2006 9:48:05 PM , Rating: 2

Simply because OMG OMG IT HAS A 9X506 FXT TURBO II VIDEO CARD AND A CPU OVER 3 Ghthing AND A HARD-DRIVE SO BIG THAT I CAN PUT THE WHOLE WEB ON IT AND 2GB AND A PHYSICS CARD!!!11!!

See, not everyone buying a Dell system knows what a computer's real value is. Big numbers = big performance = big price in too many people's mind. Dell just knows it ;)

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"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007