DailyTech - Microsoft Says No Physics API

Submit News

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.

Comments

Threshold

Username
Password
remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

wooo, go MS

By Mday on 7/25/2006 11:49:10 AM , Rating: 1

MS needs to get working on this ASAP, so we consumers dont wind up with a mess. If it's one thing MS is good at, it's the ability to get companies on their bandwagon...

RE: wooo, go MS

By bldckstark on 7/25/2006 11:59:47 AM , Rating: 2

Usually by using whips and chains, but I agree.

Parent

RE: wooo, go MS

By DigitalFreak on 7/25/2006 3:51:06 PM , Rating: 2

Hell, whatever works in this case. I would rather avoid the mess that happened during the early days of 3D. Glide, whatever Rendition used, OpenGL, etc., etc.

Create a DirectPhysics extension to DirectX, and developers will start using it, cause it will not matter if the hardware is from Ageia, ATI, Nvidia, or anyone else.

Parent

RE: wooo, go MS

By PrinceGaz on 7/26/2006 7:19:38 AM , Rating: 2

Yeah, I don't care if it is DirectPhysics or OpenPL, but please ffs someone make a universal API for physics so we can avoid the mess of early 3D card days.

Whenever I come across a game from the 1996-98 era that supports hardware-accelerated graphics, I know that getting it working cam be a nightmare. Voodoo, Rendition, PowerVR, ATI Rage, Matrox, Riva etc etc are all given as graphics options and not one of them works with a modern card with the possible exception of Matrox! If you're lucky they released a patch to support DirectX 5, but if not you have to resort to a Glide wrapper which may or may not work properly, or stick to software-rendering.

Unless OpenPhysics or OpenPL arrives within a couple of years, ten years down the line when the current proprietary physics APIs have come and gone, we'll be in the same situation when trying to play games released in 2006-2008. More often than not we'll have to resort to "software physics" mode or some dirty hack despite have uber hardware by today's standards.

Parent