Borderlands 2 - Nvidia only game

Nvidia spend time and money developing PhysX (It's a SDK so developers don't have to write their own physics and worry about hogging PC resources ) and creating a hardware architecture (CUDA cores) to allow games to run smoothly using physics (CPUs are not very efficient at this because they are not made with the intent of doing large calculations lots of times). This has been round for quite a while just never used. Nvidia bought PhysX from another company though.

So no Nvidia is not the bad guy, they are trying to improve there customers gaming experience. ATI could easily make their own systems however they do not.
 
The game developers are also to blame for choosing one hardware manufacturer over another. They should not optimize the game for one hardware manufacturer. It's fine if the difference is minor like a few extra particles here and there, for example in Batman, Arkham Asylum and City. The difference in Borderlands is however pronounced to the extent that people with ATI cards will feel like they have got an inferior game. What does the game studio think? That everyone is going to run out and buy Nvidia cards to experience their game as it should be? I hope the lost sales (once people realize how different the game looks) makes them realize that a lot of people are unhappy.

Some people will say,why don't ATI also have physx? It's because Nvidia has copyrighted the technology so only they can use it. The game developers know this of course.
 
If you are using ATI, you are going the cheapo option anyway, so don't complain while I play this game in it's full magnificent glory ;)

/flamesuit on
 
And all this blathering back and forth about being ABLE to change is really nice for those that have desktop boxen. But get a shiny new, NOT cheap notebook with an ATi card that is made that way and *only* that way and you're screwed.

And it's not like notebooks are popular or anything, is it?
 
SaiyanZ said:
The game developers are also to blame for choosing one hardware manufacturer over another. They should not optimize the game for one hardware manufacturer. It's fine if the difference is minor like a few extra particles here and there, for example in Batman, Arkham Asylum and City. The difference in Borderlands is however pronounced to the extent that people with ATI cards will feel like they have got an inferior game. What does the game studio think? That everyone is going to run out and buy Nvidia cards to experience their game as it should be? I hope the lost sales (once people realize how different the game looks) makes them realize that a lot of people are unhappy.

Some people will say,why don't ATI also have physx? It's because Nvidia has copyrighted the technology so only they can use it. The game developers know this of course.
Click to expand...
SO because ATI does not want to invest in their brand and create Hardware and software thats capable of physics emulation, while Nvidia does, the entire gaming community should be held back because of that. ATI can make their own version of PhysX they're just to lazy. Of course Nvidia will copyright a product they bought then further improved. The only people to blame here is ATI.

Also I suspect that the non-physX versions GFX was toned down a bit purely for the video. PhysX has nothing to do with texture rendering ect. But of course the particle physics you wont find in the non-physX version
 
Finally another physX game... I wondered what had happened to it after Batman and Mirror's Edge!
 
SaiyanZ said:
The game developers are also to blame for choosing one hardware manufacturer over another. They should not optimize the game for one hardware manufacturer.
Click to expand...

With your logic a PS3 game should look the same as a Wii game. What an utter load of bollocks.

ATI could make their own alternative physx or buy one.
 
Little-Mermaid said:
SO because ATI does not want to invest in their brand and create Hardware and software thats capable of physics emulation, while Nvidia does, the entire gaming community should be held back because of that. ATI can make their own version of PhysX they're just to lazy. Of course Nvidia will copyright a product they bought then further improved. The only people to blame here is ATI.

Also I suspect that the non-physX versions GFX was toned down a bit purely for the video. PhysX has nothing to do with texture rendering ect. But of course the particle physics you wont find in the non-physX version
Click to expand...

Even if ATI goes ahead and makes their own version of physx without being sued by Nvidia, the chances of both technologies being implemented by the developers is slim. The only people that win here are Nvidia guys who play Borderlands. Other Nvidia guys who play games, but not Borderlands, get charged more for their cards when compared to ATI because Nvidia say their cards have physx. The reality is that very few games make use of physx and this is the first one that I have seen that uses it to such an extent.

So:
+1 for Nvidia guys who play Borderlands
-1 for ATI guys who play Borderlands, since the developers could have used the extra resources to make the game better for everyone.
-1 for Nvidia guys who don't play Borderlands because they're paying more for physx technology although it's rarely used in games.
 
What sucks is that NVidia disable physx on Nvidia cards when they detect the presence of ATI cards. So even though you're supporting Nvidia but buying one of their cards, you can't have PhysX because you chose ATI as primary.

BS is BS.

Too bad - no borderlands 2 for me then.
 
Little-Mermaid said:
Nvidia spend time and money developing PhysX (It's a SDK so developers don't have to write their own physics and worry about hogging PC resources ) and creating a hardware architecture (CUDA cores) to allow games to run smoothly using physics (CPUs are not very efficient at this because they are not made with the intent of doing large calculations lots of times). This has been round for quite a while just never used. Nvidia bought PhysX from another company though.

So no Nvidia is not the bad guy, they are trying to improve there customers gaming experience. ATI could easily make their own systems however they do not.
Click to expand...

You have absolutely no idea at all what you are talking about...

PhysX can and has been run on CPUs perfectly fine. Nvidia deliberately didnt use SSE instructions sets to achieve this prior to SDK 3 (PhysX uses stone age X87 instructions). End result, you must buy Nvidia for some extra eye candy. Even worse, you must have ONLY nvidia cards. Heaven forbid you buy AMD for your primary, and then Nvidia for PhysX. Thankfully Nvidia rewrote their drivers so that you are not allowed to do that, how kind of them.

As for AMD not doing the same... They actually have... Heck, they even tried open initiative that anyone could have used.

Little-Mermaid said:
The only people to blame here is ATI.
Click to expand...

But of course, AMD is at fault here :rolleyes: They are to blame for not having as much money, and being strong armed out of a piece of the market via good marketing (Physx brainwashing is evidence of this) and heaps of cash. Do you even know that the co founder of Physx is actually disappointed by what Nvidia has done to it? He wanted physics effects to be common and widespread, not some silly proprietary tech that Nvidia uses as a marketing tool
 
SaiyanZ said:
Even if ATI goes ahead and makes their own version of physx without being sued by Nvidia, the chances of both technologies being implemented by the developers is slim. The only people that win here are Nvidia guys who play Borderlands. Other Nvidia guys who play games, but not Borderlands, get charged more for their cards when compared to ATI because Nvidia say their cards have physx. The reality is that very few games make use of physx and this is the first one that I have seen that uses it to such an extent.

So:
+1 for Nvidia guys who play Borderlands
-1 for ATI guys who play Borderlands, since the developers could have used the extra resources to make the game better for everyone.
-1 for Nvidia guys who don't play Borderlands because they're paying more for physx technology although it's rarely used in games.
Click to expand...
That's the only part of your post that makes sense. However still irrelevant, die work involved in doing that is far less than deploying the same game on 3 different systems (Consoles and PCs). Remember the days they made games in OpenGL and directX? It's as simple as writing a interface class that handles the details of the different physics engine.

As for getting sued, you can't copyright software.

Lastly Nvidia users pay a premium for a better product which includes PhysX, PhysX isn't the selling point nor does it add much cost on the big scale of things.

Then lastly, improve the game for everyone? Nvidia most likely sponsored the use of PhysX so the effect on final product is negligible for non PhysX players.
 
Little-Mermaid said:
As for getting sued, you can't copyright software.
Click to expand...
:rolleyes: I guess the following is just a big waste of space in the field of law?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_copyright
Software copyright is used by proprietary software companies to prevent the unauthorized copying of their software
Click to expand...

Nvidia most likely sponsored the use of PhysX
Click to expand...

Indeed they do. PhysX is often given for free to game developers, IF they agree to a hardware only implementation (ie, it runs only on an Nvidia GPU)
 
Archer said:
:rolleyes: I guess the following is just a big waste of space in the field of law?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_copyright




Indeed they do. PhysX is often given for free to game developers, IF they agree to a hardware only implementation (ie, it runs only on an Nvidia GPU)
Click to expand...

yes they can copyright software, what I meant was ATI could make their own version and not get sued.

As for the CPU vs GPU argument: While CPU's are capable of running physX the architecture focuses on completing one thread quickly while GPUs with CUDA used for GFX focuses on processing a lot of threads at a slower, which is better suited to separate intensive physics calculations. Secondly from a business perspective why would Nvidia allow games to be played with their proprietary software, which they spend money on, while not receiving and benefits from it?

PhysX if free to use for all, Nvidia just sponsors them to use it to gain exposure, IE marketing. As for ATI being poor who's fault is that? Don't get me wrong they keep Nvidia honest, but if they were a more competitive firm Nvidia would not dominate. This comes down business practise, and they solely have them selves to blame. They had good cards but dodgy drivers and bad support lost them more market share which in the past few years has lead to Nvidia being so strong.
 
Isn't game developers going to be implementing server side physics in upcoming games?

I heard Blacklight: retribution does something similar but I might be mistaken.
 
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