14 DAY TRIAL // Not exactly long ago, AMD’s Senior Manager of Developer Relations in Europe, Richard Huddy, boldly stated that NVIDIA used bribery in order to persuade game developers to use PhysX middleware in their games. AMD claims that, except for Epic, game developers don't really want PhysX, but they are required to use it because it is implied by their contracts with the Santa Clara GPU maker. In order to challenge these claims, NVIDIA not only denied the accusations, but went as far as saying that they lacked logic.
In an answer to X-Bit Labs, NVIDIA admitted that it actively supported the development of titles that used PhysX, but denied any sort of bribery activity whatsoever. What's more, the company stated that, due to the very nature of the process involved in creating a game, just trying to persuade a developer to use PhysX instead of Havok or other technologies was meaningless, because such choices were made well before the actual content of the title took shape. The reason that NVIDIA gives for developers' choice to use PhysX is the fact that it works not just on PCs, but also on PS3, X360, the Wii and even Apple's platform.
“Physics engines are critical components of games. The game developers are not going to choose a physics engine based on any kinds of incentives if that is going to jeopardize the game itself. Primary criteria for game developers [when selecting a physics engine] are feature-set, algorithms, tools, support from the vendor. The most important factor for game developer today is market platform. In other words is whether that supports X360, PS3, PC and some developers are targeting iPhone and Wii with our PhysX engine. We support all of those, which is the reason why PhysX has become so popular,” Ashutosh Rege, the worldwide director of developer technology at NVIDIA, said.
NVIDIA also pointed out the fact that PhysX was not the only physics processing tool it was working on. The company is also collaborating with open-source developers of such tools, including those based on OpenCL.
“We are happy to support all OpenCL or DirectCompute [implementations of physics engines]. If a developer asks us to help implement [a] certain feature, we will add it. If he asks to port something to DirectCompute, we will certainly do our best to get that to him. […] We will support game developers to the extent of our knowledge of, [for example], Bullet. Obviously, we do not have engineers, who are exposed in Bullet to [provide technical support], but we are working with the Bullet Engine team on specific things. […] At the end, we are selling GPUs, not PhysX,” the Worldwide Director of Developer Technology at NVIDIA added.
As far as the actual involvement in game development goes, NVIDIA stated that it naturally provided assistance in the creation of PhysX-based games, whether with financial resources or engineering expertise. Bribery, however, is not practiced. In fact, Advanced Micro Devices itself supports the titles that use its own graphical innovations. Game developers sometimes sign marketing deals with ATI or NVIDIA about six months or more before the launch of a game. This allows for the incorporation of extra functionality in said titles.
“Developers can also choose to add some GPU PhysX features. We will, of course, help them to do that; we will help them with engineering and we will help them even with artists, who also go on-site and spend a lot of time with their artists to [help creating content]. Adding GPU PhysX to a game is a lot more different than adding just general physics effects. There is more work than adding post-processing effects. So we help them with that. We also help them with marketing with any kind of bundle deals with add-in-card makers if the latter are interested in bundling those games,” Rege stressed.
Basically, NVIDIA says that game developers use PhysX because it boosts game experience and, as such, does not need to be forced upon the game developers.
“What we do when we add GPU PhysX engagement with the developer is that in no shape or form we do anything harmful for the rest of the platforms, those that do not support GPU PhysX. It is just an additive value to our GeForce customers and eventually it boosts game experience on the PC,” Mr. Rege said.