With its latest driver release, Nvidia disabled hardware PhysX support in systems that use an ATI card for graphics along with an Nvidia card for physics.
AMD played down the move and said that this may be the final nail in PhysX's coffin.
"Physics can be a good thing for gamers, but it should be for all gamers. When it's available for everyone, game developers will be able to make physics an integral part of gameplay, rather than just extra eye candy. This requires a physics solution built on industry standards. That's why DirectX 11 is such a great inflection point for our industry - DirectCompute allows game physics that can be enjoyed by everyone. There are several initiatives (some open-source) that will deliver awesome GPU-based physics for everyone, using either DirectCompute or OpenCL. Industry standards will make any proprietary standard irrelevant," said Neal Robison, director of global independent software vendors relationship for AMD.
"There's a real discrepancy between what Nvidia says, and what they do. They 'say' that they are looking out for gamers' best interests. However, decisions like this are the exact opposite of gamers' best interests," Mr. Robison added.
