Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has join hands with Havok, an Irish company acquired by Intel, to optimize its award winning Havok Physics engine for AMD processors.
Havok Physics engine will be tailored to AMD processors utilizing multicore processors and graphics processing units (GPU).
Havok Physics, better known as simply Havok, is a physics software designed for computer and video games by allowing interaction between objects or other characters in real-time. By using dynamical simulation, Havok allows for more lifelike worlds and animation, such as ragdoll physics.
A physics engine is a computer program that simulates Newtonian physics models, using variables such as mass, velocity, friction and wind resistance. It can simulate and predict effects under different conditions that would approximate what happens in real life or in a fantasy world.
Havok, which was acquired by Intel last September, provides technology that has been used in game titles such as BioShock, Stranglehold, Halo 2, Half Life 2. It has also been used to create special effects in movies such as The Matrix and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Physics code has traditionally run on a CPU such as an AMD Phenom X4 quad-core processor. AMD and Havok say that they’re planning to optimise the ‘full range of Havok technologies on AMD x86 superscalar processors,’ and AMD claims that ‘Havok Physics scales extremely well across the entire family of AMD processors.’
According to Matt Skynner, vice president of marketing at AMD’s Graphics Products Group:
AMD wants to take this CPU-centric approach a step further, however, and optimize certain components on the GPU, as well. The plan is to work with them to leverage the right pieces of the physics (technology) that can be accelerated on the GPU.
Havok’s managing director, David O’Meara, explained the priority for CPUs, saying that ‘the feedback that we consistently receive from leading game developers is that core game play simulation should be performed on CPU cores.’ However, he added that GPU physics acceleration could become a feature in the future, saying that ‘the capabilities of massively parallel products offer technical possibilities for computing certain types of simulation. We look forward to working with AMD to explore these possibilities.’
Right now about 300 titles are optimized for Havok physics on AMD CPU.
1 response so far
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