Physics engine could become common in future ATI cards

AMD and physics simulation tools provider Havok announced they will work together to study the benefits of optimizing the Havok Physics engine for future AMD CPUs and ATI video cards.

AMD elected to work with Intel-owned Havok after NVidia wisely snapped up Ageia, which is best known for its PhysX physics engine. A possible working relationship between AMD for the PhysX engine hasn't been ruled out by AMD, though nothing has been confirmed by the CPU maker.

Havok Physics already works well on all AMD processors, including the company's quad-core offerings, the manufacturer has said, but both companies will work to ensure the physics engine is optimized for AMD's x86 superscalar line.

Until a dedicated physics platform can gain popularity, gameplay physics in video games will continue to be the responsibility of the CPU. As both hardware and software continue to improve, it is likely the latency between the CPU and a physics engine or GPU will decrease, which will give the physics processor (PPU) or GPU a better opportunity to control gameplay physics.

More than 100 developers have created 300 game titles that use the Havok engine.

If the AMD + Havok relationship works out, Intel, AMD, and Havok will make competition among NVidia and PhysX even more interesting. Intel and NVidia continue their war of words, with Intel again claiming ray tracing using the CPU is better than NVidia's rasterization.

AMD has shifted its focus more towards gaming, with the Sunnyvale-based company recently launching AMD Game, a new PC hardware game platform specifically for gamers who want an optimized system out of the box.