Last week, graphics card maker ATI announced a plan to use their Crossfire multi-GPU set up to enable physics effects in PC games with hardware, using an ATI graphics card as the physics chip in a 1X1 or a 2X1 setup. They also announced that support for Havok's physics software Havok FX. To get a better idea on how this will work, as well as other questions, FiringSquad got in contact with Havok's vice president of project management Jeff Yates to find out more.

FiringSquad: First, Havok FX has been in the pipeline for several months now. Overall what has the response been like from game developers to the new software?

Jeff Yates: Game developers are truly shocked by the results they see from the GPU. They’ve generally assumed that what they were seeing from other hardware accelerated tech demos was indicative of what the GPU can “hope to do”. What they find out is that the GPU can out deliver those expectations - simulating 10’s of thousands of objects – and that rendering these objects is clearly not the bottleneck, as has been implied by some reports.

FiringSquad: Can you give us some idea on how many games will have Havok FX support in the next 12 months and what specific titles will support the software?

Jeff Yates: Right now we’ve announced Eden’s Alone in the Dark and Flagship’s Hellgate: London, with many more discussions are underway. But it is ultimately up to individual game development teams to determine the “what” and “when” of how Havok FX-powered games hit the street. We have a strong track recording of putting product in the hands of experienced developers who ship games people want to play – with over 120 game skus released. And virtually every one of our customers is asking about Havok FX. There will be more announcements to be sure – but they will likely come within striking distance of public showing of these games.

FiringSquad: How did the idea use an extra ATI Radeon graphics card as a physics processor come about?

Jeff Yates: This is an idea we put forth from the very beginning when we announced our plans to accelerate physics via the GPU last year. The idea of hosting dual GPUs for rendering has been around for a while. Both NVIDIA and ATI have capitalized on this with Havok FX to enable acceleration of physics without impacting rendering. In particular, the proximity of GPU-physics to GPU-rendering affords untapped performance via driver level optimizations that cannot be realized between a proprietary physics accelerator and a GPU. We are still in the very early days of those optimizations, but they will come, and the potential upside with current silicon is very real.

FiringSquad: How does Havok FX "know" when a second card in a two card set up or a third card in a three card set up is dedicated just to physics?

Jeff Yates: Havok FX gets the information it needs from the GPU driver and related libraries. But ultimately the decision for how to use the extra GPU horsepower is totally up to the game developer. In fact, a particular game’s policy can be configured by the game player, or even managed dynamically by the game, based loading. There is no “black boxing” of this kind of policy.

FiringSquad: How is having a dedicated card for physics different than the standard Havok FX method of using just the GPU to create new physics effects?

Jeff Yates: In principle these ideas are the same. You spend money for extra hardware that should speed up your game or add extra visual complexity – or both. But the extra GPU affords greater value as it can be used for more than just physics, it can be vastly faster than a dedicate physics-only device, and a physics GPU has “proximity” to the 1st GPU via the driver – this is a very key advantage that a dedicated physics-only device does not have. The last key difference I guess is that the GPU generally has access to the PCIe slot – this is great for read-back that can affect game-play. Ironically, a PCI-only physics-only device is much more challenged in that category – making game-play physics claims via the PCI slot a bit of a head scratcher.

FiringSquad: One of Havok's competitors' , AGEIA, has said of the ATI-Havok FX hardware set up, "Graphics processors are designed for graphics. Physics is an entirely different environment. Why would you sacrifice graphics performance for questionable physics? You’ll be hard pressed to find game developers who don’t want to use all the graphics power they can get, thus leaving very little for anything else in that chip. " What is Havok's response to this?

Jeff Yates: Well, I’m sure the AGEIA folks have heard about General Purpose GPU or “GP-GPU” initiatives that have been around for years. The evolution of the GPU and the programmable shader technology that drives it have been leading to this moment for quite some time. From our perspective, the time has arrived, and things are never going to go backwards. So, if people are going to purchase extra hardware to do physics, why not purchase an extra GPU, or better yet relegate last year’s GPU to physics, and get a brand new GPU for rendering? The fact is that this is not stealing from the graphics – rather it gives the option of providing more horsepower to the graphics, or the physics, or both – depending on what a particular game needs. I fail to see how that’s a bad thing. Not to mention that downward pricing for “last year’s” GPUs are already feeding the market with physics-capable GPUs at the sub $200 price point –even reaching the magic $100 price point.

FiringSquad: Are there any plans to have something similar to the ATI Crossfire method for NVIDIA's SLI set up, especially since NVIDIA already has support for four graphics cards in SLI mode?

Jeff Yates: To be fair, this is something that works already for both setups that are being tested in house. There are no barriers we know of that will prevent games using Havok FX from leveraging dual GPU configurations in either camp – including uses of older graphics cards.

FiringSquad: Have there been any talks with Intel or AMD about perhaps offloading physics to one of their multi core processors?

Jeff Yates: Of course. This is something we launched more than ago – via our HydraCore technology in Havok Physics – our game-play physics product. Havok 3 and beyond are fully multithreaded and utilize extra cores optimally to accelerate game-play physics. We’ve done test on dual-CPU, dual core systems (4 cores) that deliver an astounding level of game-play physics in the thousands of objects. We have regular dialog with both AMD and Intel and we continue to be bullish about the upside potential of multicore architectures in the PC for accelerated world-class game-play physics. The future is very bright on this side of the fence as well. This is why we distinguish between game-play and effects physics. We know the CPU can and will continue to push into the 1000’s of objects for game-play; while the GPU can carve out 10’s of thousands of collidable object simulations to add visual fidelity that no one thought was possible with an off the shelf graphics card.

FiringSquad: Can you give us any hints or scoops about upcoming Havok games support or new features?

Jeff Yates: I can say that PC-focused games will showcase Havok FX technology first, because the user base for Shader Model 3 GPUs is in place and ready to be exploited, and it is growing every day. There is not an “if you build it they will come” problem there. Also, the influx of exciting new GPU technology in the PC game space is more rapid and there is a very strong industry dynamic and software compatibility methodology in place via Microsoft, ATI, and NVIDIA to minimize game compatibility problems as drivers, graphics libraries, and new GPUs enter the market. That is a very significant advantage that game developers have with Havok FX which is less clear for dedicated physics processors.

FiringSquad: Finally is there anything else you want to say at this time about Havok and its plans?

Jeff Yates: Well we have so much good stuff coming – Havok FX is very exciting, but we are also preparing to launch our latest character behavior tool and sdk: Havok Behavior. This is really the next step forward for blending physics, animation, and behaviors, all with a configurable tool set that supports direct export and editing of content from 3ds max, Maya, and XSI. And I forgot to mention next generation optimizations and Nintendo Wii support. It is a lot, but it is all part of our big 4.0 release coming this summer. It is definitively an exciting time for us.

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