AMD/Havok demo GPU-based physics at GDC

After announcing plans to work together to "jointly investigate the optimization of physics effects utilizing AMD’s full line of products" last June, today AMD and Havok are finally pulling the wraps off the first Havok physics effects running off the GPU rather than the CPU: OpenCL-powered Havok Cloth and Havok Destruction.

If you recall, Havok cloth and destruction were first announced at GDC'08, with cloth bringing cloth simulation to Havok's toolset (useful for simulating flags waving in the wind, clothing) while destruction added simulation of rigid-body destruction (used to add realistic destructible game objects).

Now AMD's managed to bring these Havok physics effects over to the GPU with the help of OpenCL:

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — March 26, 2009— Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE: AMD) and Havok, the premier provider of interactive software for physics simulation and content development, are presenting new, optimized executions of Havok’s physics middleware on AMD platforms at the 2009 Game Developers Conference. The demonstrations include the first OpenCL supported execution of Havok Cloth™.
Havok offers a complete modular suite of products that help visual and interactive content developers create more realistic games and cinematic special effects. As the latest software developer to take advantage of ATI Stream technology to leverage multi-core architectures and accelerate execution of highly parallel functions, like real-time cloth simulation, Havok will enable game developers to offer improved performance and interactivity across a broad range of OpenCL capable PCs. AMD has recently introduced optimized platform technologies, such as “Dragon” desktop platform technology, which balance performance between the CPU and GPU with ATI Stream technology to deliver outstanding value.
“Havok is committed to delivering highly optimized cross-platform solutions to our game customers and we are pleased to be working with AMD to ensure that gamers enjoy a great user experience when running Havok-powered games on AMD platforms.,” said David Coghlan, vice president of development for Havok. “Unlocking the parallel processing capability of AMD’s hardware provides real advantages to our customers, and the greater the total computing resources available, the better the gaming experience developers can deliver.”
"Havok’s awesome toolset has allowed us to deliver astonishing physics interactions in our games, including detailed real-time destruction and complex ragdoll models, and we are excited about using ATI Stream technology to pursue more astounding in-game accomplishments,” said Andrey Iones, chief operating officer of Saber Interactive. “We are excited that AMD and Havok are working together and leveraging an open standard like OpenCL.”

OpenCL-powered Havok physics effects should be compatible with NVIDIA GPUs as well.

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