Nvidia is
thinking of moving its PhysX technology to OpenCL which could enable GPU PhysX
acceleration on its rival ATI GPUs.
Nvidia has protected its PhysX technology
by forcing anyone who uses it to have to run CUDA. OpenCL is the API that’s
also being used by AMD to accelerate Havok physics.
Bit-Tech quoted Nvidia’s director of product management for PhysX, Nadeem Mohammad as
saying that he wasn’t against the idea at all. He said that in the future
it’s a possibility that Nvidia would use Open CL, although at the moment CUDA works great.
Nvidia's
“architecture allows for acceleration by other things like OpenCL," he
said. Mohammad added that as and when Nvidia moves to OpenCL which Bit-tech
rightly considers that that there is little doubt that Nvidia is seriously
considering this as an option.
As for giving ATI its technology, Mohammed
pointed out that Nvidia has publicly said that it will work with ATI on
CUDA-accelerated PhysX for over a year, but it’s an offer that ATI has yet to
accept.