ATI made a surprise move that we suggested last week as a possibility and has announced a partnership with Havoc. Havoc is the most widley used physics engine in the world and it has been in the hands of Intel for quite some time.

ATI representatives have told Fudzilla that Havoc has more than 100 developers and 300 titles, and this is a far superior number compared to what Nvidia has for PhysX. Havoc offers great performance, their tools are very mature and the customer support is great. ATI told us that Havoc is the better choice in recent talks.

Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD said, “By working with the clear market leader in physics software, AMD can optimize our platforms to consistently deliver the best possible visual experience to the gamer.” Just say it Rick, it feels warm and secure to be embraced by Intel’s arm.

Don’t be too thrilled, as ATI plans to support better CPU physics for the time being, but it is looking into the possibility of how to accelerate physics on the GPU. We were advised that it might be a while before this officially happens, but ATI engineers are looking into it as we speak.

ATI also said that it won’t rule out anything, meaning that embracing of Nvidia’s PhysX might happen in the future. AMD is a platform company and they say that they are open-minded about all technologies.