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 Havok, which just recently became a subsidiary of Intel, announced that the PC version of Havok Complete equipped with the Physics engine will be available free of charge for non-commercial uses starting in May. Our partner GameKult specified however that commercial distribution of a game developed with it could be authorized on a case by case basis.
This is a major strategic move in the battle that opposes Intel and Nvidia for the future of 3D, each trying to gain the favor and support of developers. It should be pointed out that the latter group will have an important role as they will significantly (even indirectly) influence the market depending on the platform they favor. Moreover, this is something these two major actors seemed to have realized perfectly.
Rather ironically, the press release names Nvidia amongst the company’s tech partners. Now we will just have to wait and see how the new owner of the PhysX reacts to this announcement. |
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Slightly eclipsed by the launch of the GeForce 9600 GT, the Quadro FX 3600M was also officially announced yesterday. Like the GeForce 8800M and 8800 GS, GT and GTS 512 MB it’s equipped with a G92. In addition, it has 512 MB of GDDR3 set at 860 MHz and a memory bus with a width of 256 bits. Unfortunately, Nvidia didn’t give any information on GPU frequencies or the number of activated scalar processors.
Of course, it supports Shader Model 4.0 as well as OpenGL 2.1. Moreover, just like other Quadro FXs from the latest generation, it has the 7.0 version of PowerMizer Power Management and its creator specifies that consumption doesn’t go over 70W. Sold in MXM v2.1A III format to the OEM, it should notably be found in HP, Dell and Lenovo laptops.
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 While Nvidia’s GeForce 9600 GT for 149€ seems to be the perfect maneuver, the 3D giant has recently had the habit of forgetting to offer new drivers for most of its GPUs.
The GeForce Release 174.16 WHQL Candidate for Windows XP and Vista which was put on line yesterday only officially supports the GeForce 9600 GT. In the same way, ForceWare 169.32 WHQL which was released at the end of January was reserved for the GeForce 8800 GS.
In fact, the last drivers destined for the entire line were the ForceWare 169.28 dating from the end of December and even then these were in their beta version. The last unified WHQL drivers were only a few days older.
It’s unfortunate that a company that often stressed the advantages of unified drivers doesn’t offer anything new for most of its current line. This is when not too long ago it put new drivers on its FTP very (perhaps too) quickly sometimes without even taking the time to update the release notes. Now there’s even more of a reason because this involves cards of the same generation all supporting the same version of DirectX. |
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Offset Software, a Californian game developer, has officially announced that it has been bought by Intel. The company which has 15 or so employees is currently working on Project Offset, a game that uses its in-house Offset Engine which is esteemed to be promising.
 This acquisition isn't the first of its kind as the Californian giant already picked up Havok in September and Neoptica in November. Moreover, it is common knowledge that the CPU giant has an undeniable need to reinforce its software teams if it wants to properly use the Larrabee. Now we will just have to wait and see how Intel plans on precisely using the know-how of its new employees: diverse optimizations, developer relations, or in the creation of demos? However one thing is certain: given the size of ATI and Nvidia teams and the existence of the The Way It's Meant To Be Played program for the latter, there will be no shortage of work. |
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