Acquisitions: Microsoft buys Havok, Micron buys Tidal

[HEXUS]

Havok makes leading real-time 3D physics software. Tidal develops SSD controllers.

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[ColinP]

Havok -> Microsoft. Bad news if you like your physics engines to be multiplatform. What odds on it becoming a DirectX exclusive? Possibly as a bulwark against Vulkan.

[Corky34]

Welcome to Directphysics, only available on Windows.

[Tabbykatze]

Hamstringing vulkan and others bit by bit

[kalniel]

Havok -> Microsoft. Bad news if you like your physics engines to be multiplatform. What odds on it becoming a DirectX exclusive? Possibly as a bulwark against Vulkan.

Did it become single platform when Intel owned it?

[DanceswithUnix]

I presume this is another thing for their VR platform.

There is still the open source Bullet physics, so I don't see this changing the world much. People who would pay for Physyx/Havoc can still do so, those that wouldn't still won't.

[shaithis]

Both sound (relatively) good news.

Micron managing to bring it prices down and possibly make better controllers........Microsoft looking at putting Havok in the cloud (Azure), which will make off-loading physics a possibility. Maybe Microsoft can do more with Havok than Intel managed and make a move to replace Physx.

[Corky34]

Did it become single platform when Intel owned it?

Just guessing hear but did Intel want it for the now defunct Larabee, if that hadn't been canned whose to say Intel wouldn't have used Havok for those.
Microsoft on the other hand could add Havox to DirectX, it would be a natural fit and (iirc) they've been wanting to add a physics feature to DirectX since 2006, that's not to say that's what their going to do with Havox, just that it's one of many possibilities.

I presume this is another thing for their VR platform.

Don't you mean Augmented Letterbox Reality (ALR).

[aidanjt]

Did it become single platform when Intel owned it?

Intel doesn't own a software platform.

[kalniel]

Intel doesn't own a software platform.

But it could just as well have limited it to Intel CPUs or GPUs like PhysX is limited to nVidia. They didn't.

[aidanjt]

But it could just as well have limited it to Intel CPUs or GPUs like PhysX is limited to nVidia. They didn't.

Sure, but that limitation requires resources to add the limitation, the only thing Intel needed to do support AMD CPUs and nVidia GPUs is to simply not get in the way. Supporting 3rd party software platforms requires active investment to maintain compatibility with them. And of course, Microsoft has a long history of leveraging 'embrace, extend, and extinguish', and Havoc is going to be a great base to roll a fairly comprehensive gaming physics API into DX.

[rob4001]

Time to program a new multi platform physics engine...anyone up for it?

[GuidoLS]

Intel doesn't own a software platform.

VIIV? And let's not forget that Intel is one of the biggest corporate players in Linux development. So there's 2 examples of where they 'could have gone there'.