Last week, graphics card maker ATI announced a plan to use their Crossfire multi-GPU set up to enable physics effects in PC games with hardware, using an ATI graphics card as the physics chip in a 1X1 or a 2X1 setup. They also announced that support for Havok's physics software Havok FX. To get a better idea on how this will work, FiringSquad has conducted an interview with Havok's vice president of project management Jeff Yates:

FiringSquad: One of Havok's competitors' , AGEIA, has said of the ATI-Havok FX hardware set up, "Graphics processors are designed for graphics. Physics is an entirely different environment. Why would you sacrifice graphics performance for questionable physics? You'll be hard pressed to find game developers who don't want to use all the graphics power they can get, thus leaving very little for anything else in that chip. " What is Havok's response to this?

Jeff Yates: Well, I'm sure the AGEIA folks have heard about General Purpose GPU or "GP-GPU" initiatives that have been around for years. The evolution of the GPU and the programmable shader technology that drives it have been leading to this moment for quite some time. From our perspective, the time has arrived, and things are never going to go backwards. So, if people are going to purchase extra hardware to do physics, why not purchase an extra GPU, or better yet relegate last year's GPU to physics, and get a brand new GPU for rendering? The fact is that this is not stealing from the graphics - rather it gives the option of providing more horsepower to the graphics, or the physics, or both - depending on what a particular game needs. I fail to see how that's a bad thing. Not to mention that downward pricing for "last year's" GPUs are already feeding the market with physics-capable GPUs at the sub $200 price point -even reaching the magic $100 price point.