[MUD-Dev2] [MEDIA] Intel Purchases Game Tools Firm Havok

[Jon Mayo]

On 9/16/07, Mike Rozak <Mike at mxac.com.au> wrote:
> >From Gammasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=15511
>
> "Chip giant Intel has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire major game tools company Havok for an unspecified sum, with the Irish-based firm to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel."
> ... snip
>
>
> A few years ago I mentioned the danger of a large company buying SpeedTree. Well, Intel has gone and bought Havok, equally important middleware.
>
> Some things to think about:
>
> 1) How much faster will future versions of Havok run on Intel, compared to AMD? What are the chances of getting future versions of Havok ported to another processor, such as PowerPC, or whatever processor Sony is using for the PS3/4?
>

I have worked with Intel before and they have been pretty reasonable
about preserving software performance on non-Intel chips. The only
thing is they are not willing to optimize for x86 features they do not
have. For example they won't optimize for AMD's SSE, they will only
support Intel SSE and the SSE that is shared by Intel and AMD.

> 2) Why else does Intel want Havok? (I have some suspicions.)

Sometimes these companies scoop up products that have some synergy
with their own. The success of Havok helps sell Intel's server chips
as game designers find uses for the SDK on the client and on the
server. The big deal is the server, doing physics server-side allows
for CPU hungry dynamic worlds. I can only assume "cpu hungry" is of
interest to Intel.

It is possible that Intel wants to lock it on the x86 market and make
opterons useless for game servers. But then someone will just write a
new and better engine because they decided AMD was the way to go. (I
believe Sun only uses AMD for its largest servers).

I suspect Intel would rather just sell more chips and beat AMD in the
market place, they don't really need to play any sneaky
anticompetitive games. Sometimes Intel's chips are better, sometimes
AMD's are better, depending on who released something last, but Intel
knows they are kicking AMD's butt even when their chips aren't the
fastest or lowest powered. Intel has been far better at handling money
and inventory, and in supplying OEMs with promises to have sufficient
supply of chips. A few years ago, when Dell used to state they
wouldn't touch AMD, it was mostly due to the industry's distrust of
AMD's supply chain for their x86 products. (don't forget they make
many other sorts of chips). If you can actually get an AMD chip when
you want in the quantity you want, it's a high quality and reliable
processor that will serve you well. They are must better now than they
used to be in this regard, I would argue because of steady (but
relatively low volume) big name customers that have forced/helped them
get all their ducks in a row. (I'm talking about Sun)

(sorry, I have a server/appliance bias in my opinion, since that is
where I do most of my development)