Last Wednesday, AMD announced a partnership with Pixelux Entertainment to develop an open source physics initiative called Bullet Physics. The new API is being written in the vendor-neutral OpenCL and DirectCompute languages; that means games which use Bullet could run physics on ATI and NVIDIA cards alike.

We know what AMD’s perspective on the new initiative would be, so we turned to NVIDIA to get their thoughts on what Bullet meant to them and the market at large. We heard from NVIDIA’s Director Technical Marketing, Tom Petersen.

Icrontic: Does NVIDIA intend to support Bullet Physics, as it is based on open industry standards which NVIDIA supports?

Tom Petersen: NVIDIA does support Bullet (we met with Erwin at [The GPU Technology Conference]). We like any software or API that makes it easier for anyone to use GPUs more effectively. As a matter of fact according to Erwin (the creator of Bullet) he uses NV GPUs to develop his code – He even provided a quote for us to that effect:

“Bullet’s GPU acceleration via OpenCL will work with any compliant drivers, we use NVIDIA GeForce cards for our development and even use code from their OpenCL SDK, they are a great technology partner.”

Erwin Coumans,
Creator of the Bullet Physics Engine

(more…)

It’s Labor Day TF2 time! Get your game on and give a high five to Jimmy (TiberiusLazarus) for the super-neato server config work.

They came from all over, and so it began: Icrontic Expo 2009. We’re expecting our first batch of arrivals today, so let’s talk shop. Please join the EPIC2009 Flickr group to share all your photos. On Twitter, use the #epic2009 hashtag so we can follow it all. If you post videos to Vimeo or YouTube, please link them up here.

Final reminders for our intrepid travellers: please double-check the “what to bring” list, don’t park in the driveway after unloading, and don’t set up your computer in the tent until you get the greenlight from Ryder or Quinton. High-fives abound for this year’s event staff: Ryder, Q, Magic, Cyclonite, CB, and fatcat. They all deserve an extra hug when you get here. Thanks as well to our awesome sponsors: OCZ, EA, Futuremark, Thrustmaster, ATI, and Duck (yes, the duct tape folks!)

T-shirts and polos are printing, name badges are ordered, tent and port-a-potty are scheduled for Wednesday, the garage is re-arranged for boardgaming, the basement and kids’ room are cleared for sleeping. Every night the gathering at Icrontic HQ gets a little bit bigger. Now, we wait.

Bobby Miller (UPSLynx) tells us what’s on his mind today in “Mind of UPSLynx”. Topics covered in this first installment: his trip to E3 with Icrontic, Leo Laporte’s blow up, and his recent hard drive space woes.

High five to Bobby for putting this together. So what do you think? Do you like where this is headed? Want to see more videos from the Icrontic crew? Let us know in the comments.

This clip of Megaman 2.5D hits all the right 8-bit notes and leaves us pining for playability.

Nintendo is set to make more profit per employee this year than Google or Goldman Sachs.

Video game deaths rendered realistically. [via]

Konami code sites (type the code to see it). [via]

Two-thirds of the tickets for Expo Icrontic 2009 are sold, and registration closes at the end of the month. The Expo is 3+ full days, with most participants arriving on Wednesday, June 24 and departing on Sunday, June 28. Gaming tournaments are every night promptly at 9pm (with earlier roll call) Thursday thru Saturday: Left4Dead, Unreal Tournament 2004, and Team Fortress 2 (in that order). Plenty of other ad-hoc gaming will be happening to be sure.

But this ain’t just a gaming LAN. Every night (Thurs-Sun) at 6pm your Detroit guide Brian Ambrozy will be your dinner host at a different Food Tour location. Other activities include lazer tag Thursday afternoon, golfing early Friday morning, board gaming, a Saturday morning trip to a local hatter, and the Duct Tape Challenge on Saturday afternoon. All of this launches from our humble home and office, Icrontic HQ, where we erect a revival-style (weather-proof) tent in the backyard complete with  floor, high-speed Internet and enough power for 60 computers. Book a hotel, claim floor space in the house, or pitch a tent in the backyard – it’s all the same to us!

If that wasn’t enough to convince you, a quick look at photos of last year’s shenangans will either seal the deal or horrify you (hopefully both). Don’t screw around with your sign up – we have a 55-person cut off this year (the most ever) and we definitely can’t squeeze in any more. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Register »

Microsoft XBox exec jumps ship to Apple, whose stable of gaming and processor experts is growing.

The development process for Left 4 Dead’s box art is a quick and fun read if design is your bailiwick.

Quebec bans English-only game subtitles. It seems the French are restless this week.