Physics Card ?

[Zenoth]

At my job yesterday, a collegue talked to me about a certain "Physics Card". And is written "PhysX".

That the card in question would be used only to calculate stuff from the "Physics" part of a game. Like a "second mini-CPU just for that purpose", as he said.

That guy is not a liar at all, and I do believe him.

But I never heard about such a thing. Although ... I admit I'm not really the type of guy taking time to do searches on the web for "missing information" related to a subject I like (computers, in this case).

Any of you know more about that ?

Is it a PCI device ? PCI-Express ? AGP ?

Is it supported by all games with "physics" in their engine ? Such as the Source engine ?

I'd appreciate more information please. If it does exist, and you guys certainly have some information to give me about it.

Thanks for your time, and help.

 

[BlacKJesuS]

i HEARD ABOUT IT a while ago....lot of talk about it and the new quake engine....erm....its not comin out for awhile and heres a link http://www.ageia.com/

 

[coomar]

google search

they just annouced it, supposedly a version will be released by christmas

if you look for crytek's directx10 video, you'll see why everyone is excited its pretty sick

 

[PingSpike]

I've heard of this, but haven't done any research on it either. I don't believe any current software supports it or that its even available yet.

Either way, a new dedicated cpu for another aspect of a computer game isn't that outlandish of an idea, when you consider video cards are basically their own mini computers that just do graphics. But, as we're moving to dual cores anyway I think the addition of another dedicated cpu that will have to be programmed for is not going to be something that will take off. They're already going to have their hands full fully utilizing both cores and getting them to work together for new games, I don't see why developers would be to excited about this.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
I've heard of this, but haven't done any research on it either. I don't believe any current software supports it or that its even available yet.

Either way, a new dedicated cpu for another aspect of a computer game isn't that outlandish of an idea, when you consider video cards are basically their own mini computers that just do graphics. But, as we're moving to dual cores anyway I think the addition of another dedicated cpu that will have to be programmed for is not going to be something that will take off. They're already going to have their hands full fully utilizing both cores and getting them to work together for new games, I don't see why developers would be to excited about this.

Because a general purpose CPU isn't the most ideal kind of processor for physics calculationS? That *might* be why they're excited about it.

 

[dguy6789]

I don't think that a Physics Processing Unit will be successful.(nor do I want it to be)

Just what we need. "Oh look, you have your Athlon 64X2 5400+, your Geforce 8800 Ultra, 4GB of ram, but you can't play this game with your $4000 pc because you don't have a fast enough physics processor".

Just what we need, another $200+ component just to play games..

 

[imported_X]

If it improves gameplay and visual effects significantly, more power to them. You don't have to buy it if you don't want it.

 

[videogames101]

It comes either PCIe or PCI and yeah, it just make physics like.... i'm not joking, 1000 times better, according to them.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: X
If it improves gameplay and visual effects significantly, more power to them. You don't have to buy it if you don't want it.

For this card to succeed, it will have to be in a position where it is required in 99% of all circumstances.


This card will either fail or be 100% required, I predict that it will fail.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
I don't think that a Physics Processing Unit will be successful.(nor do I want it to be)

Just what we need. "Oh look, you have your Athlon 64X2 5400+, your Geforce 8800 Ultra, 4GB of ram, but you can't play this game with your $4000 pc because you don't have a fast enough physics processor".

Just what we need, another $200+ component just to play games..

maybe you could save $200 on the CPU and get a PPU instead.

 

[fliguy84]

this thing won't fail because sony licensed the technology for the ps3

 

[Rage187]

it better fail, I'm not buying another $400 card to do physics. My system has np doing the processing for HL2, no reason to have it done by an addon card.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: Rage187
it better fail, I'm not buying another $400 card to do physics. My system has np doing the processing for HL2, no reason to have it done by an addon card.

rumors says a price around $200-250. If you've seen the tech demo of the improved Crytek engine you would know what you'll need a PPU for.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: Rage187
it better fail, I'm not buying another $400 card to do physics. My system has np doing the processing for HL2, no reason to have it done by an addon card.

I am split on the issue for the most part. I would not be opposed to a PPU. You have to remember that CPU's used to handle all audio (asside from output) and video. We used to used software rendering for our 3D games... I am sure many people were quite pissed at the $300 Vodoo2 Card or better yet, $600 for SLI mode. Now we would not be able to live without them. When physics become too complex for our CPU's to handle with seemless speed, then I think it has come to the point where we absolutely need a PPU.

Remember, we now have APU, GPU in addition to the CPU... What is next? Logically, more XPU's will follow. That is my opinion, at least. Now APU's are getting RAM!!! That is how crazy this is getting.

 

[2Xtreme21]

It probably would allow for older CPU's to function better in games, while not affecting the newer ones that much. Essentially it's just going to take the load of physics processing off the CPU, leaving the CPU able to do other tasks faster.

It might be more beneficial for me with an AXP, but not for, say, ArchAngel with an A64 3500.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: biostud

Originally posted by: dguy6789
I don't think that a Physics Processing Unit will be successful.(nor do I want it to be)

Just what we need. "Oh look, you have your Athlon 64X2 5400+, your Geforce 8800 Ultra, 4GB of ram, but you can't play this game with your $4000 pc because you don't have a fast enough physics processor".

Just what we need, another $200+ component just to play games..

maybe you could save $200 on the CPU and get a PPU instead.

Yeah, right...because top of the line processor prices went right in the toliet around the time 3d cards became popular. This isn't going to save anyone any money, that much I know.

I haven't seen this in action, so maybe it is great. But honestly, I think its going to fail too. Games are going to have to work without it for awhile...and how many bargain Dell specials are going to come with a physics card standard?

Who knows though, I'll check out the demo when I get home.

 

[mrkun]

I agree with some previous posters: What's the advantage of having this thing with the current proliferation of dual-core CPUs? According to an interview I read, Unreal Engine 3 is going to offload the physics processing to the second core, if there is one. This is the engine that's going to be the most used in next-gen games for several years, and it has no mentioned support for a PPU -- much less any need for it. It would seem logical that other companies that plan to have mutli-threaded games/engines will follow suit.

I think the PhysX is going to be a novelty for e-penis comparisons, nothing more.

 

[PAPutzback]

I think this is what we really need. I haven't seen much change in the actual gameplay since BF 1942 when they finally added vehicles. But we still don't have rain, snow or wind, waves. Structures that can be damaged realistically or any of that stuff that would really pull you into a game. Although the improvemnts Creative has done with the sound helps alot, I'd stil like to see alot more done with the environment than all the work going into to making smooth lines.
I want to track a guy by his footprints or know that someone just came thru an area because of tracks in the snow that haven't been filled in by the falling snow.

And once this chip catches on it will be built into the motherboard. Hopefully.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: mrkun
I agree with some previous posters: What's the advantage of having this thing with the current proliferation of dual-core CPUs? According to an interview I read, Unreal Engine 3 is going to offload the physics processing to the second core, if there is one. This is the engine that's going to be the most used in next-gen games for several years, and it has no mentioned support for a PPU -- much less any need for it. It would seem logical that other companies that plan to have mutli-threaded games/engines will follow suit.

I think the PhysX is going to be a novelty for e-penis comparisons, nothing more.

The advantage is being able to use more complex phsysics. Remeber when a CPU would render 3D games like Wolfenstien? Remember how pixelated they were? The CPU was not designed for the task of 3D rendering, so it performed poorly. Does that mean the CPU was unable to drive the gaming community? Nope... It just mean you had ass for graphics instead. Remember, everything isn't about speed, but it is about Quality. If you shared the same opinion back in 95' we would still be in the dark ages and still not have a game that looks as good as Quake3 in software rendering.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: PAPutzback
I think this is what we really need. I haven't seen much change in the actual gameplay since BF 1942 when they finally added vehicles. But we still don't have rain, snow or wind, waves. Structures that can be damaged realistically or any of that stuff that would really pull you into a game. Although the improvemnts Creative has done with the sound helps alot, I'd stil like to see alot more done with the environment than all the work going into to making smooth lines.
I want to track a guy by his footprints or know that someone just came thru an area because of tracks in the snow that haven't been filled in by the falling snow.

And once this chip catches on it will be built into the motherboard. Hopefully.

That is what I was thinking/hoping. Remember, the price of this thing will go down if it hits the mainstream.

 

[biostud]

I think it will be implemented something along these lines:
The "regular" physics will either be driven by the CPU or if a PhysX card is installed by that. The PhysX will free CPU time and giving you more FPS, probably less on dual core than on single core.
Extra physics only available for PPU owners (which probably only will be for single player instances) : Fog, Fire, Water and other similar things will be made by an advanced particle system allowing them to react more life like. Mass movement of foliage (as seen in Crytek demo) and wind blowing leafs around etc. Complex destruction and handleing of objects. And other stuff along those lines.

 

[PAPutzback]

Dual core isn't going to do squat for games visually. Speed will. And that is the problem now. What Dual core will do and and alot more memory, it will allow us to move up to bigger environements. Like taking BF2 from 64 players to 128 without lag. And MMORPGS to handles more people walking around the market. We still need faster processors and gpus. And that is why AMD rocks for gaming.

 

[PAPutzback]

I totally agree. It appears to be very similar to the evloution of audio. Software enabled audio killed the CPU so it got moved off to its seperate chip and not only did it free up the cpu but they can make fast audio specific chips to enhance the audio. EAX, Dolby processing and all that other good stuff we love.

 

[Munky]

It's just a gimmick, IMO. Why not unload everything off the cpu to a separate card and rip people off in the process? Next thing you know, your lowly x2 4800 is only is gonna sit twiddling its thumbs whenever you run any video game.

What does the game need that a physx card can do and the cpu (a multi-core cpu, none the less) cant? Does it need to create a model of the latest weather forecast, or simulate atomic physics, or predict in real time what would happen if everyone nuked everyone else? NO! As long as the game physics look convincing, I dont care if all the pieces in a game follow real life physics 100%, and I doubt anyone would even notice the difference.

The only reason this thing was invented is because the video game market is constantly growing, there's always demand for better hardware and software, and it shows no signs of slowing down. There's always some profit to be made from ppl who shell out $1000 for video cards, just give them enough hype to go for the bait. I hope it fails, and I definitely wont be buying one unless the benefits are worth it.

 

[johnnqq]

http://www.ageia.com/press/press4.html

they don't work for me