But some developer will complain about the CPU not being fast enough for A.I. just like the physics guys. It's just that physics is far more advanced than A.I. is at the moment.
Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
They are just referring to how concurrency eliminates some of the previous constraints. Here is the way it'll work succinctly putThe CPU will be freed to handle a tougher AI load this way, perhaps making my speculation about a dedicated AI engine unecessary.The adoption of 3D GPUs reduced the CPU rendering load in most games, but interestingly, as graphics content expanded in scale and scope, the requirements on the CPU for preparation, housekeeping and other tasks increased. A similar phenomenon can be anticipated with the adoption of PPUs. The increased depth and quality of physically interactive environments will expand the requirements for AI, game logic and even rendering. In short, the CPU ?thinks and orchestrates?, the GPU ?renders and displays?, and the PPU ?moves and interacts?, and all complement each other as a platform for spectacular gameplay.
That actually could be an issue. Both consoles and PC systems are moving towards multi-core general-purpose CPUs, so in terms of programming-model, they are similar, and game devs will have to simply evolve to support that model. But if this thing causes the physics-programming model to diverge, things are going to get more difficult for the programmers trying to support both the PC and console platforms. On a more positive note, though, it appears to use a high-level physics API SDK to drive it, and I think UE may have "pluggable" physics engines, so tech like this may actually drive game dev shops to move to using more high-level SDKs and engine-licensing to take advantage of them and ensure portability among platforms. IOW, no wonder Epic is so excited about this tech, it could well drive more sales of UE engine licenses. I think that DP's take on the subject is right-on though. It really all does depend on whether or not the devs adjopt this and use it. Otherwise, it will dry up and blow away in the market, like so many other techs before it.Originally posted by: MrControversial
Change is inevitable and expected, but this seems more backwards than forewards. I welcome change, but I was hoping to see it go in a different direction like what the next gen consoles are doing. It looks like consoles and PC's are diverging again.
It's interesting that their only PCIe option listed is 4x, since 4x slots are so rare on today's boards in favor of allowing a few 1x slots. Considering that power supplied scales up as the slot scales up, I'm wouldn't be surprised if the need for the 4x slot is the power provided and not the bandwidth, though there's not enough information to really say something solid at this point.GD: What are the current bus implementations you have on the road-map?
Curtis: We presently have both a 4X PCI Express and PCI supported on our chip as the interfaces.
Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
ViRGE, I agree. In fact, with SM3.0 and possible future extensions, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see GPUs with their high FP throughput used for physics calculations as well as graphics. In fact, why not a full I-K "pipeline" as part of the graphics hardware. For that matter, why not 3D sound and sound synthesis too. While we're at it... lets just make computers into a giant "borg media processor", and link them all together into nodes, and what we used to consider the "standard PC hardware" (for boring tasks like office apps and web browsing), will become only a mere appendix to our monster media-processor machines.
Besides FPS games, I think that a high-end physics sim capability, will really pave the way towards newer, far more realistic sports and racing games. Those should *really* benefit. Not to mention, the possibility of properly (?) simulating "other" kinds of games. LSL was just the beginning...
LOL. Yup.Originally posted by: ronnn
So a real virtual larry?Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
LSL was just the beginning...
Originally posted by: BFG10K
Like I said in the other thread, I don't see any reason why vertex shaders can't be evolved to handle physics calculations.
The only problem right now is that they're not fast enough compared to a standalone chip(125m transistors just for this versus at most 220m for a whole GPU; the vertex shaders aren't big enough to keep up), but at the same time I see GPUs continuing to grow while PPUs would see revisions only seldomly. As such, you're right, given enough time there's no reason why it can't be done with vertex shaders. Let's slap the PPU on the video card for now, and maybe by the time NV70 rolls around the vertex shaders will be up to snuff.Originally posted by: BFG10K
Like I said in the other thread, I don't see any reason why vertex shaders can't be evolved to handle physics calculations.
I see $30 graphics cards, did he put it in context of which price range? If not, stop assumingOriginally posted by: Dman877
From Anand's article: "Pricing on the order of a graphics card" = no thanks.
Not necessarily. This may evolve too fast. Take the whole quote with the specualtion in itOriginally posted by: Dman877
GDDR3 and a what was it? 120 million transistor processor? You better believe they'll be charging 400$ for the top-of-the-line.
To not price themselves' right out of biz before they get things rolling, I think we will see a sub $100 card first, then bigger&better versions if the software support and volume is indeed there. By that time it is possible it will have found its way into graphics cards, or take some other form still. Anyone who has spent $50-$100 for the difference a add-in audio card provides over AC97 for gaming shouldn't be too adverse to getting far more realism from their games for that price tooRight now, AGEIA is talking about pricing on the order of graphics card. They aren?t sure of cost right now, but they could introduce multiple SKUs that fit different price points and have different processing power. It is more likely that we?ll see one part come to the market place. If the PPU flies, we might see more variety.
Originally posted by: Dman877
Ok so they ween us onto PPU's at 50-100 and then start jacking up the price once everyone's using them. Whether they start high or end up high doesn't matter to me, I don't want another 200 - 300$ piece of hardware required to play games.
And FYI, I think AC97 is just fine for sound .
EDIT: Whats after PPU's? AI cards?
They made that point in the article, that it would leave the CPU free to handle a tougher AI load, then add smp with dual cores and the CPU should be able to handle it for the next few gen of games easily.Originally posted by: slash196
Originally posted by: Dman877
Ok so they ween us onto PPU's at 50-100 and then start jacking up the price once everyone's using them. Whether they start high or end up high doesn't matter to me, I don't want another 200 - 300$ piece of hardware required to play games.
And FYI, I think AC97 is just fine for sound .
EDIT: Whats after PPU's? AI cards?
I was actually thinking along the same lines, but with graphics AND physics offloaded onto expansion cards, all the cpu will be doing is AI calculations. So I think that physics is probably as far as it will go.
Originally posted by: MrControversial
Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Not everyone is going to need the powerful physics processing anytime soon, so it could just be added to graphics cards targeted at the particular market segments that want/need it I should think. It'll gets bought or licensed out by industry leaders and incorporated into their products is the senario I foresee playing out.
Also, it seems to make more sense to use specialized hardware for the processing of various computing tasks. This will give the manufacturers even more options to either integrate or leave out of particular products. That would likely result in being more cost effective, and better focusing on any given market sector needs.
But the market will be more fragmented than it already is with the different range of graphics card capabilities. That means that developers will have to incorporate some kind of "if" code in each game that decides which physics the player gets based on their hardware.