Originally posted by: aka1nas
Originally posted by: chizow
The most mind-blowing tidbit I picked up from those articles was this from Tech Report:
Nvidia counts 70 million GeForce 8 and 9 users so far, which is probably quite a bit more than the installed base for PhysX cards.
That's an insane number of DX10 capable unified shader architecture parts out there. To put that into perspective, PS3/Xbox360 installed user-base is something like 12 and 18 million respectively.
Otherwise, the previews did a great job showcasing how much PhysX could help improve gameplay and how GPU-acceleration could drastically improve performance. The idea of being able to use older cards as PhysX GPUs is particularly intriguing. Especially this comparison that showed the impact of various combinations including mix and matched pairs:
FiringSquad's PhysX SLI comparison
I wonder how many out of that number are 8400s and 8500s in OEM boxes? Those only have 16 shaders, so I doubt they will handle PhysX that well.
I'm pretty sure that's why PhysX isn't enabled for all 8 and 9-series GPUs even though they're all supposed to be GPGPU/CUDA capable. As for the % of low-end compared to mainstream or better gaming parts, I think its actually a good chunk of that, maybe as high as 40-50%.
AMD Game! Slide
From AMD's slide using data compiled by the Gamer's Alliance, they estimate some 65 million mainstream and enthusiast parts with ~90 million DX9 or above discrete GPUs for 2008. Given NV's 2:1 market dominance over ATI in the discrete GPU market and the lack of any real competition prior to RV770, its pretty safe to say 40-50 million of that 65 million is NV G80/G92/G94 which all offer similar, solid gaming performance and good PhysX support at lower resolutions in the previews we've seen so far.