AGEIA, next Infinium Labs flop?

F

Finsta

Gawd
Joined
Oct 9, 2003
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707
Before I begin, I have to say this isn't a flame war - let's keep it civil and such. I'm not flaming or anything...If you want flames, go light yourself on fire.[sarcasm] ;)
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Is AGEIA gonna be a flop like Infinium is so far? They are comparable, lots of publicity and such. Although, they do have a produceable product at the moment, their Software API - which is something they have over Infinium at the moment. Although, it's all in the air. I hope it's not just some marketing gimmick (Think back to Infinium with Dolby)
 
Isn't Ageia's NovodeX Physics tools being used in the Xbox360's games developement?
 
theyll have a product but its up to the game makers to implement it into there game.

time will tell
 
It will take time and developer interest.

Either game makers need to put it into games so peopel will buy the product OR gamers will have to buy it and hope that developers will support it.
 
if games start getting use out of the physics processor i'll buy one for sure. or if it can take stress off of the cpu for current games i'll get one.
 
Even if the product does flop, it will be a result of consumer disinterest, nothing like the Infinium Labs flop. AGEIA already has hardware partners lined up (ASUS comes to mind) whereas Infinium was lying about their product from the get-go to take advantage of investors. It's almost insulting to suggest a link between any product and Infinium.
 
Finsta said:
Before I begin, I have to say this isn't a flame war - let's keep it civil and such. I'm not flaming or anything...If you want flames, go light yourself on fire.[sarcasm] ;)
=======================

Is AGEIA gonna be a flop like Infinium is so far? They are comparable, lots of publicity and such. Although, they do have a produceable product at the moment, their Software API - which is something they have over Infinium at the moment. Although, it's all in the air. I hope it's not just some marketing gimmick (Think back to Infinium with Dolby)
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Before you start a thread, especially one that's so bias, perhaps you should have educated yourself a little on the subject first?

Infinium flopped because it was a scammed. If AGEIA fails, it will probably be because of market competition.
 
Not to mention Ageia already has support from the Unreal 3 engine guys......so that's a huge plus, because the unreal/2 is one of the most liscensed engines out there, three will surely follow in the steps.

Then they have the support of Asus on that part of the market, so I see them having a fairly good chance.

I think the thing that might hurt them is the price of the card (200+).

I could see a lot more people interested/buying it if it was around 100-120'ish, but at 200+ it starts getting iffy, people asking if they "really" need it or not.
 
I think it is a great idea and game makers would be foolish not to support it. Would help boost the PC game market again. A stand alone physics hardware... pure beauty!
 
Well like with the inception of GPUs into the mainstream market, it's going to take a while and quite a few catalysts to get PPUs into the mainstream as well. However, I hope it does become integrated within another peripheral simply for space, I mean, I wouldn't want a dedicated AI-processing unit along with graphics AND physics lol
 
moralpanic said:
Before you start a thread, especially one that's so bias, perhaps you should have educated yourself a little on the subject first?

Infinium flopped because it was a scammed. If AGEIA fails, it will probably be because of market competition.
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I guess then, I stand corrected. :(
 
If it does flop, it'll probably only be for the next two years. I still honestly think the PPU arrived much too early, there is still no practical application for it.

As it is, video cards are still struggling with the current graphics, even if they were to implement the PPU in farcry for hardware accelerated ragdolls, what video card can handle 1,000 mercenaries at once and that's not even including the vehicles, buildings and trees that make up the rest of the level.

So far all the physics computations needed these days can be adequately done in software without need for exclusive hardware. It's like putting a Voodoo3 in a 486 to do 2D acceleration.
 
Sly said:
If it does flop, it'll probably only be for the next two years. I still honestly think the PPU arrived much too early, there is still no practical application for it.

As it is, video cards are still struggling with the current graphics, even if they were to implement the PPU in farcry for hardware accelerated ragdolls, what video card can handle 1,000 mercenaries at once and that's not even including the vehicles, buildings and trees that make up the rest of the level.

So far all the physics computations needed these days can be adequately done in software without need for exclusive hardware. It's like putting a Voodoo3 in a 486 to do 2D acceleration.
Click to expand...

I don't know... I see a level of immersion getting better on current level of complexity. Instead of greater numbers of people, models, sprites, whatever... I see the current amout of plaer snd things being improved. So rather than 50,000 units, the charatcers in a CS game could have more realistic clothing and body movements and things like momentum. I think that's how it might help anyway. But that's just me.
 
I'm also thinking that it will be useful for stuff like blood spray, debris flying from an explosion, damage models on objects (I'm thinking flight sims here), if done correctly, it could handle the physics for a racing and flight sims which have to be a huge part of load on the CPU. One of the thing they are touting is environment deformation. No more explosion going off next to a crate and the crate doesn't move.
 
moralpanic said:
Infinium flopped because it was a scammed. If AGEIA fails, it will probably be because of market competition.
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Removed the unnecessary attack for ya :D No charge!
 
Apallohadas said:
Removed the unnecessary attack for ya :D No charge, you lousy piece of crap!
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Inserted one for you; I take Paypal and Certified Checks.
 
Talon Blackrazor said:
Originally Posted by Apallohadas
Removed the unnecessary attack for ya No charge, you lousy piece of crap!
Click to expand...

Inserted one for you; I take Paypal and Certified Checks.[
Click to expand...

Isn't that kind of cool how the same word can have two different meanings and two different soundings?

I think so!
 
Yippee38 said:
I'm also thinking that it will be useful for stuff like blood spray, debris flying from an explosion, damage models on objects (I'm thinking flight sims here), if done correctly, it could handle the physics for a racing and flight sims which have to be a huge part of load on the CPU. One of the thing they are touting is environment deformation. No more explosion going off next to a crate and the crate doesn't move.
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Yup... agreed.
 
The problem I see with Physics In Hardware as an add-on to PCs it that it likely creates two games; the game with physics and a game (for all practical purposes) without.

If you make a game where the accelerated physics is an "option", then obviously the physics have no real meaning in the game and is just an eye-candy special effect. This is the way we _don't_ want to go. Who'll want to spend $150+ for just some eye-candy which doesn't really impact game-play? Not too many I'll guess.

If on the other hand you do it right, physics that actually _mean_ something in the game, then you've seriously restricted your potential market. No one is going to risk being that one developer...

These things need a game in which physics mean something, and is so revolutionary that it moves hardware, driving the price down to attract more buyers, etc.

The Voodoo-1 accomplished this feat once, but I think it'll be harder for physics. You can sell graphics with screenshots. Physics is much much harder to sell. Movies, sure, but in the end it's probably something you must experience.

But hey, I could be underestimating the legions of eye-candy lovers. Maybe "Unreal Tournament Whatever" with special-effect-physics for explosions and what not will be enough. First all we had were crates that you could bash. Now we'll have crates that you can bash, _and roll over the floor_. :)
 
I think that part of the argument that seems to be lost with AGEIA is that quite a few engineering companies (including the one I worked for) have asked our finite-element analysis tool vendors if they have looked into this card. Suprisingly...they all are.

For example...imagine having a chip that would bascially be able to to do F@H calculations very efficiently with no overhead. Imagine if this chip based upon release specs could be equal to about 10 GHz worth of computing. Imagine if this chip cost ~$200USD.

This is what AGEIA has the ability to do for the engineering world. It is just a matter if people can get it to work correctly.

As for the comment of "how do they sell it". They are spot on...easy as cake to sell a screen shot. Selling a box flying around a room when a explosion goes off...now that is harder.

Either way...I am gald this happening. Better to try and fail then to never try at all. If it wasn't for that....we wouldn't be typing on these forums right now.

-tReP
 
moralpanic said:
Before you start a thread, especially one that's so bias, perhaps you should have educated yourself a little on the subject first?

Infinium flopped because it was a scammed. If AGEIA fails, it will probably be because of market competition.
Click to expand...

I love this post. The post begins, by telling someone to educate themselves and is then followed, immediately after, by:

"It was a scammed"

huh ?

Did they set us up the bomb as well ?

:D
 
d34dly said:
I don't know... I see a level of immersion getting better on current level of complexity. Instead of greater numbers of people, models, sprites, whatever... I see the current amout of plaer snd things being improved. So rather than 50,000 units, the charatcers in a CS game could have more realistic clothing and body movements and things like momentum. I think that's how it might help anyway. But that's just me.
Click to expand...

What i said was what was directly advertised. 40,000 rigid bodies. Guessing that you'll need about 40 of those per ragdoll. I dunno if the same applies to softbodies but it's gonna be lower. You need more tracking data when involving segmented and flexible objects like cloth.

@eloj
The voodoo1 did it but that didn't actually do anything to change the gameplay. We're talking about collision and ballistics tracking here if the physics are gonna significanly affect gameplay to make it more than simple aesthetics. It took years for 3D accelaration to take root but it was painless and gradual since it was still just an option. Software and hardware 3D could play side by side during the transition. When involving PPU's your bullets will behave differently from the other guy without one, so it's not an option.

3D acceleration first started as an optional feature (For both developer and user). And people gradually moved to it as the technology improved. PPU powered games on the other hand are more involved in the actual gameplay itself, the game will play differently depending on the availability and type of PPU. Unless it's going to be just meant for aesthetics, It isn't as optional, and some people may reconsider if it's worth it even through the years. Especially when considering the pricetag.
 
>the voodoo1 did it but that didn't actually do anything to change the gameplay.

Never claimed it did. Well, it did change it in a minor way; translucency came in vogue and we finally got a fairly realistic visual representation of water. (Ah, the good old days when I could turkey-shoot players in the water when they though they were "invisible", but I was running re-VIS'ed maps in on my Voodoo :)

Your third paragraph is just a restatement of what I wrote.
 
Time for the creation of the Phantom-o-matic's twin brother. The Ageia-o-Matic :D :p :rolleyes:
 
eloj said:
The problem I see with Physics In Hardware as an add-on to PCs it that it likely creates two games; the game with physics and a game (for all practical purposes) without.
Click to expand...

Alternatively, they could have a game that would run at higher visual settings because the CPU is less busy since the physics have been offloaded, and a game that runs at lower visual settings because the CPU has to do the physics and all the other, normal stuff.
 
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