Is it just me, or does anyone else see that AGEIA's PPU is just gunna fail?

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I mean seriously, I just don't think in it's current from that an expensive dedicated board for physics processing is gunna sell and take off. I'll keep this short, main reasons why I think not:

1. Little chance of a 'software mode'.
Unlike graphics, you can't have a game that provides a software mode and hardware mode. Why? Because the extra physics processing will inevitably affect the gameplay and so you'd end up essentially with 2 different games. This means companies making 2 different games (within just the one of course). And for what? A handful of rich kids with new hardware? Hardly a large market, and hardly worth the extra work.

2. Consoles.
Right now I'm sure many true PC gamers have now actually seriously started considering going to an xbox360 or the thing after simply due to price/performance ratio. Keeping up to date on a PC is getting very costly these days. So another reason why there's little market for a £150-£200 physics card.

3. Do most people even want it?
Ok,calm down, I'm sure all of us hardware/game enthusiasts would lap it up. But I'm sorry to say, we're not the main market. Notice how 'The Sims2' just blew away all other game sales when it came out? How much of a need for physics was there in that? Hell, how much graphics power does it even use?! This is a games industry and game developers are looking at markets for profit/sales etc. People with physics cards will be a very small niche market to aim at. Little or no profit to be made here.


Maybe if a PPU were to be integrated relatively cheaply into a motherbaord it'd have a chance. Or even a graphics card. But on it's own? I just don't think it's going to work. Not in today's climate. Maybe 3-5 years ago, but not now.

I seriously think the only thing that'll drive it forward is if it were standard in a future generation of console and so it became forced upon the general public on mass.
 
Games ARE suuporting it. Although it is not advertised, FEAR and Quake 4 both support the PPU, and will utelize it if it is present.
 
sac_tagg said:
Games ARE suuporting it. Although it is not advertised, FEAR and Quake 4 both support the PPU, and will utelize it if it is present.
Click to expand...

Why would they not advertise it?
 
I think it would catch on if it gave you some kind of advantage in playing a game. For example if you could shoot a rocket through a wall and then see a bad guy through it and shoot at him. Those that did not could not see through the wall. People would get it real quick. Once the protypes come out for testing we will see if it does imporve performance on games like Q4.
Before you guys start complaining about unfair advantages they are not unfair if everybody has the option to buy them.
 
I dont see what this can do besides unload the CPU and GPU of some work and give you higher FPS. why add additional complexity to the already complicated PC architecture, when you can just upgrade your CPU/GPU?
 
Steel Chicken said:
I dont see what this can do besides unload the CPU and GPU of some work and give you higher FPS. why add additional complexity to the already complicated PC architecture, when you can just upgrade your CPU/GPU?
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Why sit back and "make due" with what you have when you can open the world to new posibilities. The Idea that we should aviod a new tech because its more expensive or adds complexity is a horrible idea. Why go to the moon when we can see it form here, why use satalite when we already have phone lines. Why use DSL when you can get an internet connection with a dialup modem.

There will people who don't care or are not educated in the ways, these are the same type of people that yel at a game clerk because their "brand new" (meaning they bought it 2 years ago) system with integrated graphics can't play this new game. Why would any Technoligable person request the stop of innovation.
 
your missing the point.
the questions is "why should I buy this"

when the voodo first came out the answer was:
so you can play games with 3d acceleration, they will look much better, and without it, some stuff wont even run

why should I buy this sound card?
so I can hear stuff

why should I buy this uber groovy new GPU
so I can get decent FPS in the latest games

why should I buy an AMD X2?
so I can run multiple apps at once, do development work, etc with no sluggishness

why should I buy a PPU?
I have no answer to this question.

Look at my sig and tell me I make due. I dont make due. I buy stuff if there is a legitimate benefit to do so. No one has yet to articulate what benefit a PPU would have. I can lready run FEAR at great settings and good FPS. What will the PPU give me besides more FPS which I dont need?
 
"Maybe if a PPU were to be integrated relatively cheaply into a motherbaord it'd have a chance. But on it's own? I just don't think it's going to work. Not in today's climate. Maybe 3-5 years ago, but not now."

Replace PPU with GPU and pretend it's 1989.
 
BarneyGumble said:
"Maybe if a PPU were to be integrated relatively cheaply into a motherbaord it'd have a chance. But on it's own? I just don't think it's going to work. Not in today's climate. Maybe 3-5 years ago, but not now."

Replace PPU with GPU and pretend it's 1993.
Click to expand...

not exactly.

hey guys, there this new game out, called "whatever"! OMG its the coolest!
sweet! i wanna play! Sorry, you cant, unless you go buy a 3d accelerator!
OK, ill go buy one! Theres a need there.

come back to current time. Guys theres new game! called FEAR! Its awesome, and it uses this new physics processor technology!!!

me - "it does? WTF? I finished FEAR already at high settings with awesome graphics and great FPS. since when did I need a PPU? OH WAIT I DIDN'T!"

PPU's wont take off until the next and greatest game REQUIRES it. It needs to do something you cant already do, not just give me more FPS. I can go SLI if I want more FPS.

Edit: Sorry, I misunderstood your point at first. i think we agree.

93 = bad timing
98 = needed 3d cards
 
Steel Chicken said:
your missing the point.
the questions is "why should I buy this"

when the voodo first came out the answer was:
so you can play games with 3d acceleration, they will look much better, and without it, some stuff wont even run

why should I buy this sound card?
so I can hear stuff

why should I buy this uber groovy new GPU
so I can get decent FPS in the latest games

why should I buy an AMD X2?
so I can run multiple apps at once, do development work, etc with no sluggishness

why should I buy a PPU?
I have no answer to this question.

Look at my sig and tell me I make due. I dont make due. I buy stuff if there is a legitimate benefit to do so. No one has yet to articulate what benefit a PPU would have. I can lready run FEAR at great settings and good FPS. What will the PPU give me besides more FPS which I dont need?
Click to expand...

Okay lets say your walking down the street. You see wind bloing some leaves, a car accident. Right now The wind blowing is scripted and car accident has preset crash damage in games, why because millions things are happening, the velocity of the wind and its direction, the angle it hits the leaf, the impact of the leaf when it hits another leaf, for the accident it has to take into account the wieght of the first car, the speed its traveling, the angle of the impact the actuall like bend points of each object in both cars. that kind of thing. But when you have a CPU doing AI, clipping, and information that needs to be handed to the GPU it doesn't leave much left to be handled by the CPU. And when your Video card is already struggling to handle the rendering of the scene sacraficing any physics seems like a horrible idea to me. Having a dedicated PU for handling Physics would allow better FPS (because what little Physics processing that is done by the CPU now can be handed off with the PhysX), and hightened realism, things like proper hair waving, mussle (spelling is bad right now) movement while walking, grass being properly cruched under your feet, lots and lots of littel things that bring us closer and closer to ILM type CGI in games.

Even if a CPU could be dedicated to Physics do to its basically single pipline design It would only be able to handle a fraction (apparently 10%) of what a PPU could. Even if its not AGIEA but a converted GPU-PPU from ATI or Nvidia a dedicated chip is going to be the best way to go about it. But with a GPU renamed PPU from those companies you still deal with over half the core on it being related to non-PPU related stuff tha can't be used for Physics processing.

So hink of it this way why did I buy this PPU,

So I can see world interaction that I never thought was possible.
 
Topweasel said:
So hink of it this way why did I buy this PPU,

So I can see world interaction that I never thought was possible.
Click to expand...

the problem is I dont need a PPU to do that, just need a faster CPU/GPU, so they wont be "struggling" as you put it. THEN I can use that faster CPU for other things as well, like database indexing, multimedia conversions, etc.
 
Steel Chicken said:
the problem is I dont need a PPU to do that, just need a faster CPU/GPU, so they wont be "struggling" as you put it. THEN I can use that faster CPU for other things as well, like database indexing, multimedia conversions, etc.
Click to expand...

The Problem in the next 3-4 year neither AMD nor Intel have a design that breaks away from the whole thread based single pipline design. The closest is the Cell Proc which is still probably slower then the Agiea if it was dedicated to PP work.

They won't ever stop struggling if they do thats when innovation ended.
 
Steel Chicken said:
the problem is I dont need a PPU to do that, just need a faster CPU/GPU, so they wont be "struggling" as you put it. THEN I can use that faster CPU for other things as well, like database indexing, multimedia conversions, etc.
Click to expand...

Video cards are also pretty silly. I mean why should I spend money on some super-expensive graphics card when I can just as easily buy a faster CPU and have it complete the same rendering tasks through a software rendering path?

That way I can use the CPU for other tasks as well such as multimedia conversions and mathematical calculations. :p

In the same vein hardware accellerated soundcards are a big joke too. I mean why should I spend all of this money on some hardware based sound processing system when I can have my CPU do the same thing anyway via software sound mixing? That way I have a CPU which is generally faster and all of my other computing tasks will also be sped up.
 
Maybe if a PPU were to be integrated relatively cheaply into a motherbaord it'd have a chance. But on it's own? I just don't think it's going to work. Not in today's climate. Maybe 3-5 years ago, but not now."

Replace PPU with GPU and pretend it's 1989.
Click to expand...

Is it just Barney and I that recognize history repeats its self?

I believe that the PPU will succeed. The amount of information and time taken to evaluate it has lead me to believe this.

Further more I believe it is utterly pointless to debate this topic until the product is released and we can see hard facts (benches, games that support the use of the PPU in use) to determine if their new product is necessary. I also find the arguement of spending another $200-300 on another pc part moot, because the price amount ($200 minimum) isn't astronomically high (if you can't save up $200 in the next 6 months...you have bigger problems to worry about than buying a PPU). So until it is released (Q2 '06) I suggest finding ways of scraping up and saving a measly $200 for a PPU :p

...and then we can start this debate all over again. :rolleyes:
 
Hvatum said:
Video cards are also pretty silly. I mean why should I spend money on some super-expensive graphics card when I can just as easily buy a faster CPU and have it complete the same rendering tasks through a software rendering path?

That way I can use the CPU for other tasks as well such as multimedia conversions and mathematical calculations. :p

In the same vein hardware accellerated soundcards are a big joke too. I mean why should I spend all of this money on some hardware based sound processing system when I can have my CPU do the same thing anyway via software sound mixing? That way I have a CPU which is generally faster and all of my other computing tasks will also be sped up.
Click to expand...

The difference is the GPUS' ARE here and have been for almost 10 years like it or not and being used. Im not saying toss the GPU away, im just saying I dont need anything else. Also, I haven't bought a sound add-in card for 4 years, I got sick of creatives shit and just use software. Works fine. You still haven't convinced me I need a PPU. Until I do, im not buying it.
 
What these PPU chips need is a killer app. Some amazing, revolutionary game that uses such advanced physics that the PPU becomes necessary.

I don't think people will spend $200 so that barrels and crates will fall over more realistically in Quake4.

-Ace-
 
It will take the backing of Intel and Microsoft for the PPU concept to take off.
 
AceTKK said:
What these PPU chips need is a killer app. Some amazing, revolutionary game that uses such advanced physics that the PPU becomes necessary.

I don't think people will spend $200 so that barrels and crates will fall over more realistically in Quake4.

-Ace-
Click to expand...

exactly my point
until this exists, few people will buy it
 
"Why should I buy a PPU?"

To increase the immersion level, and give a far more photo-realistic experience as opposed to limiting myself to a developer's scripted actions to deepen the experience.

I think that about sums it up. And they'll get my $300 if it makes games look better.
 
Steel Chicken said:
your missing the point.
why should I buy this uber groovy new GPU
so I can get decent FPS in the latest games
Click to expand...

Why should I buy an already expensive piece of hardware when I can get a decent one for less?

A 6800GT/x800xl will still handle games without any hickups unless the resolution is way up.
If I did buy a PPU, it'd be only for eye candy, which is what (to me) these next generation video cards are for. You dont see many people with a 7800GTX playing games without any AA/AF on. Thats probably why they bought it in the first place.
 
EternityZX9 said:
Is it just Barney and I that recognize history repeats its self?

I believe that the PPU will succeed. The amount of information and time taken to evaluate it has lead me to believe this.

Further more I believe it is utterly pointless to debate this topic until the product is released and we can see hard facts (benches, games that support the use of the PPU in use) to determine if their new product is necessary. I also find the arguement of spending another $200-300 on another pc part moot, because the price amount ($200 minimum) isn't astronomically high (if you can't save up $200 in the next 6 months...you have bigger problems to worry about than buying a PPU). So until it is released (Q2 '06) I suggest finding ways of scraping up and saving a measly $200 for a PPU :p

...and then we can start this debate all over again. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Yeah, I recognise the situation seems similiar to when graphics cards first came out. But it's not the same as I pointed out in my post. It's not as easy to implement advanced physics stuff along side a standard mode as it is/was to implement a 3D accelerated mode with graphics cards.

As for money, me personally am prepared to pay because I'm an avid PC gamer and am prepared to spend money on it. However, others are not. Just look at the latest steam survey results and see what MOST people are prepared to spend on graphics. 9600 series is number one. A pretty cheap and weak card and graphics cards are the most important component for PC gaming! What does that tell you? Sure this data is a little skewed but it's very telling.


But yeah, you're right; it's a tad early to comment until we start actually seeing the hardware in stores. Hopefully I'll be vindicated and I'll dig up this thread to gloat! :cool:
 
uh oh, sounds like somebody is reaching middle age :D

I for one am really looking forward to this. I think that the level of detail and immersion PPU's will be able to provide will be unprecedented. In 2 years the X360 and PS3 will look like crap compared to PC games that utilize a PPU.

Secondly, is it not painfully obvious that parallel processing is the future? A dedicated PPU will let you do so much more with the CPU and GPU. I think a big part of the reason that in-game AI still sucks is there's a lack of processing power. What if you had another chip dedicated to AI functions? Even in the act of offloading physics, graphics and sound you are freeing up a lot of CPU power that could be used for other things. Stop being so curmudgeony and think of the possibilities :) :)
 
I think of the possibilities, I just think general programmable CPU's are a better solution, not specificaly designed processors. Hell, I think GPU's are a bad idea personally. Software should be written to be more multithreaded, using multiple generic programmable CPU's.

Alas this is not to be.
 
I look forward to seeing the AGEIA utilized in MMORPG style games. These games are horribly CPU limited due to all the other people playing and actions going on in the background. Holy crap, if I could offload all the extra physics processing to the PPU I could really beef up the realisim on these type of games and not suffer horrible performance hits as my CPU bogs down to a crawl during busy situations. It would be glorious.

RPGs in general, and specifically MMOs, are where added realism is really appreciated and noticed. Running around in the game fighting with realistic armor that actually looks metallic, weapons that have PPU generated runes/gems/engravings that are actually visible, realistic blood, wounds, and sweat, and realistic character models (still horribly lacking in most MMOs). Adding more frames into the models would be nice as well to make them move more fluidly and would be a welcome benefit as well. And if we could use the PPU to make female characters breasts bounce more realisticlly in their nice shiny armor, I'd go out and buy one today, lol :p I mean, cause that's what it all comes down to in the end, sex appeal.

With the amount of female MMO and RPG players that's the perfect market to target for initial product improvements and where the player base will most appreciate and realize the benefits. You're targeting both men and women, many of them with older machines (as a lot of MMO players have crappy systems) that simply slapping in a PPU would be such an improvement to their system that it would almost be like buying a new computer. Also, the MMO client/server structure makes it easy to add PPU specific enhancements that don't require a PPU, but make the game much more immersive and enjoyable for those that choose to buy one.

This thing could single handedly bring about the next level of MMO games. (and if you play the same MMO for 1-2 years, the expense is mitigated.)
 
Steel Chicken said:
I think of the possibilities, I just think general programmable CPU's are a better solution, not specificaly designed processors. Hell, I think GPU's are a bad idea personally. Software should be written to be more multithreaded, using multiple generic programmable CPU's.

Alas this is not to be.
Click to expand...
Those are my thoughts Exactly!
Look at the new xbox... how many separate processors.

I think you right. Wouldnt it be cool for someone say IMB or amd to release
4 inidividual 3 ghz processors. Each one highly programmable and intereconnected to eachother as "one big chip" one is designed more for high math calculations, another one for logic, and another one for you know say "physics" for example.

All highly programmable by each company to do exactly what they want to do.

So say we open up Counterstrike '07 2 years from now they come out witha new version and they decide to use on 3 ghz chip for the AI that would be nuts!. One 3 ghz chip for graphics. another 3 ghz chip for physics, and the other 3 ghz chip for special instructions (shaders etc) special effects. How cool would that be?

I know im dreaming but correct me if im wrong. INstead of paying say $500 for a 7800 gtx $300 for a new CPU wouldnt you pay $800 for four integrated chips that would last for another say 3 years all on their own? I dont know i mean incorporate the chips with some high speed memory to interlink them in high quantities and you would have a beast for a machine. Let me know if im daydreaming. Any of you have "thoughts" on my thoguht.

Think of the competition. Hand a game publisher the hardware like "a console" they can do anything they want with it.
 
Steel Chicken said:
The difference is the GPUS' ARE here and have been for almost 10 years like it or not and being used. Im not saying toss the GPU away, im just saying I dont need anything else. Also, I haven't bought a sound add-in card for 4 years, I got sick of creatives shit and just use software. Works fine. You still haven't convinced me I need a PPU. Until I do, im not buying it.
Click to expand...

GPUs weren't around since the beginning of computing. They became necessary, as you pointed out (with your voodoo example) as games got more complicated and the CPUs started becoming unable to keep up with rendering. Well, is it not likely that as gamers demand more immersion and more realism, CPUs will start to be unable to keep up with physics calculations? Does it not follow that a PPU will become necessary?

I don't know if you've taken a physics class before, but even the simple mechanics in an environment like, say, a car race or a battlefield, can become impossible to figure out in real-time. If you want truly realistic physics, you're solving Newton's equations for every interaction that takes place.

For example, in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, bullets travel instantaneously over any distance and are not affected by gravity. Imagine how much more challenging and fun the game would be if you had to shoot the gun more like a real gun, accounting for wind, gravity, and the amount of time it takes for a bullet to reach a moving target. For the game to recreate that accurately, you're calculating the force of air resistance, any wind, and gravity on the bullet (based on its aerodynamic properties) to find its magnitude and direction of travel. Not difficult for one bullet if the wind is constant, but the hundreds of bullets flying across a battlefield where (realistically) wind can change at any time? Throw in the added realism of how a bullet affects human flesh given speed, angle of impact, and the bullet's shape and composition to calculate what constitutes a kill (as opposed to an arbitrary definition based on hitboxes), and you've got a nightmare for any processor. The level of detail I'm getting at will be difficult for even a dedicated PPU to handle, but we're definately more likely to reach that level of realism with a dedicated PPU than with a CPU doing it all.

Anyway, my point is that if we were content with games like Pong and Tetris, we wouldn't need a GPU or PPU.

[grammar nazi]
By the way, its "make do," not "make due." If there's one thing that annoys the hell out of me, its when people misuse expressions like that. [/grammar nazi]
 
mickey987 said:
You dont see many people with a 7800GTX playing games without any AA/AF on. Thats probably why they bought it in the first place.
Click to expand...

AA/AF != 10,000,000 individually rendered blades of grass moving in perfect reaction to a wild spring breeze.
 
Steel Chicken said:
the problem is I dont need a PPU to do that, just need a faster CPU/GPU, so they wont be "struggling" as you put it. THEN I can use that faster CPU for other things as well, like database indexing, multimedia conversions, etc.
Click to expand...

The only fault with that logic is how much faster of a CPU and GPU can you buy compared to what you already have?

Then consider a ten fold or more increase in physics interactions and smoother game play due to unloading physics from the video/CPU processors all for the low cost of a $200-$300 add in card that will work even when transplanted to your the next vid card and cpu system.

Besides that, just try upgrading your CPU and video card for $300. If you can upgrade those out of that amount of money, you don't have hardware sufficient for playing games like Fear in the first place.
 
Besides, who here think Ageia is making the PPU for profit?

I think they are making it to sell the technology, so later on when it is adopted in newer CPU's or GPU's internally (for example, as the FPU has been), they plan on making the money from licensing (the way Dolby does)
 
BBA said:
The only fault with that logic is how much faster of a CPU and GPU can you buy compared to what you already have?

Then consider a ten fold or more increase in physics interactions and smoother game play due to unloading physics from the video/CPU processors all for the low cost of a $200-$300 add in card that will work even when transplanted to your the next vid card and cpu system.

Besides that, just try upgrading your CPU and video card for $300. If you can upgrade those out of that amount of money, you don't have hardware sufficient for playing games like Fear in the first place.
Click to expand...

sell your old parts, get a good chunk of money back.
 
Steel Chicken said:
sell your old parts, get a good chunk of money back.
Click to expand...

I didn't think of that. :)

Then again, I always end up moving my old stuff to my wifes computer and eventually giving it away as useless the next round afterward.
 
My question is.. will games that are being designed for the physics capability of this card, run at all without this card? For instance UT2007??

EDIT: nevermind.. I found the answer.. some games will require this card, and some games will not require it but will support it..
 
of course they will, i think. because the majority of people won't want/have that, right away.
 
lol, $250 - $300 now is it?!

People will be paying that for an entire next gen console next year. I'd even rather spend that on a console and I hate console gaming. At least then I'd having something really substantial to show for my $300.

And it's also pcie only by the looks of it. It's as if they actually want it to fail themselves.

"I know; let's release a product that no ones needs and no one can fully utilise right now, we'll make it off puttingly expensive, and we'll make only available to less than half of PC users by making it pcie. Over night success!


Don't get me wrong, physics processing is the future of gaming, but at $300 for a stand alone card, I just don't see it taking off right now. You have to think about what the vast majority of people are thinking, not us hardcore gamers.
 
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