Physics Card?

M

mmynett

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 20, 2005
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114
Anyone have more info on the AGEIA PhysX card i.e release date, which games are likely to use the technology... etc... also is anyone else actually interested?!!
 
i think its gonna give gaming a new boost. we all know that a game with crappy physics just doesnt have that realistic appeal. With a physics engine, the realism will jump to new levels and it should take some load off the CPU and help increase performance. Sounds good to me...this is just like when the old Voodoo's came out.
 
I think it's just a dumb gimnick. If you ever looked at their demos, all of the objects had the cracking places pre-programmed in certain places. All crates broke the same way, etc.

It might support a billion particles, but until it breaks stuff without you telling it where, it's retarded.
 
I think it's a step in a good direction, until they can be something more revolutionary in procs.
 
tornadotsunamilife said:
So what's happening? Will there be specific API's for this PPU or will it just use normal game physic engine?
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Novadex is the API/SDK.
 
I wish they'd hurry up and come out with it. :p

The info I read about it a long time ago seemed to suggest that they only had a VERY crippled version at that time. They are probably trying to get up to their projected "32,000 rocks" limit. (It was 4,000 when I read it.)

This could be gimmicky or revolutionary. Depends on performance and price to a lesser degree.
 
Personally,i think this new Physics card shoudnt be released instead Physics Proc should be integrated into GPU's as i am hardly been able to buy a Graphic card (ASUS Radeon 9600XT) after spending two years with my old Radeon 9000Pro and spending another 200$ just on a physics card is simply out of the question..............but yeah if the card costs something round 10-20$ then i would be willing to buy it but with a price tag of 200$ Naah!
 
I don't know. I will probably buy it. Why? So I can be an early adopter, allow the card to be a sucess and therefore cause larger volumes, lower costs, newer generations so the people who can't afford it eventually will and the people who didn't want it will buy it eventually anways because of how nifty it really will be.

Does anybody ever think about that companies come up with new ideas to make money? Or do you think nVidia, ATI, AMD, Intel, etc deep down inside want to produce cards at no profit and work insane hours just to allow you a few more FPS and eye candy? Get real.

Push the envelope, you don't know where it will take you.

-tReP
 
hauntedfury said:
Personally,i think this new Physics card shoudnt be released instead Physics Proc should be integrated into GPU's as i am hardly been able to buy a Graphic card (ASUS Radeon 9600XT) after spending two years with my old Radeon 9000Pro and spending another 200$ just on a physics card is simply out of the question..............but yeah if the card costs something round 10-20$ then i would be willing to buy it but with a price tag of 200$ Naah!
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The physics are done well before any sort of rendering is done. Putting this on the video card would be like putting the CPU in the monitor. Makes no sense.

-tReP
 
Trepidati0n said:
The physics are done well before any sort of rendering is done. Putting this on the video card would be like putting the CPU in the monitor. Makes no sense.

-tReP
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Not to mention the added transistor count, power draw, heat and die-size problem this would cause. The physics engine also requires its own ram, say hello to video cards the size of motherboards if this were to happen (ast least at our current technoligical abilities)
 
best solution to this would be to work directly with motherboard companies, and get this on a board.

250 dollars for a yet another card inside your case? That will be a tough sell.

Hell, I dont even have room now after 2 x 7800 GTX's and my sound card. I had to remove my TV Card and that sucks.
 
BossNoodleKaboodle said:
how many GFLOPs will this PPU have dedicated to physics processing? how much do modern CPU's have?
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You can't use GFLOP's for this type of system since you are comparing apples to oranges. A DSP may run slower than a CPU but it can smoke a CPU under certain operation types. The same goes for this. Using your logic Intel should be stomping AMD based upon the MHz number.

The card will gets its performance from highly paralleld and optimized math routines based upon "physics" functions.

-tReP
 
...which is why my CPU is about 2.6GFLOPS but my GPU is about 80... I was asking specifically about FP performance so its not really comparing apples to oranges as far as the comparison method goes. I'm just asking how many GFLOPS the orange has compared to the apple. I realize the difference between the scalar architecture of a GPU or PPU is different than the architecture of a Pentium but I was talking raw performance figures.
 
Processor, Sound Card, Graphics Card, and now a Physics Card

Isn't this a sign of the inevitable slide towards Cell Type computing?
 
Well, I didn't really familiarize myself with the cell architecture, but the mindset is certainly not new. Its a 'divide and conquer' strategy, used in IT all the time. A dedicated sound card takes away or lowers the drag on the processor. A dedicated File server takes away the drag on an Application server or web server, etc.
 
Nasty_Savage said:
Well, I didn't really familiarize myself with the cell architecture, but the mindset is certainly not new. Its a 'divide and conquer' strategy, used in IT all the time. A dedicated sound card takes away or lowers the drag on the processor. A dedicated File server takes away the drag on an Application server or web server, etc.
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Oh yeah......now thats what i really call an Intelligent Answer! Now i am convinced that there should be a PPU
 
hauntedfury said:
Oh yeah......now thats what i really call an Intelligent Answer! Now i am convinced that there should be a PPU
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Are you... being sarcastic? Or not? Hard to tell....
 
Well, if you are being sarcastic, you aren't making sense. Anytime you can pull a load off the CPU you will increase overall performace. When you can take the load off and do the job 1000 times better than the CPU could do, you are doing great stuff.
 
skyeandangus said:
Processor, Sound Card, Graphics Card, and now a Physics Card

Isn't this a sign of the inevitable slide towards Cell Type computing?
Click to expand...

cellular architecture is different than this. cell seeks to make generic processors that can switch task modes to do all of these things and connect to each other via high bandwidth interprocessor and interdevice networking. this is actually a step to the side not forward in my opinion.
 
Fanatik said:
Sucks being rich. Doesn`t it? :D
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I wouldnt know :(

If you recall, 3D "accelerator" cards started out seeming like a gimmick. Look at PC graphics today. AGEIA is definately on to something, and if they can pull it off effectively, it will be revolutionary. I have my hopes up, and will order one as soon as they are available.
 
Ok a few common things I hear people complaining about the PPU.


1) We are getting dual core cpu's now, we dont need PPU since the CPU will 2x as powerful.

Yes you will be able to do more realistic physics on dual core than single core. You could do better graphics as well, but the graphics would still look like shiiiite compared to that of a video card. Nobody suggests that now that we have dual core we dont need vid cards anymore.

2) Its nice, but the price is way too high.

The PPU is not a simple chip. It has 120million transistors on it, that is more than a pentium. The design is simpler, yes, but it still does not make it cheap. It also needs to use dedicated RAM, which is often the most expensive part of a video card, so that doesn't lend to making it cheap either.

3) Why dont they integrate it onto motherboards, that way I dont have to buy a 200$ card?

So you want to buy a 400$ motherboard instead? Not to mention that this would drastically increase the time to market, and drastically lower the adoption rate? It simply isn't realistic. We have integrated graphics now, but that did not happen for quite some time after 3DFX intro'd the video card. The simple fact is that the best way to get it accepted and out on the market is to make it an add-in board that anybody can add. That is why they are introducing it on PCI and not PCI-e, nearly every motherboard has a PCI slot, and many have an open PCI slot.

4) They should / The ppu will soon be integrated into GPU's

I will borrow a couple quotes from this thread to address that one :
Trepidati0n said:
The physics are done well before any sort of rendering is done. Putting this on the video card would be like putting the CPU in the monitor. Makes no sense.
Click to expand...
eno-on said:
Not to mention the added transistor count, power draw, heat and die-size problem this would cause. The physics engine also requires its own ram, say hello to video cards the size of motherboards if this were to happen (ast least at our current technoligical abilities)
Click to expand...

These are just some of the most common things I hear people saying negative about the PPU. Personally I love the idea, and I hope that there is the software out soon to make it a success because I believe this is a great step to more immersive gaming.

A few bits of information as well. The chip is done and the boards are ready to be produced. Asus is ready to start making them, and may be doing so as we speak. What they are waiting on is the software. The card is supposed to ship with game demos that display what the PPU can do. Personally I hope they have a short little game demo based on UE3, now THAT could sell some PPU's. The card will be introduced as PCI, and later if the demand is there they would like to make the move to x4 PCI-e.

If you dont want the ppu, dont think you can afford it, that is fine. Dont buy it then. Not everyone could afford the first video cards either. It will take some time for the PPU to become a mainstream thing. I do think that it is more than possible for the PPU to become mainstream. Personally I will not be getting one once they are released, I will be like many others and wait for the first good game that utilizes the PPU to either make a more immersive experience or to add to gameplay. Besides, I have to save up for R520/7800U
 
Amiga called, they want their design back :rolleyes:

(What I find really funny is that "AIGA" is just "Amiga" without the 'M')

Seriously though, compare the two. There is absolutely no doubt that modern PC's are starting to look more and more like Amiga's :p
 
Erasmus354 said:
The chip is done and the boards are ready to be produced. Asus is ready to start making them, and may be doing so as we speak.
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Is this based solely on the news bit @ The Inquirer news? I'd like a little more official word about this than the INQ :)

EDIT: I think we might know more when QuakeCon starts August 11th.

- - - - -

You made a good post, by the way.
 
SlamDunk said:
Is this based solely on the news bit @ The Inquirer news? I'd like a little more official word about this than the INQ :)

EDIT: I think we might know more when QuakeCon starts August 11th.

- - - - -

You made a good post, by the way.
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oi you caught me, let me go shoot myself now for using something off of the inq.

Anyways, I find the information that Inq posted to be very realistic. Considering they have had working samples of the chip for some time now it would not surprise me if they recently finalized the chip. It also wouldn't surprise me if the software is lagging behind, and personally I think it is smart of them to wait for launch until they at least have some demo software for people to play around with.

That being said, never trust the Inq, take the information they post and then analyze and consider it for yourself as to what you think is actually feasible. Contrary to popular belief they are correct on a lot of things, they just have a way of slanting it to make it seem either extremely biased, or generally finding someway to make it almost completely shit. Reading the Inq is a test of your ability to shift through the BS and find the real information.
 
I dont understand why so many people are complaining about the issue of having another card to buy. I guess these people havnt been building computers for long. First computer I built had an IDE/Floppy card, Parallel card, VLB video card, modem, 10base NIC, sound card, which filled up all the slots on the motherboard. Sure its nice having some things integrated these days, but I still prefer having the ability to choose add-ons independant of my choice in a motherboard. And yes, I will be getting a PCI version of this PPU as soon as it comes out to hopefully help grow a promising technology.
 
Scar1.8T said:
And yes, I will be getting a PCI version of this PPU as soon as it comes out to hopefully help grow a promising technology.
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Me too. Unless a new console has completely pulled me away from PC gaming altogether, which I doubt.
 
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