PPU for use in 3D apps?

[Lord Twilight]

This PPU stuff looks really cool, especially the Cellfactor video. I was just thinking that it would also probably be possible for the PPU to accelerate physics in 3D apps such as Maya and 3ds Max. Has there been any information about this yet?

Cloth dynamics, particle systems, liquids, hair.. it's all pretty intensive in graphics apps too..

 

[Sly]

Yup. 3D Studio does use software physics, especially in particle animation. But the computation time required is pretty much insignificant compared to the actual rendering.

I really think it would be more help if the PPU can aid with the lighting calculations than with the physics.

 

[Lord Twilight]

But the computation time required is pretty much insignificant compared to the actual rendering.

I really think it would be more help if the PPU can aid with the lighting calculations than with the physics.

I don't know about computation time required for calculating dynamics being insignificant, especially soft bodies (cloth) or hair. If it could accelerate lighting (ray tracing), that would be awesome..

 

[AreEss]

I don't know about computation time required for calculating dynamics being insignificant, especially soft bodies (cloth) or hair. If it could accelerate lighting (ray tracing), that would be awesome..

No, the market for PPUs is not in rendering. It's in GIS and CAE. Specifically, resevoir development and planning, oil and natural gas well management, and predictive stress analysis (e.g. LS-DYNA.) These are specific areas where the CPU is tasked with a lot of real physics load, and becomes the limiting factor over the card. Unfortunately, what I do know in these areas is under NDA from here till next year.
I can toss you a link to Halliburton Landmark, over here: http://www.lgc.com/landmark/index.htm
And requirements for DesicionSpace Nexus: http://www.lgc.com/landmark/integra...ent/decisionspacenexus/systemrequirements.htm
As should be obvious, these are very CPU limited. A GPU is not where you do your physics, only your render calculations. That means base geometry calculations, texturing, etcetera. A lot of things that ATI and nVidia still can't figure out how to accelerate, or can't be bothered to, despite the fact that cards with true dedicated geometry processors blow them both out of the water.

CAD/CAM/CAA/Render, it's still card limiting over CPU. The PPU really has nothing to offer there, at all. The geometry calculations in theory could be performed by the PPU, but it would be significantly slower than the CPU. The only time a PPU would be truly helpful is during output stage. The reason for adding plug-ins is the facade of improving the product, and marketing for the PPU. It can't help with lighting; nVidia and ATI are too moronic to do hardware lighting. Even 3DLabs older stuff has 64 hardware lights, while the Quadro 4500 can't handle more than 8 software. Their design stupidity is mindboggling, and only further cripples any potential of the PPU in these particular areas.

I'm not saying the PPU is a bad thing; it has some serious application potential and I'm hoping they do take advantage of it. I'm hoping to see multi-PPU PCIe4x/8x cards within the next 12-24 months for the scientific and simulator markets. The demand should be there by then. But there just isn't an real benefit to the PPU in most applications mentioned by others so far.