Ageia PhysX

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: Thraxen
I find it cool yet ridiculous at the same time. Aren't video cards already too expensive these days? SLI? Now we are going to be expected to buy PPU cards to get the most out of our games? WTF? Are AI cards next? It's getting too expensive to have a top of the line gaming machine these days which, IMO, will only end up hurting the industry, not helping.

Well, a computer is still a lot cheaper than when I got into computers back in the day when a regular consumer pc cost $3K. Back then a modem cost as much as an aegiea does now.

 

[Doom Machine]

no sense in even thinking about it till games finallly start using it, by that time the ppu will be on video cards as no doubt nvidia and ati will want to license its use

 

[obeseotron]

I really don't think a seperate physics chip is a sustainable approach. What a physics processor provides - the ability to massive amounts of a fairly specific type of math better than a general purpose cpu, is something that we absolutely do need and will get. Both the graphics companies are working on ways to leverage the gpu to do this, there was some news about AMD looking at co-processor, the Cell shows an early implementation of a heterogenous multicore cpu, etc. There may be a period of time like there was with 3DFX when a totally seperate solution provides a better experience with a decent amount of software for a year or two, but eventually it will be integrated into something else. I personally think the most likely outcome is one of the graphics companies purchasing AGEIA in order to gain a lead in physics on the other.

 

[d3lt4]

I'm waiting until it is fully supported on the games that I play, like all the steam games and doom 3 and such. And I will wait for the price to go down. WAY down, to like $100 or so. That is somewhat reasonable, unlike the $200-$300 range it is supposed to be in when it comes out.

 

[MrUniq]

this is a good trend i think...full destructable enviros...seems waay overdue. Not just specific destructible portions. Where every object/ground/building has physics applied to it and can be smashed, crushed, or cut dynamically. I'd love to take down a building during a deathmatch 😛

 

[SynthDude2001]

I like the idea, but there's no way I would even consider buying one until there's LOTS of software support to make it worth it. I need a new video card much more right now anyway. Plus as others have said, games aren't even really making use of dual cores yet (I have an Opty 170). Yes, I understand that the PPU would be many times faster than a CPU (even a dual core) at these calculations, but the thing is - if developers aren't even making real use of dual cores a year after they were brought to market, how long will it be before the software support for the PPU is really there to make it a worthwhile purchase (i.e., for more than just one game)?...

 

[Malak]

In-game footage using physX. The physics SDK is built into the Xbox 360. They have a game list somewhere... here

 

[Jeff7181]

They definitely need to work on better physics... the PPU will allow them to, but I see metal hanging in mid air as if the time is slowed down to 1/10th realtime. That just doesn't look realistic.

 

[NanoStuff]

Not a chance. I only play multiplayer, thus paying $300 to have debree obstruct your view is something rather disadvantageous. Unless the game is designed so that physics change physical interaction and the gamer requires the card... maybe but I sure as hell doubt it. So no, I won't be buying one.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: NanoStuff
Not a chance. I only play multiplayer, thus paying $300 to have debree obstruct your view is something rather disadvantageous. Unless the game is designed so that physics change physical interaction and the gamer requires the card... maybe but I sure as hell doubt it. So no, I won't be buying one.

It does more than make explosions prettier, maybe you should read more about it. And blocking your view is a matter of immersion, that's how the explosion would affect you in reality, so why not make it feel like that?

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: NanoStuff
Not a chance. I only play multiplayer, thus paying $300 to have debree obstruct your view is something rather disadvantageous. Unless the game is designed so that physics change physical interaction and the gamer requires the card... maybe but I sure as hell doubt it. So no, I won't be buying one.

It does more than make explosions prettier, maybe you should read more about it. And blocking your view is a matter of immersion, that's how the explosion would affect you in reality, so why not make it feel like that?

If I'm playing single player, possibly. But unless everyone else in the game has the same hinderance to visibility during an explosion, I don't want to voluntarily obstruct my view in a multiplayer match.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Nanostuff has a point. I have always hated things like rumble packs for the same reason.

why the hell do I want a controller that shakes in my hands when that only distracts me from the game and makes controls more difficult? Ditto for all those stupid cockpit-based arcade games that shook around as I played them(like flight-sim games and what not).

The last thing I need is more debris in my face due to a high-falootin physics engine.

 

[Doom Machine]

how in the world does a rumble pack distract you? lol..you must got some kind of earthquake machine if it causes you to wreck in a racing game, even when they first came out for the n64 i didnt even notice it when playing

 

[VERTIGGO]

Interesting... I expected less than 50% of the votes to be for.

SLI is commonly voted down by a majority. Is this a trend-breaker?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: VERTIGGO
Interesting... I expected less than 50% of the votes to be for.

SLI is commonly voted down by a majority. Is this a trend-breaker?

The problem with SLI is that it boasts performance increases that are only significant over the short-term. Anyone who bought two 6800 Ultra cards likely felt embarassed when the 7800GTX came out and mostly outperformed their beloved SLI setup. It was different back in the Voodoo2 days when Voodoo2 SLI was the king for raw FPS for a long period of time. Dual 6800s dominated the Nvidia performance scene for maybe a year, maybe less?

A PPU adds an entirely new dimension of functionality to one's machine, so fears of obsolescence aren't as profound with them. Unlike SLI, there will presumably be a big difference between having a PPU and not having one. So, even if your PPU is a few months out-of-date, you're still ahead of people who never got one in the first place.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost

Originally posted by: 996GT2
Accordig to Aegia, you can get the card as an upgrade from 3 companies right now-Dell, Alienware, Falcon NW

Never heard of falcon NW, but Alienware=Dell (as far as access to components go).

1. I don't think the Alienware/Dell deal has gone to completion yet.
2. Falcon NW used to advertise in 3dmark.

Anyhow, I'd rather have a PPU than a sound card, at least it can theoretically do things my cpu can't, the sound engines of all current games could be easily done on the cpu.

It was different back in the Voodoo2 days when Voodoo2 SLI was the king for raw FPS for a long period of time. Dual 6800s dominated the Nvidia performance scene for maybe a year, maybe less?

Less than a year......for that matter, voodoo2 sli was only king in performance for maybe a bit over a year, tnt2 and voodoo3 both edged it out.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: VERTIGGO
Interesting... I expected less than 50% of the votes to be for.

SLI is commonly voted down by a majority. Is this a trend-breaker?

SLI is only useful to those with larger displays. It is completely useless from a practical standpoint if you have a 19" or smaller display. A single video card can produce the max fps for any new game at the average resolution of 1280x1024, and a lot of people play at a lower res than that.

A PPU means you don't have to upgrade your CPU or video card as quickly. Updating the video card may still be necessary soon, for DX10 features, but that is still some time off. That is also another reason SLI is bad. You might have the performance to not have to upgrade for a long time, but you will be outdated as far as hardware features go before you are outdated on performance.

Personally, I only see a couple games on the list so far that I would play, but they have over 60 developers signed up so that means the list is far from complete.

 

[0roo0roo]

well if u can afford sli its doubtful u'd only have a 19" anyways🙂

still notsure i see a way for developers to make physx fundamental to game play since they have to cater to everyone else. means its just going to be for background stuff.
too bad there isn't some kind of physics api from ms so we can have competition. remember 3dfx had glide, but i'm not sure ageia can get away with something like that now. i know i woulodn't want to lock them in as a monopoly on physics

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: VERTIGGO
Interesting... I expected less than 50% of the votes to be for.

SLI is commonly voted down by a majority. Is this a trend-breaker?

SLI is only useful to those with larger displays. It is completely useless from a practical standpoint if you have a 19" or smaller display. A single video card can produce the max fps for any new game at the average resolution of 1280x1024, and a lot of people play at a lower res than that.

A PPU means you don't have to upgrade your CPU or video card as quickly. Updating the video card may still be necessary soon, for DX10 features, but that is still some time off. That is also another reason SLI is bad. You might have the performance to not have to upgrade for a long time, but you will be outdated as far as hardware features go before you are outdated on performance.

Personally, I only see a couple games on the list so far that I would play, but they have over 60 developers signed up so that means the list is far from complete.

Lies. 😀 My 7800GT won't play HL2 at 1024x768 with 4XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF and stay above 85 fps all the time so that I can enable vsync with no funky frame rate dips. My 7800GT won't play Oblivion at 1024x768 at max details with HDR and 16XAF consistantly over 30 FPS. My 7800GT won't play Far Cry at 1024x768 with 4XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF and stay above 60 fps. My 7800GT also won't play Doom 3 at 1024x768 with 4XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF and stay above 60 fps at all times.

If you're happy with just 30 FPS without eyecandy, then yes, SLI is a waste for you. However, I'd love to be able to use 8XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF with driver set to High Quality to reduce texture shimmering.

So saying SLI is only for people with large displays is wrong. It's also for people who want to use insane amounts of eye candy. 🙂

 

[VERTIGGO]

Originally posted by: DrMrLordX

Originally posted by: VERTIGGO
Interesting... I expected less than 50% of the votes to be for.

SLI is commonly voted down by a majority. Is this a trend-breaker?

The problem with SLI is that it boasts performance increases that are only significant over the short-term. Anyone who bought two 6800 Ultra cards likely felt embarassed when the 7800GTX came out and mostly outperformed their beloved SLI setup. It was different back in the Voodoo2 days when Voodoo2 SLI was the king for raw FPS for a long period of time. Dual 6800s dominated the Nvidia performance scene for maybe a year, maybe less?

A PPU adds an entirely new dimension of functionality to one's machine, so fears of obsolescence aren't as profound with them. Unlike SLI, there will presumably be a big difference between having a PPU and not having one. So, even if your PPU is a few months out-of-date, you're still ahead of people who never got one in the first place.

I agree with your point, but I wasn't expecting this comprehension to be widespread. Personally, I will run Crossfire + PhysX, so I see no advantage to accomodating the PhysX engine in a Radeon GPU, because that will only detract from the levels of image quality I could have with all three.

The only way the PPU could be obsolete is if they successfully run physics on an extra GPU core, when we have dual quad core graphics boards. As of now, our limitation is in how many PCI-E slots we can use. (If I want more performance than X1900 crossfire, I simply can't have it, I just have to wait for a PPU or new Radeons). Hopefully, we will reach a point where we can just add more GPUs and not be limited by an AFR engine that only supports 2 cards.

 

[Jeff7181]

Again, people misunderstanding what SLI is designed to be. It is NOT designed to be a futureproof solution. Neither nVidia nor anyone else claim SLI is for the average person, it's an enthusiast feature. It's for people who are willing to spend more money for more performance NOW. Previously, when the 9800XT was the fastest card available... that was it. It was impossible to have anything better than that no matter how much money you had. Now you can have the fastest video card money can buy, or you can have two of them. Soon you'll be able to have four of them.

The fact that a single 7900GTX performs better than two 6800 Ultra's means absolutely nothing at all to the owner of the two 6800 Ultra's if they understood the concept of SLI when they bought their setup. The only people pisssed off about it are the people who mistakenly thought SLI was a tool that would make their rig futureproof.

 

[imported_JamesDax]

Everything you ever wanted to know about the AGEIA PhysX PPU. Seriously, there appears to be alot of uninformed and/or misinformed folks here.

 

[Arkane13131]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: VERTIGGO
Interesting... I expected less than 50% of the votes to be for.

SLI is commonly voted down by a majority. Is this a trend-breaker?

SLI is only useful to those with larger displays. It is completely useless from a practical standpoint if you have a 19" or smaller display. A single video card can produce the max fps for any new game at the average resolution of 1280x1024, and a lot of people play at a lower res than that.

A PPU means you don't have to upgrade your CPU or video card as quickly. Updating the video card may still be necessary soon, for DX10 features, but that is still some time off. That is also another reason SLI is bad. You might have the performance to not have to upgrade for a long time, but you will be outdated as far as hardware features go before you are outdated on performance.

Personally, I only see a couple games on the list so far that I would play, but they have over 60 developers signed up so that means the list is far from complete.

Lies. 😀 My 7800GT won't play HL2 at 1024x768 with 4XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF and stay above 85 fps all the time so that I can enable vsync with no funky frame rate dips. My 7800GT won't play Oblivion at 1024x768 at max details with HDR and 16XAF consistantly over 30 FPS. My 7800GT won't play Far Cry at 1024x768 with 4XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF and stay above 60 fps. My 7800GT also won't play Doom 3 at 1024x768 with 4XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF and stay above 60 fps at all times.

If you're happy with just 30 FPS without eyecandy, then yes, SLI is a waste for you. However, I'd love to be able to use 8XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF with driver set to High Quality to reduce texture shimmering.

So saying SLI is only for people with large displays is wrong. It's also for people who want to use insane amounts of eye candy. 🙂

oblivion = cpu bound.
if your card doesnt play HL2 well enough you should just throw the cursed thing out the window.

and doom 3 struggling?

your kidding...right?


edit:

i just watched the physics card video..i see a flamethrower hitting buildings and all this debris flying around....and yet the building looks the same after.....

anyone else want to slap whoever decided this video is a great intorduction to the abilities of this card?

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Arkane13131

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: VERTIGGO
Interesting... I expected less than 50% of the votes to be for.

SLI is commonly voted down by a majority. Is this a trend-breaker?

SLI is only useful to those with larger displays. It is completely useless from a practical standpoint if you have a 19" or smaller display. A single video card can produce the max fps for any new game at the average resolution of 1280x1024, and a lot of people play at a lower res than that.

A PPU means you don't have to upgrade your CPU or video card as quickly. Updating the video card may still be necessary soon, for DX10 features, but that is still some time off. That is also another reason SLI is bad. You might have the performance to not have to upgrade for a long time, but you will be outdated as far as hardware features go before you are outdated on performance.

Personally, I only see a couple games on the list so far that I would play, but they have over 60 developers signed up so that means the list is far from complete.

Lies. 😀 My 7800GT won't play HL2 at 1024x768 with 4XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF and stay above 85 fps all the time so that I can enable vsync with no funky frame rate dips. My 7800GT won't play Oblivion at 1024x768 at max details with HDR and 16XAF consistantly over 30 FPS. My 7800GT won't play Far Cry at 1024x768 with 4XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF and stay above 60 fps. My 7800GT also won't play Doom 3 at 1024x768 with 4XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF and stay above 60 fps at all times.

If you're happy with just 30 FPS without eyecandy, then yes, SLI is a waste for you. However, I'd love to be able to use 8XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF with driver set to High Quality to reduce texture shimmering.

So saying SLI is only for people with large displays is wrong. It's also for people who want to use insane amounts of eye candy. 🙂

oblivion = cpu bound.
if your card doesnt play HL2 well enough you should just throw the cursed thing out the window.

and doom 3 struggling?

your kidding...right?


edit:

i just watched the physics card video..i see a flamethrower hitting buildings and all this debris flying around....and yet the building looks the same after.....

anyone else want to slap whoever decided this video is a great intorduction to the abilities of this card?

Another user who thinks everyone's definition of "quality" and "good enough" is the same as his.

 

[Arkane13131]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: Arkane13131

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: VERTIGGO
Interesting... I expected less than 50% of the votes to be for.

SLI is commonly voted down by a majority. Is this a trend-breaker?

SLI is only useful to those with larger displays. It is completely useless from a practical standpoint if you have a 19" or smaller display. A single video card can produce the max fps for any new game at the average resolution of 1280x1024, and a lot of people play at a lower res than that.

A PPU means you don't have to upgrade your CPU or video card as quickly. Updating the video card may still be necessary soon, for DX10 features, but that is still some time off. That is also another reason SLI is bad. You might have the performance to not have to upgrade for a long time, but you will be outdated as far as hardware features go before you are outdated on performance.

Personally, I only see a couple games on the list so far that I would play, but they have over 60 developers signed up so that means the list is far from complete.

Lies. 😀 My 7800GT won't play HL2 at 1024x768 with 4XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF and stay above 85 fps all the time so that I can enable vsync with no funky frame rate dips. My 7800GT won't play Oblivion at 1024x768 at max details with HDR and 16XAF consistantly over 30 FPS. My 7800GT won't play Far Cry at 1024x768 with 4XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF and stay above 60 fps. My 7800GT also won't play Doom 3 at 1024x768 with 4XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF and stay above 60 fps at all times.

If you're happy with just 30 FPS without eyecandy, then yes, SLI is a waste for you. However, I'd love to be able to use 8XAA (SS transparency) and 16XAF with driver set to High Quality to reduce texture shimmering.

So saying SLI is only for people with large displays is wrong. It's also for people who want to use insane amounts of eye candy. 🙂

oblivion = cpu bound.
if your card doesnt play HL2 well enough you should just throw the cursed thing out the window.

and doom 3 struggling?

your kidding...right?


edit:

i just watched the physics card video..i see a flamethrower hitting buildings and all this debris flying around....and yet the building looks the same after.....

anyone else want to slap whoever decided this video is a great intorduction to the abilities of this card?

Another user who thinks everyone's definition of "quality" and "good enough" is the same as his.

the physics card is way nicer than that video showed...if u look at the ghost recon difference...the one with the truck...u can get a better idea of the cards potential.

and
sorry your 7800gt sucks