Ageia PhysX

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: 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 You might have the performance to not have to upgrade for a long time, but you will be outdated as far as hardware features go before you are outdated on performance.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

I'm not saying a PPU wouldn't be nice. If you read the nested quotes, I wasn't talking about that at all, so why are you quoting me and bringing it up?

My 7800GT isn't any different from other 7800GT's, it's fine. Again, if you actually READ what I was talking about, you'd see that my point is SLI isn't JUST for people running high resolutions.

And for the record, I've played Oblivion with my processor at 2.2 and 2.6 GHz and didn't notice any difference, indoors or out. Frame rates remain the same no matter what speed the processor is running. When a lot of objects are being manipulated, yeah, the CPU becomes the bottleneck, but that's definitely not the case outdoors when I'm getting 25 fps riding a horse.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Arkane13131
sorry your 7800gt sucks

I have to quote this and bold it for it is the only point worth making in the recent posts. Your card is a gen ahead of mine, but I pull upwards of 100fps+ in HL2 with everything maxed at 1280x1024, so that means something is clearly wrong with your machine. Since the max I can display is 60, then I have no problem with my performance thus far. A PPU simply ensures the lifetime of my machine. I may still need to upgrade my VPU simply to catch up to DX10, but everything else is perfectly fine. Hell, I might not even get top of the line this time for VPU.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: Arkane13131
sorry your 7800gt sucks

I have to quote this and bold it for it is the only point worth making in the recent posts. Your card is a gen ahead of mine, but I pull upwards of 100fps+ in HL2 with everything maxed at 1280x1024, so that means something is clearly wrong with your machine. Since the max I can display is 60, then I have no problem with my performance thus far. A PPU simply ensures the lifetime of my machine. I may still need to upgrade my VPU simply to catch up to DX10, but everything else is perfectly fine. Hell, I might not even get top of the line this time for VPU.

Poor comparison. Being that my 7800GT is a "gen ahead" of your's, I assume you're using a 6800 series card, in which case you're not using Super Sample Transparency Anti-Aliasing. Do you have your drivers set to High Quality? Do you force trilinear filtering? Are you running 16XAF? Do you have Negative LOD bias set to clamp? Do you have reflections set to reflect all?

In the stress test I get over 160 fps average... so what? That's an AVERAGE. Meaning, at times it's higher, at times it's LOWER. In actual game play with physics and AI and explosions it drops below 85 at times. You're only shooting for 60 with your LCD.

*EDIT* Fraps log from 2 minutes of gameplay on the "Route Canal" level. I started recording it when I got to the other side of the train tracks and combine started coming up the stairs where you enter the area. I ended recording at the spot where you jump down after you've made your way through the crates.

2006-04-09 16:54:58 - hl2
Frames: 11278 - Time: 120000ms - Avg: 93.983 - Min: 40 - Max: 154

Here's one from Oblivion...

Was night time... I left my house in the Imperial City at night, walked down to the water, equipped a torch, switched to 3rd person, walked up and entered someone else's house, left the house, walked back to the water, switched weapons a few times, killed a mudcrab.

2006-04-09 17:03:19 - Oblivion
Frames: 3726 - Time: 120000ms - Avg: 31.050 - Min: 11 - Max: 126


... and to prove my point about Oblivion not being CPU dependant the majority of the time, here's pretty much the same sequence in Oblivion at 2.2 GHz rather than 2.6 GHz.

2006-04-09 17:12:27 - Oblivion
Frames: 3698 - Time: 120000ms - Avg: 30.816 - Min: 10 - Max: 124

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: Arkane13131
sorry your 7800gt sucks

I have to quote this and bold it for it is the only point worth making in the recent posts. Your card is a gen ahead of mine, but I pull upwards of 100fps+ in HL2 with everything maxed at 1280x1024, so that means something is clearly wrong with your machine. Since the max I can display is 60, then I have no problem with my performance thus far. A PPU simply ensures the lifetime of my machine. I may still need to upgrade my VPU simply to catch up to DX10, but everything else is perfectly fine. Hell, I might not even get top of the line this time for VPU.

Poor comparison. Being that my 7800GT is a "gen ahead" of your's, I assume you're using a 6800 series card, in which case you're not using Super Sample Transparency Anti-Aliasing. Do you have your drivers set to High Quality? Do you force trilinear filtering? Are you running 16XAF? Do you have Negative LOD bias set to clamp? Do you have reflections set to reflect all?

In the stress test I get over 160 fps average... so what? That's an AVERAGE. Meaning, at times it's higher, at times it's LOWER. In actual game play with physics and AI and explosions it drops below 85 at times. You're only shooting for 60 with your LCD.

*EDIT* Fraps log from 2 minutes of gameplay on the "Route Canal" level. I started recording it when I got to the other side of the train tracks and combine started coming up the stairs where you enter the area. I ended recording at the spot where you jump down after you've made your way through the crates.

2006-04-09 16:54:58 - hl2
Frames: 11278 - Time: 120000ms - Avg: 93.983 - Min: 40 - Max: 154

Here's one from Oblivion...

Was night time... I left my house in the Imperial City at night, walked down to the water, equipped a torch, switched to 3rd person, walked up and entered someone else's house, left the house, walked back to the water, switched weapons a few times, killed a mudcrab.

2006-04-09 17:03:19 - Oblivion
Frames: 3726 - Time: 120000ms - Avg: 31.050 - Min: 11 - Max: 126


... and to prove my point about Oblivion not being CPU dependant the majority of the time, here's pretty much the same sequence in Oblivion at 2.2 GHz rather than 2.6 GHz.

2006-04-09 17:12:27 - Oblivion
Frames: 3698 - Time: 120000ms - Avg: 30.816 - Min: 10 - Max: 124

not to mention there are high resolution texture packs for hl2 to update its graphics. they will bring those fps numbers down
http://halflife2.filefront.com/file/FakeFactorys_Oggs_High_Resolution_Pack;55302
and the cinematic version
http://halflife2.filefront.com/file/FakeFactorys_Oggs_Cinematic_Mod;55317

pic of alyx http://www.edge-online.co.uk/archives/d1_trainstation_040000.php

and yea he's probably not using any advanced filtering on his 6800.

 

[Arkane13131]

eitherway... SLI is not a good solution most of the time...unless you have one of the top few cards on the market and it still doesnt meet your standards....in which case u have a different kind of problem. to blow 300$ for the benefits involved..just feed some starving ethiopians or something...

 

[Avalon]

No, I'm not getting one, but only because it's coming out on PCI first, and my two PCI slots are used up for my Audigy 2 ZS Platinum and my 54G wireless card 🙂

Bring on the PCIe x1!

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Arkane13131
eitherway... SLI is not a good solution most of the time...unless you have one of the top few cards on the market and it still doesnt meet your standards....in which case u have a different kind of problem. to blow 300$ for the benefits involved..just feed some starving ethiopians or something...

There are people with more money than sense...

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
not to mention there are high resolution texture packs for hl2 to update its graphics. they will bring those fps numbers down
http://halflife2.filefront.com/file/FakeFactorys_Oggs_High_Resolution_Pack;55302
and the cinematic version
http://halflife2.filefront.com/file/FakeFactorys_Oggs_Cinematic_Mod;55317

pic of alyx http://www.edge-online.co.uk/archives/d1_trainstation_040000.php

and yea he's probably not using any advanced filtering on his 6800.

Damn, I forgot I need to download and install that again. I had it before I reinstalled HL2 and everything Steam related. Do you know of any high polygon model mods for HL2? Those textures would look awesome on a high polygon model of Alyx with more definted features like her ears and clothes.

 

[potato28]

Once CS:S supports it and its on a PCI-E 1x, fanless hs, and brings in some advantages for every player then I'll think about it.

 

[archcommus]

I'm waiting for the PPU to be integrated onto video cards and then they'll just call them "gaming cards." Makes a lot more sense than having another add-on card, don't you think?

 

[imported_JamesDax]

Originally posted by: archcommus
I'm waiting for the PPU to be integrated onto video cards and then they'll just call them "gaming cards." Makes a lot more sense than having another add-on card, don't you think?

Nope, makes no sense at all. Why have a seperate audio card. Why not intergrate audio on the video card and call it a "gaming card". Even better put the GPU, PPU and APU(audio processor unit?? lol) on one card and call that a "gaming card".

 

[DrMrLordX]

James, I and many others own no sound card because:

1). Creative sucks
2). Creative sucks
3). Integrated sound solutions on motherboards have gotten pretty good, especially for those of us content to use 2.1-channel setups.

As far as I'm concerned, anything that can match or beat the features on my old PAS16 is fine by me.

There have been attempts at video+audio cards, but most were buggy and rendered obsolete by onboard sound. I estimate that PPUs will probably wind up integrated into video cards if ATI and Nvidia can't do enough physics calculations on their existing GPUs to keep up with products such as Ageia's. PPUs may not wind up in video cards if they have a slow upgrade cycle. If that's the case, you'll probably see them integrated into motherboards.

Most of us end-users want to see PPUs on our video cards because we associate PPUs with eye candy. A PPU will give us object moving in more realistic trajectories on-screen, and it will give us more of them at once than we have currently.

 

[VERTIGGO]

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.

That's not true either, a PPU is currently an enthusiast's item, because it only enhances the current graphical possibilities. It can't handle AI or system processes, or take normal stress of the CPU or GPU. It won't give more frames per second, unless you are already using the Physx engine without the card.

 

[gobucks]

I'll get one when:
1) there is a more entry level option. I think that they will eventually become like video cards, with an entire range. A $100-150 card might get my business
2) I need a PCIe card. I've already filled my 2 PCI slots with a TV Tuner and sound card
3) There need to be actual games that use it

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: JamesDax

Originally posted by: archcommus
I'm waiting for the PPU to be integrated onto video cards and then they'll just call them "gaming cards." Makes a lot more sense than having another add-on card, don't you think?

Nope, makes no sense at all. Why have a seperate audio card. Why not intergrate audio on the video card and call it a "gaming card". Even better put the GPU, PPU and APU(audio processor unit?? lol) on one card and call that a "gaming card".

Sound card and video card make sense to be separate because they perform two different _fundamental_ computer tasks. Physics processing is not a _fundamental_ computer task, it is a gaming task, and thus should just be tossed in with something else, like video cards.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: gobucks
I'll get one when:
1) there is a more entry level option. I think that they will eventually become like video cards, with an entire range. A $100-150 card might get my business
2) I need a PCIe card. I've already filled my 2 PCI slots with a TV Tuner and sound card
3) There need to be actual games that use it

1) The only difference would be memory at first. You'd have a 128mb one and a 256mb one, the 128 being the current entry level. This is entirely new territory so it'd be quite a long time before we start seeing variations.

2) Those are coming soon too

3) There are some games out right now that use it, and more coming.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: potato28
Once CS:S supports it and its on a PCI-E 1x, fanless hs, and brings in some advantages for every player then I'll think about it.

Won't ever happen. The game has to be coded to move all physics to the PPU, and even then it won't change how the game works at all. The point of the PPU is to be able to do more physics, meaning better explosions, better detailed worlds and characters, etc. I wouldn't doubt Valve would be stupid, as always, and wait for Havok to do their solution which is controversial and probably won't be very good.

 

[aGreenAgent]

I just had a meeting with the Product Manager for Ageia.

The card that is out now will be hitting the $99 price point eventually - which is when they plan to go mainstream.

I asked him a lot of questions about Havok - and Ageia isn't competing with Havok. They don't even consider Havok to be competitors.

Ageia is in the business of selling cards to consumers. They supply a free SDK for it to anybody who wants it.

Havok is in the business of making APIs for existing chips - and it costs $100,000+ to get an SDK from them.

I like the Ageia card and its potential.

 

[imported_AndreasM]

Originally posted by: archcommus
Sound card and video card make sense to be separate because they perform two different _fundamental_ computer tasks. Physics processing is not a _fundamental_ computer task, it is a gaming task, and thus should just be tossed in with something else, like video cards.

Actually, it makes more sense to have audio and video on the same card and PPUs separate, for the same reasons you stated: audio and video are fundamental to a computer, whereas a PPU is still very much optional. After 5 or so years when PPUs (hopefully) are the norm, we might see video&PPU cards, but I wouldn't count on it.