Ageia to debut PhysX "physics processing unit" for gamers

[Auric]

Originally posted by: Gatt
Funniest quote ever!

The realism that the AGEIA PhysX Accelerator adds to gaming is astounding," said Kelt Reeves, president of Falcon Northwest. "I think the PhysX processor has the potential to be as important an add-in to PC gamers as a Creative's Sound Blaster® is today."

From

http://gear.ign.com/articles/697/697767p1.html

Somebody doesn't realize that Soundblaster has been replaced by integrated sound on the vast majority of computers!

I think your quote is funnier 'cause it doesn't make any sense in relation to his.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

Originally posted by: SpeedZealot369
So it won't help the graphics card at all just the cpu?

if anything, you will need more graphics horsepower to shade all these new particles. etc

A PHYSX Processor will controll the interaction of objoects while it is and will be the job of the GPU to draw it.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Chadder007
Instead of a PPU....why don't they allow for Dual Core Processors to use one of the cores for processing like this?

Watch this Video
http://pcweb.mycom.co.jp/articles/2005/09/13/cedec/images/027.wmv

 

[linkgoron]

I think that this will also help us save on CPUs and instead of buying 300$ CPUs we'll be able to buy 200$ (well it wont pay for the PPU, but it's something). CPU will be for AI, spawning stuff, and stuff like that. I hope this doesn't slow down CPU progress though.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: Gatt
I'll end up getting one.

IMO, it's a far better purchase than SLI. Vid card prices are getting ridiculous these days, and now they want everyone to buy two?

hopefully they wont require u to upgrade these regualrly either, id imagine the physics these will be used to do wil be the stuff thats been round for decades and isnt about to change. quantum physics though.....hmmm

and just think, maybe these could be used for SETI and FOLDING.....that would be great

 

[JBT]

Once they have PCI-e cards I will probably get one. Hopfully they will have a $150 version or so IMO $200 to $250 is a little to much esspecially when not many games are going to support this for awhile.

 

[aka1nas]

A few points I would like to add:

1) The API this card uses can run in software and is multithreaded, so technically games that use the PhysX engine will run w/o a PPU. No guarantees on performance as the PPU is about 40x faster than a high-end CPU currently.

2) Even enthusiast motherboards will have at least a few legacy PCI slots probably for the next 5 years. Remember how long it took ISA to die off? So what if it's your only PCI card.

3) As some others have stated, Havok("SLI Physics") is not the same as PhysX. In fact they can be used together potentially. Havok will work great for purely graphical physics effects, but can't be used for things like terrain deformation or object destruction as it would destroy your video performance as it would have to be constantly sending and receiving all that data from the CPU.

 

[SpeedZealot369]

I heard the ps3 has a ppu.. is that true?

 

[Googer]

I think the cell processor is going to handle the physics calculations.