PhysX and X-RAM
- Thread starter kirilus
- Start date
- May 13, 2003
- 13,704
- 7
- 81
No idea what XRAM Is, but PhysX = no. I traded someone some parts and I got one of those cards... Took it out shortly thereafter. The # of games using it is horribly small, and it seems to cause more system problems.
no. X-RAM is special memory on certain xi-fi card and is useless unless you are severly short on ram. which i doubt will be the case if you have one of these. as for the physx, it barely helps. it infact, lowers performance sometimes and is supported by about 5-6 games...
No, with Nvidias recent aquisition of Ageia the PhysX future is uncertain.
It is assumed that Nvidia will be moving physics technology onto the GPU and continuing the development of the PhysX API.
Which means the card will not be viable anymore...
As for X-Ram, just no.
It is assumed that Nvidia will be moving physics technology onto the GPU and continuing the development of the PhysX API.
Which means the card will not be viable anymore...
As for X-Ram, just no.
Modelworks
Lifer
- Feb 22, 2007
- 16,240
- 7
- 76
I was thinking the same way (No!) but wanted to get the general opinion of the community which seems quite uniform.
Well, given the price and the fact that such products are being made and sold - what is the value of such cards? Does PhysX technology has any use in areas other than gaming?
Well, given the price and the fact that such products are being made and sold - what is the value of such cards? Does PhysX technology has any use in areas other than gaming?
0roo0roo
No Lifer
- Sep 21, 2002
- 64,795
- 84
- 91
none
which is why its dead in the water.
more and more faster cores on our cpus. perhaps a gpu that can also do physics.
theres no need.
and physics is overrated. they have yet to show me a game that needs accelerated physics to be fun. stacking boxes and stuff has been around since half life 1
breaking stuff isn't that great either.so no killer game play app found.
i'll take whatever physics a multicore cpu can give me, no rush. how much physics do you need. pong or arkanoid did ok with simple game play physics. how could you improve on it with a physx?
so far mostly physx has shown an ability to render a fluttery flag, some blood that looks like a pile of marbles, and some tornado stuff. bah i could care less.
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
none
which is why its dead in the water.
more and more faster cores on our cpus. perhaps a gpu that can also do physics.
theres no need.
and physics is overrated. they have yet to show me a game that needs accelerated physics to be fun. stacking boxes and stuff has been around since half life 1
so no killer game play app found.
i'll take whatever physics a multicore cpu can give me, no rush. how much physics do you need. pong or arkanoid did ok with simple game play physics. how could you improve on it with a physx?
so far mostly physx has shown an ability to render a fluttery flag, some blood that looks like a pile of marbles, and some tornado stuff. bah i could care less.
You must have loved Software acceleration back in the day, I bet you were the last person to buy a dedicated video card. Infact I think you're running on integrated graphics as we speak!
0roo0roo
No Lifer
- Sep 21, 2002
- 64,795
- 84
- 91
Originally posted by: fleabag
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
none
which is why its dead in the water.
more and more faster cores on our cpus. perhaps a gpu that can also do physics.
theres no need.
and physics is overrated. they have yet to show me a game that needs accelerated physics to be fun. stacking boxes and stuff has been around since half life 1
so no killer game play app found.
i'll take whatever physics a multicore cpu can give me, no rush. how much physics do you need. pong or arkanoid did ok with simple game play physics. how could you improve on it with a physx?
so far mostly physx has shown an ability to render a fluttery flag, some blood that looks like a pile of marbles, and some tornado stuff. bah i could care less.
You must have loved Software acceleration back in the day, I bet you were the last person to buy a dedicated video card. Infact I think you're running on integrated graphics as we speak!
i had 3dfx v1 and v2.
3d gaming was fundamental to immersion in game play. frankly it was required to get a decent framerate at a decent resolution. it was hardly the same as a physx card. graphics is the basic interface to your computer after all. the difference between it and 3d decelerators like stealth3d cards was non trivial. it was superbly functional compared to its few competitors which were useless. 3d graphics were something really special back then, entering the new world of cgi in films and 3d games, where the future was supposed to be all 3d and vr. there was a real desire for it. better flag simulation from physx is hardly similar really. back then the computer was feature bare. we had a soundcard perhaps. the experience could really really be improved. the jump in experience from non 3dfx to 3dfx was incredible. now with 3d sound, surround speakers cheap, 3d graphics cheap, multicore cpu cheap, the experience is fundamentally rich. improving on the experience isn't like it was back then when gamers were starving for improvement. now gamers are spoiled with hardware power. thus offering a physx card isnt all that attractive.
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: fleabag
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
none
which is why its dead in the water.
more and more faster cores on our cpus. perhaps a gpu that can also do physics.
theres no need.
and physics is overrated. they have yet to show me a game that needs accelerated physics to be fun. stacking boxes and stuff has been around since half life 1
so no killer game play app found.
i'll take whatever physics a multicore cpu can give me, no rush. how much physics do you need. pong or arkanoid did ok with simple game play physics. how could you improve on it with a physx?
so far mostly physx has shown an ability to render a fluttery flag, some blood that looks like a pile of marbles, and some tornado stuff. bah i could care less.
You must have loved Software acceleration back in the day, I bet you were the last person to buy a dedicated video card. Infact I think you're running on integrated graphics as we speak!
i had 3dfx v1 and v2.
3d gaming was fundamental to immersion in game play. frankly it was required to get a decent framerate at a decent resolution. it was hardly the same as a physx card. graphics is the basic interface to your computer after all. the difference between it and 3d decelerators like stealth3d cards was non trivial. it was superbly functional compared to its few competitors which were useless. 3d graphics were something really special back then, entering the new world of cgi in films and 3d games, where the future was supposed to be all 3d and vr. there was a real desire for it. better flag simulation from physx is hardly similar really. back then the computer was feature bare. we had a soundcard perhaps. the experience could really really be improved. the jump in experience from non 3dfx to 3dfx was incredible. now with 3d sound, surround speakers cheap, 3d graphics cheap, multicore cpu cheap, the experience is fundamentally rich. improving on the experience isn't like it was back then when gamers were starving for improvement. now gamers are spoiled with hardware power. thus offering a physx card isnt all that attractive.
No it's not, it's not feature rich at all. Visually speaking and auditorily speaking games are pretty good, but soon as you ACTUALLY PLAY THE GAME it turns to shit. No matter how nice the textures are, no matter how pretty the effects are, no matter how good the sound is, unless I can get a realistic response for a given action, all immersion is lost.
In Farcry if I shoot at the tires, it does nothing, shooting at "the tires" in the same spot enough times regardless of proximity to something explosive, the car WILL explode. If I shoot my gun at the docks, regardless of how many times I shoot it, it will NOT be damaged. If I shoot a grenade into a building, no matter how many times I do this, the building will NOT collapse.
Crysis added a lot of cool features but because they're done on the CPU, they're extremely primitive models of what ACTUALLY should be happening. A house isn't built with 10 pieces of wood, and two tin roofs. If I launch a rocket launcher into a concrete wall, I should expect to see millions of pieces flying out. When I destroy something, I don't want it to be damaged in the exact same way each and every time, I want the damage to be variable and different, to be affected by the angle and distance I launched my attack. In BF2 when you blow up the bridge, it blows up in the exact same way each and every time and that's because to do a realistic bridge collapse would require immense amounts of CPU processing power, but with a PPU, slowly evolving, this could've become a reality. If I launch a rocket into a tower in BF2, absolutely NOTHING is done to the tower except a "burn" mark or black powder mark is left behind.
When I play a game I'm looking for immersion, to be honest I am far more immersed in a game with lots of interactivity than a game with pretty textures. For the first 10 or 20 minutes when I play a new game, the textures really pop out and are quite stunning. But after a short time playing the game, I get used to it and then I start to see the flaws, Oblivion looks gorgeous but to say that it looks realistic with how the grass is rendered and how it flows in the wind would be a downright lie.
Do you understand why we need a PPU? The PPU could add so much to a video game, so much replay value and add new elements of gameplay untapped because of our slow CPUs simply cannot handle the task.
The recent AT article on Ageia's buyout covered the pros and cons of the tech pretty well.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3224
To sum it up, they said that PhysX essentially got caught in a chicken/egg kind of problem. Most gamers do not have a PhysX card and game developers will not create a game that will not run on the latest GPUs without a PPU. So only minor improvements could really be made without making the game unplayable without a PPU. And even then, without that many PPUs out there, I don't think game developers put that much effort into it. To really take advantage of a PPU's power, you would need to design a game specifically around it that would not run without it.
I think the general assumption now is that nvidia will try to build the technology from PPUs into GPUs in the future without the need for a separate card. The GPU won't be as efficient at it, but the tech will eventually be ubiquitous and game developers will be more comfortable coding for it.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3224
To sum it up, they said that PhysX essentially got caught in a chicken/egg kind of problem. Most gamers do not have a PhysX card and game developers will not create a game that will not run on the latest GPUs without a PPU. So only minor improvements could really be made without making the game unplayable without a PPU. And even then, without that many PPUs out there, I don't think game developers put that much effort into it. To really take advantage of a PPU's power, you would need to design a game specifically around it that would not run without it.
I think the general assumption now is that nvidia will try to build the technology from PPUs into GPUs in the future without the need for a separate card. The GPU won't be as efficient at it, but the tech will eventually be ubiquitous and game developers will be more comfortable coding for it.
0roo0roo
No Lifer
- Sep 21, 2002
- 64,795
- 84
- 91
Originally posted by: fleabag
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
Originally posted by: fleabag
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
none
which is why its dead in the water.
more and more faster cores on our cpus. perhaps a gpu that can also do physics.
theres no need.
and physics is overrated. they have yet to show me a game that needs accelerated physics to be fun. stacking boxes and stuff has been around since half life 1
so no killer game play app found.
i'll take whatever physics a multicore cpu can give me, no rush. how much physics do you need. pong or arkanoid did ok with simple game play physics. how could you improve on it with a physx?
so far mostly physx has shown an ability to render a fluttery flag, some blood that looks like a pile of marbles, and some tornado stuff. bah i could care less.
You must have loved Software acceleration back in the day, I bet you were the last person to buy a dedicated video card. Infact I think you're running on integrated graphics as we speak!
i had 3dfx v1 and v2.
3d gaming was fundamental to immersion in game play. frankly it was required to get a decent framerate at a decent resolution. it was hardly the same as a physx card. graphics is the basic interface to your computer after all. the difference between it and 3d decelerators like stealth3d cards was non trivial. it was superbly functional compared to its few competitors which were useless. 3d graphics were something really special back then, entering the new world of cgi in films and 3d games, where the future was supposed to be all 3d and vr. there was a real desire for it. better flag simulation from physx is hardly similar really. back then the computer was feature bare. we had a soundcard perhaps. the experience could really really be improved. the jump in experience from non 3dfx to 3dfx was incredible. now with 3d sound, surround speakers cheap, 3d graphics cheap, multicore cpu cheap, the experience is fundamentally rich. improving on the experience isn't like it was back then when gamers were starving for improvement. now gamers are spoiled with hardware power. thus offering a physx card isnt all that attractive.
No it's not, it's not feature rich at all. Visually speaking and auditorily speaking games are pretty good, but soon as you ACTUALLY PLAY THE GAME it turns to shit. No matter how nice the textures are, no matter how pretty the effects are, no matter how good the sound is, unless I can get a realistic response for a given action, all immersion is lost.
In Farcry if I shoot at the tires, it does nothing, shooting at "the tires" in the same spot enough times regardless of proximity to something explosive, the car WILL explode. If I shoot my gun at the docks, regardless of how many times I shoot it, it will NOT be damaged. If I shoot a grenade into a building, no matter how many times I do this, the building will NOT collapse.
Crysis added a lot of cool features but because they're done on the CPU, they're extremely primitive models of what ACTUALLY should be happening. A house isn't built with 10 pieces of wood, and two tin roofs. If I launch a rocket launcher into a concrete wall, I should expect to see millions of pieces flying out. When I destroy something, I don't want it to be damaged in the exact same way each and every time, I want the damage to be variable and different, to be affected by the angle and distance I launched my attack. In BF2 when you blow up the bridge, it blows up in the exact same way each and every time and that's because to do a realistic bridge collapse would require immense amounts of CPU processing power, but with a PPU, slowly evolving, this could've become a reality. If I launch a rocket into a tower in BF2, absolutely NOTHING is done to the tower except a "burn" mark or black powder mark is left behind.
When I play a game I'm looking for immersion, to be honest I am far more immersed in a game with lots of interactivity than a game with pretty textures. For the first 10 or 20 minutes when I play a new game, the textures really pop out and are quite stunning. But after a short time playing the game, I get used to it and then I start to see the flaws, Oblivion looks gorgeous but to say that it looks realistic with how the grass is rendered and how it flows in the wind would be a downright lie.
Do you understand why we need a PPU? The PPU could add so much to a video game, so much replay value and add new elements of gameplay untapped because of our slow CPUs simply cannot handle the task.
well the thing is, you can't have a player blowing up all the level objectives. the entire gaming experience IS a simplified version of life like it or not. you cannot account for wind speed and rely on a spotter when you snipe in games for instance, instead you leap around using an awp like in cs. total freedom to blow up things really doesn't make a game any better. honestly people don't care that much about the minutia of realistic response, else mario or doom would never have become popular. if we are talking realism in cs one shot to the leg should have you bleeding to death and crawling on the floor barely able to shoot for instance. you can model that even without a ppu
and of course a rocket blowing up a tower isnt' possible in tf2. game play relies on certain elements not being destructable. its about game play, not reality.
and frankly we weren't really talking about how cynical and bored we are of video game graphics and how nothing impresses us anymore. thats fine, it happens as you get older in general. honestly you are expecting a level of graphical rendernig the cpu/gpu couldn't put out anyways and are just assuming a ppu would magically toss us a few generations ahead in graphics. i don't think its really like that. give the video card more and more detail to render and it'll slow to a crawl. everything has to move together on this.
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