PhysX cards

[THERESONATOR]

In my new rig I will be purchasing two HD3870s for Xfire and I've seen talk in motherboard reviews about "another PCI-Express slot where you might want to put in for example a physics graphics card". I was quick to briefly research the capabilities and purpose of said cards and I am now seriously considering the purchase as part of the plan for my "Adam's Ultimate Rig 2008", which is just what I call my plan. Reviews of Ageia's latest PhysX card are pretty general however due to the company's secrecy over how the card actually works (though it is quick to tell us the card's purpose), which causes my questioning.

Now from what I have learnt, these cards support only a limited amount of games, though that is possibly due to a limited number of games having dynamic objects susceptible to destruction, deformation and manipulation within an entirely realistic physics ruleset at this time. Is this a correct analysis? This could be a reason to delay purchase but that will depend on whether or not my anaysis [of why there is limited game support] is correct.

Decision factors will include if said cards are shipping in UK outlets and whether the price is worth the overall performance output. I question whether the power of two graphics cards in Crossfire negates the performance increase of a physics card. I note too that many posters here do not list a physics card in their rig; whether that is on account of the lack of publicity surrounding the cards remains to be seen.

Your thoughts please, and vote in the (nearly mandatory by my standards) poll!

 

[MarcVenice]

Voted Nah, the physx can be software emulated as well, although it looks 'slightly' less cool, but there's not even a handfull of games that support Physx which require a Physx card. So, TOTAL waste of money. Heck, soon Physx will be integrated on GPU's, so I really doubt Physx card have a bright future ahead of them.

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: THERESONATOR
I note too that many posters here do not list a physics card in their rig; whether that is on account of the lack of publicity surrounding the cards remains to be seen!

No, we're quite aware of the existence of the PhysX card . Most of us just choose not to waste a perfectly good expansion slot on something so useless. It looks "cool" in tech demos, but in practice, it's really not worthwhile. I've yet to see a review that wholeheartedly recommends getting one.

 

[THERESONATOR]

OK will bear this in mind in future.

 

[ja1484]

I wouldn't even consider crossfire "worth it"...definitely not a physics card.

 

[Fox5]

Quad core and quad crossfire are way more worth it than a physics card.

 

[Sylvanas]

Read AT's review of Physx + UT3- it does provide an FPS benefit I wouldn't buy it just for one game though...a crappy game at that.

 

[Genx87]

I think it is a card ahead of its time. Until MS developes a standard API for physics. It will only be a token addition to gaming. And one that will be splintered as each dev house builds their own engine or leases from the multiple vendors supplying prebuilt engines and API's.

 

[CP5670]

Now from what I have learnt, these cards support only a limited amount of games, though that is possibly due to a limited number of games having dynamic objects susceptible to destruction, deformation and manipulation within an entirely realistic physics ruleset at this time. Is this a correct analysis?

Even the handful of games that support it use it only for graphical effects or to increase performance. In order for it to have any gameplay consequences at all, it needs to become widespread enough that developers can afford to create games that require it, without having them sell like crap. I can't see this ever happening given how bad a buy these cards are right now, along with the fact that Nvidia has released a competing technology on their 8 series cards (although nothing has been made of that either so far).

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: CP5670

Now from what I have learnt, these cards support only a limited amount of games, though that is possibly due to a limited number of games having dynamic objects susceptible to destruction, deformation and manipulation within an entirely realistic physics ruleset at this time. Is this a correct analysis?

Even the handful of games that support it use it only for graphical effects or to increase performance. In order for it to have any gameplay consequences at all, it needs to become widespread enough that developers can afford to create games that require it, without having them sell like crap. I can't see this ever happening given how bad a buy these cards are right now, along with the fact that Nvidia has released a competing technology on their 8 series cards (although nothing has been made of that either so far).

Last I heard was that Nv/ATI are scraping the Physics capability of their GPU's until DX11, probably influenced by Intel buying Havok.

 

[Skott]

IMO, no. Not worth it.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: CP5670

Now from what I have learnt, these cards support only a limited amount of games, though that is possibly due to a limited number of games having dynamic objects susceptible to destruction, deformation and manipulation within an entirely realistic physics ruleset at this time. Is this a correct analysis?

Even the handful of games that support it use it only for graphical effects or to increase performance. In order for it to have any gameplay consequences at all, it needs to become widespread enough that developers can afford to create games that require it, without having them sell like crap. I can't see this ever happening given how bad a buy these cards are right now, along with the fact that Nvidia has released a competing technology on their 8 series cards (although nothing has been made of that either so far).

More to the point, it's just not needed, especially with multi-core efforts marching on in the CPU arena.

I mean, look at Half-Life 2 and Crysis. Both have robust, well implemented physics engines. And these things were designed around single to quad-core processors. And, arguably, optimization for multi-core CPUs is still a heinous process, so it's quite possible that newer software with take better advantage of multi-threading abilities.

The point is, multi-core CPUs are stepping up to provide plenty effective physics. I just don't see where we need a dedicated add-in card, because I haven't seen much in their demos that hasn't been done elsewhere.

 

[Kromis]

"Hell to the no!" - The Cole Train

 

[Fenixgoon]

Originally posted by: Kromis
"Hell to the no!" - The Cole Train

the cole train is a smoooooth ride, baby!

 

[aka1nas]

I wouldn't get one at the present time. UT3 was probably the first game that had a noticeable boost from the PPU and the two PhysX maps are already PPU-limited on higher-end setups. The second-gen card will be out fairly soon in PCI-E, and I would at least wait for that and more PhysX-enabled games to be released first(i.e. make sure there is a game you want to play that supports it).

IMO, a PPU isn't something you should be looking at instead of SLI/Crossfire or a Quadcore, but rather for when you already have both and are looking for another upgrade to throw money at. You need a fair bit of graphics and CPU horsepower to drive any game that would use the PPU effectively.

 

[taltamir]

the fastest quad core in the world cannot get reasonable FPS on the physix levels in the new UT...

But that is the only game ever made where physics card is useful... anything else and I Wouldn't go for it.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: taltamir
the fastest quad core in the world cannot get reasonable FPS on the physix levels in the new UT...

But that is the only game ever made where physics card is useful... anything else and I Wouldn't go for it.

The UE3 engine supports it however... So all of the titles based on that engine have the capability to get the same boost from PhysX.

Ageia even has a decent API of their own going...

They just need more game support, and a friggin PCI-E card already.

 

[nullpointerus]

What ever happened to that Star Wars game engine video about next-gen. physics?

Was that related to PhysX?

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: taltamir
the fastest quad core in the world cannot get reasonable FPS on the physix levels in the new UT...

But is that because of how capable the PhysX card is? Or because the PhysX levels simply aren't optimized to be run in software mode on the CPU (either intentionally or unintentionally)? I remember reading a THG article that suggested that the second is a possibility. If that's the case, then that's not a good enough reason for it to exist.

We are uneasy about what we saw in Cell Factor release 36, because we are at the mercy of the developer and Ageia to see how the PPU is operating and processing information. We were told that both the cloth and fluid calculations were added to this release, but we did not see fluids in the software tests without the PPU. What is disturbing is that we cannot determine whether the calculations are intensive enough to cripple the system, or if it was just written to force people to only use the hardware. Unfortunately, decompiling and pulling apart the code line by line to see what Cell Factor really does is not an easy thing to do.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: AmberClad

Originally posted by: taltamir
the fastest quad core in the world cannot get reasonable FPS on the physix levels in the new UT...

But is that because of how capable the PhysX card is? Or because the PhysX levels simply aren't optimized to be run in software mode on the CPU (either intentionally or unintentionally)? I remember reading a THG article that suggested that the second is a possibility. If that's the case, then that's not a good enough reason for it to exist.

We are uneasy about what we saw in Cell Factor release 36, because we are at the mercy of the developer and Ageia to see how the PPU is operating and processing information. We were told that both the cloth and fluid calculations were added to this release, but we did not see fluids in the software tests without the PPU. What is disturbing is that we cannot determine whether the calculations are intensive enough to cripple the system, or if it was just written to force people to only use the hardware. Unfortunately, decompiling and pulling apart the code line by line to see what Cell Factor really does is not an easy thing to do.

Exactly. Remember, those levels were made by Ageia for PhysX cards - vanilla UT3 didn't see enough of a difference to really be notable.

 

[cboath]

Originally posted by: nullpointerus
What ever happened to that Star Wars game engine video about next-gen. physics?

Was that related to PhysX?

That was a console only game, so unless they secretly built physX into the consoles 2+ years ago, the answer is no.

However, if they port the game to PC 9ish months after its console release (as they've done before) - they could 'possibly' make use of physX to do so. I doubt it though. Today's quad core's and video cards are much more powerful than what's in a console. And if the console's could handle it, the PC's should as well.

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: cboath

Originally posted by: nullpointerus
What ever happened to that Star Wars game engine video about next-gen. physics?

Was that related to PhysX?

That was a console only game, so unless they secretly built physX into the consoles 2+ years ago, the answer is no.

However, if they port the game to PC 9ish months after its console release (as they've done before) - they could 'possibly' make use of physX to do so. I doubt it though. Today's quad core's and video cards are much more powerful than what's in a console. And if the console's could handle it, the PC's should as well.

It *was* a console game?

Are you quite sure we're thinking of the same video? What I remember would have been WAY above what a computer without a dedicated physics chip of some kind could do. And it wasn't even an announced game at the time: it was just a video with some tech. demos and developers talking about their ideas.

There was this video of a board being broken, with the individual wood fibers popping out that made the video seem very realistic. Also, the StarWars force powers, level design, and AI were tied into this kind of dynamic, next-generation physics. You would be able to tear off part of the railing and use it as a weapon, or blast a hole in the side of the ship and watch the (many) AIs scramble to avoid being sucked out into space.

I can't imagine an X-Box 360 doing stuff like this...
...but I don't really follow console games anymore. :wine:

Maybe I didn't describe it properly in my previous post.