physx PPU not dead- just owned by NVidia

[Magnulus]

I can't believe some folks are reporting that the Physx card is dead. This is simply not true. NVidia is continuing to license the techonolgy to Asus and BFG and they are still making Physx cards. They may stop making the card in the future as demand dictates but for now they are just holding onto the company and researching ways they can leverage the Physx technology into graphics cards.

Yes the Physx card when released was extremely expensive. New tech always is. I bought a Physx card this winter for 100 dollars and I consider it money well spent. When sound cards first came out they cost hundreds of dollars. How many people will spend lots of money on copper heatsinks and water blocks just to get a little more performance out of their CPU? Yes, the PhysX hardware is still enthusiast-only, but so are the X-Fi cards and high end video cards like the GeForce 9800x2, or SLI in general... and yet people buy them and it pushes technology for everybody.

Yes, most of the physics effects in games are incremental rather than revolutionary (more metal gibs in explosions in MOH Airborne or Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, a few cool levels for UT3 for download), but there are some nice games like Warmonger or Cell Factor that demonstrate the capabilities of this card- blow holes in walls, rip up cloth, lots of dust and particles in the air ( Just FWIW I don't have an ancient PC, either. I've got an Intel Core 2 Duo e6400, and the physics processor is still faster than dual cores in Cellfactor). Even in the unimpressive games, there are performance benefits to having a Physx card. Despite what the naysayers claim, the Physx drivers at this point are mature and games actually run faster with PhysX acceleration than without. Even a game like Unreal Tournament 3 runs faster, even on the levels that have few, if any real advance physics effects.

So, if you are sitting on the fence, and you don't mind paying 80-100 bucks to play a few games and get a few more FPS and some metal gibs, by all means, go and order a PhysX card. You won't regret. The future of the PhysX API looks well secured and I'm sure many more games in the future wil support it. Just stop it with the sour grapes nonsense.

 

[tuteja1986]

err Anyone smell Bad PR ?

 

[Sheninat0r]

Huh? Of course CellFactor runs great with the PhysX card, it's programmed not to run without it iirc. Of course, this can be circumvented with about 2 seconds of work, but CellFactor was the tech demo for PhysX. Let me repeat: TECH DEMO.

In PhysX reviews that I've read, people complain of LOWER frame rates with PhysX than without because of the additional debris, not new physics; essentially, PhysX was making more load for the processor and graphics card even though it was taking the physics load off.

And plus, nobody cares that the PhysX _card_ is dead [which it is]; it's going to be a piece of CUDA now, which opens it up to more people to use since it's just a software download. That should make you excited, since you seem to think PhysX is the best thing to happen to PC gaming since the video card.

For me, the way it looks is this: for every game that's amazing with PhysX, there's are five more that are amazing without PhysX. Even if PhysX became free, I wouldn't use it until there were some SOLID performance gains or really amazing physics that would be IMPOSSIBLE without.

 

[Lithan]

You know I wondered what happened with those things. They were all over the place for about a week and then bam, silence.

 

[superstition]

for every game that's amazing with PhysX, there's are five more that are amazing without PhysX.

The main issue, though, is whether or not game physics are going to become deeper. PhysX's (and other products') promoters argue that a physics chip is the best way to motivate designers to use more than rudimentary physics in games. Some have said such products don't add much to the gaming experience. One review I saw even suggested that one of these product's chips didn't do much actual processing. However, if it's a fact that physics will remain considerably more rudimentary without a physics co-processor (or logic added to new GPU designs) then there is a strong argument to be made for such things.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

When nVidia aquired AGEIA they made it quite clear that they had no intention of continuing dedicated PPUs/physics cards, thus the one and only physics card is EOL and now on bare minimum life support. Whether you're talking about the concept of the stand alone physics card, or the sole card that actually exists, both are essentially dead.

 

[humanure]

These reminded me of the old sega 32x, an expensive, nearly worthless add on that never went anywhere.

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: humanure
These reminded me of the old sega 32x, an expensive, nearly worthless add on that never went anywhere.

And then there was the SegaCD, Saturn, Game Gear, and Dreamcast that were also flops -- Mainly because they brought about so many new features that frankly weren't ready for the market yet.

 

[jmmtn4aj]

Meh, here's to integrated physics solutions instead of more cards

/raises mug

 

[firewolfsm]

How much did they pay you to spam the forum?

 

[superstition]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
When nVidia aquired AGEIA they made it quite clear that they had no intention of continuing dedicated PPUs/physics cards, thus the one and only physics card is EOL and now on bare minimum life support. Whether you're talking about the concept of the stand alone physics card, or the sole card that actually exists, both are essentially dead.

Yes, but is that the right decision? Can nVidia roll the functionality into a future GPU chip, or would a separate chip on the board be a good idea?

 

[biostud]

Let physX run on IGP's.
A really neat way to run physics IMHO would be similar to AMD's Hybrid Crossfire.
In 2D the IGP runs the graphic and the videocard throttles, saving power.
In 3D the IGP runs physics and the videocard runs the graphics. The only question is of course whether a multicore CPU or the IGP handles physics calculations best.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: superstition

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
When nVidia aquired AGEIA they made it quite clear that they had no intention of continuing dedicated PPUs/physics cards, thus the one and only physics card is EOL and now on bare minimum life support. Whether you're talking about the concept of the stand alone physics card, or the sole card that actually exists, both are essentially dead.

Yes, but is that the right decision? Can nVidia roll the functionality into a future GPU chip, or would a separate chip on the board be a good idea?

A dedicated/specialized chip would clearly be the best way for maximum performance, but its hard enough to get people to buy worthy video cards let alone additional cards/hardware. Integrating a dedicated chip onto a video card simply wouldn't work seeing as how it would add cost to the cards many people wouldn't want to pay for.

Besides, video card GPUs are becoming more versatile for general processing tasks as it is - both ATI and nVidia have been making a push to get their GPUs to do some heavy processing outside of video games, and the future only makes video cards appear to be more versatile.

Also, with Intel to be jumping into the high end video segment, they look to have a very interesting product with Larrabee seeing as how it is supposed to have a couple dozen in-order cores at its disposal, it should make for an awesome general purpose GPU and thus awesome for several processing tasks including physics.

 

[MarcVenice]

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36915/135

Some new info on physx running on nvidia's CUDA interface.

 

[Magnulus]

Cellfactor will run without a PPU. It runs slower but it is playable. With the PPU, the performance is smoother.

I cannot speak for all the reviewers but I haven't encountered any slowdowns with the PhysX PPU: the framerate is much smoother with the PPU than without. You can get slowdowns in some physics intensive situations (CTF Lighthouse_PhysX) but the game is still highly playable and would be a slideshow without a PPU.

It is true that NVidia is working on developing drivers for their graphics hardware to run PhysX, however I am highly sceptical of the idea that NVidia will somehow manage to make PhysX run on current video cards (at least non-SLI setups) and satifsy enthusiasts with the performance. I think it is much more likely they will aim towards future hardware: integrated graphics solutions and "supersized" video cards designed from the start to have the extra horsepower for physics. NVidia would be foolish to terminate the PPU in the current circumstances because so far all they have is a tech domo that only runs on their own hardware, whereas the PhysX PPU allows them to leverage the technology into any PC with a free PCI slot and a molex, regardless of wheather the end user is running an AMD or NVidia system.

The PPU is still being supported with relatively new, stable drivers and Asus and BFG are still selling the cards; you can go out and buy relatively new PC's with Ageia PPU's onboard (laptops and desktops). This is not the sign of "dead" hardware. Hardware with an uncertain future? Most likely. Hardware never stays static. It is safe to say that Ageia has beaten Havok, however, something alot of naysayers were saying years ago would not happen- PhysX has emerged as the dominant physics middleware/API and will find widespread acceptance, regardless of what hardware it runs on in the end.

 

[Lithan]

FWIW Wikipedia says that Nvidia is making PhysX open standard so both Nvidia and Ati's next gens will support it within the cards (sorta like they supported directX 10 with the last couple gens). But this is off wiki, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[jjzelinski]

Hopefully they won't pull off what they did in acquiring 3DFX again; i.e. sit on SLI for ~5 years before re-introducing 3DFX' invention.

Fwiw, I'm thrilled that NV bought out aegia. In doing so they've ensured PhysX can be run by a much more vast segment of the market since anyone owning a NV >/= 8800 series will own a PPU. I'd like to think this makes it far more likely that a broader interest in developing for PhysX is achieved and more and more content will be released with its inclusion. I'm one of the guys who thinks physics is truly the "next big thing."

Originally posted by: Magnulus
Cellfactor will run without a PPU. It runs slower but it is playable. With the PPU, the performance is smoother.

I cannot speak for all the reviewers but I haven't encountered any slowdowns with the PhysX PPU: the framerate is much smoother with the PPU than without. You can get slowdowns in some physics intensive situations (CTF Lighthouse_PhysX) but the game is still highly playable and would be a slideshow without a PPU.

It is true that NVidia is working on developing drivers for their graphics hardware to run PhysX, however I am highly sceptical of the idea that NVidia will somehow manage to make PhysX run on current video cards (at least non-SLI setups) and satifsy enthusiasts with the performance. I think it is much more likely they will aim towards future hardware: integrated graphics solutions and "supersized" video cards designed from the start to have the extra horsepower for physics. NVidia would be foolish to terminate the PPU in the current circumstances because so far all they have is a tech domo that only runs on their own hardware, whereas the PhysX PPU allows them to leverage the technology into any PC with a free PCI slot and a molex, regardless of wheather the end user is running an AMD or NVidia system.

The PPU is still being supported with relatively new, stable drivers and Asus and BFG are still selling the cards; you can go out and buy relatively new PC's with Ageia PPU's onboard (laptops and desktops). This is not the sign of "dead" hardware. Hardware with an uncertain future? Most likely. Hardware never stays static. It is safe to say that Ageia has beaten Havok, however, something alot of naysayers were saying years ago would not happen- PhysX has emerged as the dominant physics middleware/API and will find widespread acceptance, regardless of what hardware it runs on in the end.

All that has to be done is for games to be developed to take advantage of the inherent tradeoff that must exist with CUDA. A game doesn't have to be able to show off whiz-bang PPU-required effects at all times, only at the right times; at least for now. Scenes can be dumbed down as necessary to allow for greater PPU availability and cranked back up for the others.

 

[v8envy]

Am I the only one who doesn't care much about accurate physics? Mario-brothers level physics present in current games are good enough for me. I don't care that the gibs flying off are accelerating at 9.8m/sec/sec, I just care that they come off and eventually splatter on the ground.

Approximate physics are more than good enough for me.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: v8envy
Am I the only one who doesn't care much about accurate physics? Mario-brothers level physics present in current games are good enough for me. I don't care that the gibs flying off are accelerating at 9.8m/sec/sec, I just care that they come off and eventually splatter on the ground.

Approximate physics are more than good enough for me.

You're mostly talking about second-order physics. Unfortunately, that's probably what GPUs are going to be best at processing. I also don't really care about how accurate my blood spatters are.

First-order physics are what we really want, as that would be stuff like fully deformable terrain and models. First-order physics have more opportunity to actually effect gameplay rather than just be eye-candy.

 

[Magnulus]

Originally posted by: v8envy
Am I the only one who doesn't care much about accurate physics? Mario-brothers level physics present in current games are good enough for me.

Advanced physics would open the way to the possibility of having much more diverse gaming experiences, though. Most gamers are so used to gaming conventions that it is sometimes difficult to think "outside the box" of the possibilities. Just an example but it used to be that every FP shooter had the blue, yellow, and red key cards that you had to find. It took 3D graphics and a game like Half Life to introduce new, more satisfying gameplay mechanics- instead of searching for keys to unlock mysterious doors, you did things like activate buttons or turn valves to advance the gameplay.

 

[superstition]

And there are those like me who have no interest in the FPS genre at all.