So why is another card needed just for physics?

[the Chase]

Yep- I'm not expecting any fps improvements with this at all. If anything it might make your graphics card work harder for its money because of all the moving objects, flying debris, etc. But I'm really looking forward to seeing the added effects and realism. Kind of bummed out the more I read various peoples responses to this. On another forum one guy wrote "I hope it dies. I only have 2 PCI slots and they are both taken already". Such a low tolerence for any effort to improve your experience in something that we love to do! And sellfish- I hope it dies?? After reading so many comments like this if I was an inventor that wanted to give people a better experience/product in life and make some money doing it I might as well not beat my head against the wall and just say screw it!!

 

[Sable]

I reckon the GLQuake/Voodoo analogy is a good one.

People were blown away by it, it was so much better and faster than software mode.

I think PhysX is gonna need UT2007 (or another high profile game) to show a massive improvement when running with a PPU vs. without.

 

[Munky]

Which reminds me - I also only have 2 pci slots, and they're both taken. But if the thing really shows some mind-blowing improvement in games, then I could make room for it.

 

[the Chase]

Hehe- a ray of hope! Here is an article that details the 3 different methods of doing physics- hope it's not a repost. I guess time will be the best indicater of how all of this shakes out. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1943838,00.asp

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Avalon
I want to see some reviews on this thing as far as the impact on gaming performance with/without it goes.

I would too, but dont forget that hardware accelerated mode will have a LOT more complexity and accuracy in the same scene, so youre not really comparing apples to apples. If it maintains performance, or increases it at all, id consider it a total success.

They do have a demo on their website comparing the two. In the scene you are in a warehouse and boxes are being blownup tossed everywhere. They show the PPU vs CPU and the CPU gets smoked.

I take it with a grain of salt because it is coming from the horses mouth. But I would imagine there should be a way or a benchmark that will render the same scene and feed it to either the PPU or CPU and we can see the difference.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: the Chase
Hehe- a ray of hope! Here is an article that details the 3 different methods of doing physics- hope it's not a repost. I guess time will be the best indicater of how all of this shakes out. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1943838,00.asp

Interesting read and they use the Voodoo comparison from 10 years ago and make mention that using a CPU wont be a good replacement as the PPU or GPU should be 4-10 times faster than a CPU at these functions.

The floating point power of a P4 or K8 is miniscule compared to either other solution.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

wait so does this mean thaat in the future when i u[grade i can use my x800gt for the physics. and use a different ati card for graphics. would this work on an sli board.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

bump.