AGEIA PhysX card demo pictured

[DigiQ8]

The demo had hundreds of barrels, boxes and other pieces that you could shoot with a great cannon and create some great physics experiences. We saw the demo of the PPU card with two Nvidia's cards in SLI versus the same machine with same SLI cards without Physics card. The guys ran the demo on both machines simultaneously and the machine without Physics Processing Unit was rendering only a few frames per second. The one with Physics card inside was rendering the same scene at more than 30 FPS constantly. It's 6 FPS without versus 30 with, not bad at all. It just looks great and we even have a picture that might show you a little bit what it's like.

http://www.theinq.com/?article=28803

great stuff

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

Judging by the image I think my machine would render it at 1fp2s.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

it'll be awhile, I just cant see the entire industry changeing to fit something like this. Games have to be specifically coded to support it. I think as processors and vga cards advanced we may see entire processing cores adressing Physics. As gameing computers move toward multiple core processors, and even multiple cored vga cards I am beginning to fear the need for a dedicated physics chip is becomeing slim. But then again the industry would have to change for my ideas as well, as currently there is no way to dedicate an entire core of a vga card to just something like "physics". They would have to change the way they were created.

Final thoughts: multi-core processing will eventually adress the issue of simulated physics whoreing your computer's resources. But what do I know.

In the end, it's all up the software developers, hell they could probably pull off a game that allowed you to dedicate an entire processor core to physics. So one of the cores in a chip like the fx-60 could act very similarly to this physics card.

Here's an early look at a sample board based on PCI-Express 1x/4x architecture. We know that Ageia plans on implementing several different interfaces, including - but not limited to - PCI-E, PCI and on-board motherboard integrated solutions. Ageia tells us that we should see boards out by the end of this year. If you look closely you'll notice some RAM chips around the PPU - we're told it's 128MB of GDDR3. On-board memory is not something they anticipate will grow in demand as it does on graphic cards.
-gdhardware.com

This however intrigues me as the variety of of pci:e sockets continues to rise we could see the physics unit go in as simply as say a sound card in tomorrows motherboards (or hell, even todays ). Realistic fluid physics dont seem so impossible with that much power put purely into physics processing.

But on the other hand I start to think we will start needing "cards" for anything and costs will simpy skyrocket, why not just unify architechture instead of cluttering our pcs, thats my only concern.

 

[Adabiviak]

I'm not hurting for FPS yet, but I'd certainly buy several times better FPS for an extra, what are these going to go for, $100? if my system would benefit from it.

 

[Ren.182]

Wow. That looks like one hell of a lot of items on screen at once. Crazy.
And these cards really wont be that expensive. Like Adabiviak said, around $100, $150 maybe. So it's not like it'd break the bank buying one of these things.

But Baby Head Crab made some god points too. The industry will either adapt to this, or it will be ignored. Though I think it will adapt to it, seeing as some pretty big companies are already saying they'll be using it in the future.

 

[Dekstar]

I hope that box room is a tech demo that will come with the chip

 

[noQ]

150$ for 30 fps ?

 

[Adabiviak]

150$ for 30 fps ?

...in a game with that much physics that would ordinarily play at 5 fps on someone's system, perhaps.

 

[bryanf445]

150$ for 30 fps ?

yes that would be worth it, half the time people upgrade videocards for no reason when the only get like 15-20 more fps. This will both handle many more physics calculations, and relieve the stress off of the cpu


so yes, $150 is worth it

 

[Llama]

That's an immpresive difference. What engine was that piccy taken from? Or is the tech demo made with its own engine to showcase the card?

 

[hungryduck]

great....something else well all have to buy for the damn computer

 

[Adabiviak]

There's one already integrated into your processor/motherboard. If you don't mind on-board physics processing (like you wouldn't mind on-board audio or video), don't get one.

 

[OCybrManO]

There's one already integrated into your processor/motherboard. If you don't mind on-board physics processing (like you wouldn't mind on-board audio or video), don't get one.

It's not even that good. On-board audio still has a dedicated audio processing device. On-board video still has a dedicated video processing device. They're just built into the board. On-board is still hardware acceleration... so, it takes a load off of your CPU. There is, currently, no such thing as an on-board physics processor. You might see a company start making motherboards with built-in physics processors if this card becomes successful and is widely adopted by game developers. Right now, it's all done in the CPU through software. It would be like trying to run HL2 in a software renderer.

Also, don't expect it to be $100 or even $150. According to AGEIA, it's going to be more like $250 or $300.