BFG Technology AGEIA PHYSX card

[cisco]

Has anyone seen any initial benchmarks or reviews of this new add-in card?

http://www.bfgtech.com/

 

[PJ101]

Haven't seen any benchies yet bu I am eagerly awaiting them. Kudos to those who find em

 

[RichPLS]

I am wondering if it works with all games, or has to have a profile to work with games or if games have to support the Ageia chip...

 

[cisco]

That's what I am wondering as well. It definately sounds very interesting. I hope it offers more real world performance than SLI. I have heard rumors of it costing around $250.00. Which if the performance is right might make it a worth while investment.

 

[p8ntslinger676]

the games that have full immersion capabilities will be able to use the PPU but those that dont will be left high and dry because the have not been designed to have real world physics capabilities. if you want to see the difference in a game with a regular graphics card and one with the PhysX processor, go to this site, its pretty bad ass.

http://physx.ageia.com/footage.html

 

[chuckshissle]

I would say this new physics card is going to improve the rigs performance. Okay, in a pc with no physics card the physics that is mainly scripted are run by the cpu obiously. But with the addition of the physics card, now the cpu would no longer have the task of running the physics on the game for the physics card takes it over, well most of it. So the performance will definitety increase in a pc sporting a graphics card. Bottom line, 3 chips (cpu,gpu & ppu) working together is better than just the cpu and the graphics card.

As Agiea have mention, the card supports some games that are already out but would not fully implement it. Games like Cellfactor and others alike that are soon due would fully soppurt this physics card.

I mainly play BF2 and FEAR most of the time and I wonder how this new card can improve the game performance. I'm very interested with these physics card, but I not so sure if I want to buy right after it comes out, which is this coming May. Since none of my games that fully supports this card I would say I just gonna wait like the end of this year for games that supports this card and by then the price would be cheaper than $300.

 

[uber_g]

if only half-life 2 supported the Physx card



-zombies fly everywhere

 

[Djsx64]

does anyone see the pattern here come on, it's going back to old days of computers

a card for everything

the more the better the computer performs

i am not complaining, personally i think it's cool

 

[alphakp295]

i dunno is this physx card be better than sli physics?
nvidia announced that they will release physics driver for sli setup...
ageia physx will cost 299.99.... hm... price of another geforce 7900gt...
if nvida can manage a whole vga card to manage only physics...
it might be better no?
unless...
ageia physx card can fit on other slots than pcie x16...

 

[JDoobs]

Even though Nvidia is making a physics driver there are a couple things that make me cautious. The first thing is that you have to have dual cards to make use of it. The second thing is that it still is putting tax on the GPUs instead of the CPU. It seems to me that a card dedicated to physics is just the ticket.

 

[chuckshissle]

The graphics card has little to do with the physics. It's the cpu job to do all physics like movement, interactive and effects. The graphics card's job is to render the picture/visuals like the image, shadows, ligthings etc. With the addition of the physics card on and SLI system it would make it perform a lot better and improved the physics in the game. Like I mentioned before the physics card will take over the cpu in managing the physics effect in the game.

 

[alphakp295]

The graphics card has little to do with the physics. It's the cpu job to do all physics like movement, interactive and effects. The graphics card's job is to render the picture/visuals like the image, shadows, ligthings etc. With the addition of the physics card on and SLI system it would make it perform a lot better and improved the physics in the game. Like I mentioned before the physics card will take over the cpu in managing the physics effect in the game.

i understand that gpu is calculating visual;
but nvidia is claiming that one gpu will be doing physics calculation dedicated.
although, that's if they make the driver correctly...
so.. basically, nvidia will make a gpu card to an physics card by a driver update...
i wonder if it is possible though...
maybe it will perform great... maybe not...
we'll just have to wait and see....
btw... BFG physx card will be released in end of may to end-users, according to BFG.

 

[chuckshissle]

Well, Nvidia is going to come out with a driver that improves physics. I believe you, but Nv cards are not made for physics and that they're trying to release a physics driver for their card make me think that Nvidia is getting intimedated by the Agiea Physix card.

I'm looking forward to that Nvidia physics improvement driver and see if it's going to increase my performance. If you think about it, that Nvidia new driver for physics is gonna affect the rendering job of the card as it is designed in the first place. We could only hope that maybe Nvidia will start producing cards as gpu and ppu in one.

 

[JDoobs]

Be that as it may, if I am looking for longevity of my rig, I'd much rather have a dedicated unit towards physics than tax my GPUs in any way. The less they are taxed the longer I can keep them in the future with games like Cellfactor.

 

[Gakalist]

BFG = 128MB
ASUS = 256MB

They claim they're the only ones with a 256mb in production.

http://usa.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=2651

 

[xgas]

Its like saying when the first GPU card is out, the CPU is better at prosessing Graphics than the GPU, LOL.

How many time do I need to post this......
Ok, here goes, 1st the GPU Physics is only for visual, looks only, no interactive content, you cannot interact with it. 2nd GPUs are more of a kind of "Inline" or we call "The Production Line" in car factories, NOTHING goes BACKWARDS, but the CPU does, the PPU does even more.

More overly, games running the Agiea PhyX ppu, ragdoll DO NOT dissapear, other stuff wont too, see the video of CellFactor? Damn alsome, you will need the card to run the game, the video is recorded in real time. The Havocs GPU physics only calculates cloth simulation, some ragdoll effects, and particle effects, not too interactive ehh?

Why would anyone do SLI Physics? I would rather, have SLI and PPU with a Dual/Quad core CPU, GPUs are design for Graphics, CPU for prosessing data and stuff, PPU for physic, face the future guys and girls, we moved to GFX cards, it time to move to a PPU card too, anyway it wont cost much, consider it would actually last for like atleast 2 years.

Physics datas are RANDOM, GPU aren't design to do RANDOM data prossesing, CPUs are good at random codes but aren't optimized to run dedicatedly for Physics right? thats when the PPU comes in.

Conclusion: CPU are for data xfer, GFX for Graphics, Sound card for Sound and PPU for Physics. Just like in a American foot ball team, you can't have team with all the same people, just like in chess. you can have all the chess pieces the same, you would lose very easily.

Anyway, the PPU is the only thing that can do SUPA interactive inviro, imagine, you wana frag a guy hiding in a building, you can just blow up the buildings pillars, or you can blow OFF the ROOF and shoot the guy!!!!! LOL.

 

[mursh]

Just wait for SLI Agiea Phyx!!!!! LOL

It does make you question how many new cards will we be craming into our future gaming rigs? With things like quad SLI graphics and PPUs where does it stop?

If you add in the giant power supply needed and you have a heat factory. I think it shows that water cooling will be mandatory pretty soon.

 

[enewmen]

We might just see descrete multi-core GPUs and multi-core PPUs.

 

[JDoobs]

nah i don't buy it. they want you to think that so you'll buy the card, but like that article i posted said, gfx cards have alot of processing power and i don't think all of it is used at once in games.

can you please post an article backing up your point.

I understand your dedication to the free part of the driver Nvidia is doing. But you get what you pay for. GFX cards may have a lot of power but that doesn't mean they are capable of taking on all of that crap. Have you seen some of the benchmarks, some of the frame rates from the latest games with the graphics full enabled. Even the new 7900's in SLI barely run the intensive games with a decent frame rate. So you suggest taxing them with more physics operations as well? Nah, I'll let a dedicated chip handle the physics and let my gfx cards stay cooler while handling what they are meant to handle.

 

[sviola]

not wanting to be mean but read my sig dumbass. i use ati and they have the processing power to pull it off maybe. while gfx cards may struggle with games is true, that is not evidence that all the GPU is being utilised at once, that may sound odd but i'm sure ATI yes ATI!!! would not be trying to have their GPU used for physics if it couldn't handle it.

You seem a little biased here, don´t you? It doesn´t matter if you have a nvidia or ati board, you won´t get the same level of physics processing like a dedicated processor. It is hardware optimized for physics like a gpu is for graphics....

And expect to see many, many game bugs on gpu physics processing...if graphics drivers do have a lot of bugs, imagine what we can expect for driver to run physics on gpus....

 

[sviola]

heres a question, explain in detail how the chips are different and how it affects the abilities to process physics

Dude, would take to long to compile all the stuff on the ppu, but if you want to know more, you can visit both ATI's and Ageia's homepages and get the white papers on their architecture.
If you want to get into more technical stuff just mp me and we can discuss it.

 

[cisco]

The Ageia and Clearspeed co-processors are designed specifically for mathmatics. For instance the Clearspeed processor computes at 25 GFLOPS versus about 5.7 GFLOPS from an opteron processor.

 

[uber_g]

does anyone see the pattern here come on, it's going back to old days of computers

a card for everything

the more the better the computer performs

i am not complaining, personally i think it's cool

watch they come out with a card for the monitor

ohh wait ...
8O

 

[sviola]

but in that article i posted ATI said their core can do 375gflops so it would have the advantage by that logic

Yeah, it would, but then wouldn´t the P4 with 3GHz have an advanteage over an A64 with lower clock speeds and "lower throughput". But you can´t always look at numbers, there´s a lot more involved, specially when it comes to chip architecture.
There´s a white paper at Ageia´s homepage explaining the difference between the PhysX and a gpu, take a read, then compare to what the ATI´s article had to say, and then decide for yourself what is the best option for you (it always comes to this...what´s best suited for the consumer).

 

[sviola]

i won't be PM'ing you as there is nothing to discuss. i went on ageia's website and read 2 of their white papers and tbh if you think they could be used in any constructive argument you are an idiot. they were full of their own buzzwords, and only told how their way was the only way. i know all manufacturers do this, but they are a joke. they provided no actual information and numbers and told me nothing more than the article's i've read. i will wait for more detailed information and see the real story.

Hey, no need to get aggressive, but if you do I can certainly answer accordingly.