what is a physics processor

[Boostnjuice]

and is it worth it or a flash in the pan fad?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA5NywxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

 

[Vinny]

^^ Great article... I found it last night and read it, definitely made me lose a lot of interest. There's also a TH article about the Ageia Physx PPU (physics processor). Great idea in theory, it's just not up and running right yet. :lol:

 

[pojomofo]

I believe that Havok will be waaay more popular and the physix card will be dead in a year. Why pay $200+ dollars for something that enhances only a handful of games. The GPU is perfectly capable of handling physics in games (see HL2)

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I agree. The way I see it is the VPU phsyics has less risk, and has a huge install base already.

Ageia may do OK, but I doubt they'll be anywhere near as succesful as VPU phsyics. And with the gameplay phsyics being possible on the VPUs as well, then the killer advantage that Ageia keeps pimping doesn't exist. So buying a cheap used X1600 or GF7600 off eBay in a year or two sound pretty attractive IMO, versus buying just a PPU.

 

[Heyyou27]

I believe that Havok will be waaay more popular and the physix card will be dead in a year. Why pay $200+ dollars for something that enhances only a handful of games. The GPU is perfectly capable of handling physics in games (see HL2)

Half-Life2 does not use the GPU for physics calculations.

 

[Cody_7]

Half-Life2 does not use the GPU for physics calculations.

That's right, it uses the CPU to do it all. Here's what I still don't understand: Unless your are using Physics on a large-scale (Like Cellfactor, check it out on Ageia's site) why would you need a PPU/extra GPU to do physics? CPU's are cabable of duing alot of physics calculations. As a matter of fact, i've never seen a CPU that can't handle a game's physics; and most games use very little effect or in-game physics whatsoever.

One a side note, It makes me extremley upset that the ATi article (I didn't read the other ones yet) refers to physics as the "next leap in gaming". "Next" leap? What have they been drinking? In-game physics have been around since at least 2002-2003. Look at a game like Rainbow Six: 3, or Far Cry, or Counter-Strike Source. They all have had physics for a very long time. And games like FEAR have debris fly EVERYWHERE with real-world physics when a grenade goes off, and you can knock over stools, etc. Why get a seperate card to do that when it can be done on a CPU?

It's the game companies that have been refusing to use physics. Hardware has not been what's limiting us. Look at Call of Duty 2 for example, it's a very new game and they still use crappy animations for the death sequences and nothing has physics in that game.

 

[Heyyou27]

And the idea of a dedicated physics processor is to add even more immersive physics than seen in F.E.A.R. or Half-Life2.

 

[Boostnjuice]

just as I saw it , better GPU's and CPU's will make this worthless in a year or two.

 

[dpg0815]

personally i look at it that way:

rightnow its prettymuch senseless getting one of those physix cards, but in a few years it might be pretty usefull actually since, think of this

everyone specialises in something and therefor becomes better at it, why not let the gpu do the grafic processing, the physix card calculates the physix and the cpu keeps it all running at a decent speed (quadcore will give major benefits to that imho)

thats why in the future this tech will probably enhance the gaming experience beyond belief

my 2 cents

had to add: why get a soundcard when the onboard sound would be enough anyways or why get a gfx card when the onboard gfx can take cpu power and use everything anyways

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

The only thing is if a GPU can do the phsyics better, same or near that of the PPU, then what is the motivation to buy a PPU at full MSRP, versus buying one of the ton of graphics cards that are discarded when people updgrade, or simply moving your card down a slot when you upgrade?

Buying a second have X1600 for less than $50 makes more sense than buying a new PPU at a multiple of the cost, if they are about the same in funtionality.

This story is still in the prologue stage, so there's alot unknown, but I don't see the need for a PPU if the GPUs can step up and do the job.

 

[Cody_7]

just as I saw it , better GPU's and CPU's will make this worthless in a year or two.

Well, I kind of have to agree with Boostnjuice. Before I say anything further, let me sate that I 100% concurr that specialized hardware for a task (Specialized sound card for sound, specialized GPU for graphics) is the best thing since the invention of the mouse.

But, i've very sceptical on if we really will ever need a seperate card to do the job. If my mid-2004 AMD Athlon 3400+ processor can handle 25 objects flying in the air in FEAR doesn't cause a single hitch, freeze, or drop in performance (Depending on detail settings, w/e) then who's not to say my processor couldn't handle 100's of objects with maybe a little hike in CPU usage?

I love real-time physics in games... I take it personally offensive when a game (Like Call of duty 2) doesn't include it. But before we go off half-cocked bying and add-in card for it, why don't we see how well regular processors can handle it first? I haven't seen any studies on that...

Although paying $50 for an X1600 does make it pretty attractive

EDIT I thought Boostnjuice said that "Better CPU's will make this worthless in a year or two". I didn't see that he also mentioned GPU's in his post.