I need Help With PhysX Acce

[moof]

Can Ne Mobo Run PhysX Acce or do i need a Compatible one?

 

[prozac26]

Ageia Physx card is PCI, so any mobo with a plain PCI slot will run it. If you're buying the physics card now, you're dumb, since it doesn't improve anything, and it's a waste.

 

[moof]

i havent done much research on this so y wouldn it do nething?

 

[prozac26]

It's supposed to make games look and "feel" more realistic by doing complex physics calculations. But, by the time you'll need it, GPUs will be doing physics with ease. Everyone here will say the physics card is a waste.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Just some required reading before buying;
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/video/ageia_physx_review.html

Most important thing is the basic conclusion of all reviews;

Interesting, but no reason to buy right now. Maybe later, and hopefully by then cheaper and better.

 

[moof]

OK but right know will it actualy do ne thing and how does it work exactly
because i dont think ne GPU's with PhysX will b coming out netime soon.
If it is its probably going to b with The new DX10 GPUs and i dont have the money to get Windows Vista.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

If you don't have money to get Vista then you definitely don't have money to waste on PhysX.

Buy it when you need it at worst.

 

[moof]

vista isnt the main problem the main problem is geting the right drivers.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Well you mention money, not drivers.

Not that drivers matter much (heck, ATi and nV already have Vista drivers, and already have DX10 development kits)

So really, if you want to go ahead and waste your money, it's not mine, I'll warn you and that's it. The only reason I could think of that you would want a PPU is GRAW, and really it's better for Machinima than playing IMO.

 

[moof]

Ya ive been reading the link u gave me and i wantted it 4 Ghost recon advanced war fighter and for the money its not worth the diffrence.

 

[DaveUK]

At the moment, the Ageia-powered cards are PhysX decelerators. In my opinion, the company have thoroughly embarassed themselves by releasing a consumer-level product that is buggy and actually slows down games.

I'm all for praising them for the initial innovation. Creating a prototype as 'proof of concept' to enhance and accelerate physics in games would have been a good idea.

Releasing it to the public with a sizeable pricetag when it offers very little game support, no 'acceleration' whatsoever (although you could argue that the cards allow more to be displayed than is being portrayed in the 'without PhysX' benchmarks which places more strain on the GPU) is another matter altogether.

Ageia would have been in a much better market position if they had hyped the concept, created some great drivers with existing physics engine acceleration (eg Havok) easily updateable via patch for existing games, and made the thing twice as powerful so that

a) new titles emerge with the card displaying some truly impressive physics rather than 'Is that it?' reactions

b) existing physics-intensive games actually run noticeably faster after patching if you buy a PhysX card

I firmly believe that with some groundwork it would be fairly easy to patch games to place certain physics calculations on their hardware - in exactly the same way that earlier in the stages of 3D graphics cards their were patches that allowed 3D graphics calculations to be passed from the CPU to the GPU.

They could have worked on something more universal, for instance a 'DirectPhysics' layer to make the gap from ingame code -> physX hardware easier for developers and encourage patches for popular existing games - HL2 / CSS would be the most obvious that springs to mind.

Even a proprietary solution would have been successful if it was proven to work well and be easy for developers to use - anyone remember all the games that came out supporting Glide when 3DFX ruled the roost?

But no... release it slow, buggy, and poorly supported, so that by the time the card and drivers are within an inch of doing their original intended purpose in games, the PhysX card as we know it is completely redundant. Either 'revamped' by Ageia or swamped by newly-developed Physics calculation support incorporated into GPU solutions from nVidia or ATI (as has been discussed already).

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Agreed completely, pretty much a sumation of my statements over the last few weeks. 8)

 

[DaveUK]

Well, I guess the only thing left to say is that 'theres no such thing as bad publicity'.

For better or for worse, the hardware community has now heard of Ageia. Maybe they will surprise us like nVidia did when they soared above (and subsequently trampled on) 3DFX?

I'm not suggesting that they are going to start on the 3D graphics market - I'm just saying that there is always money to be made even within a crowded market place if you can prove to the most important people - the consumer - that your product can truly benefit them. This is something that Ageia have yet to do.

I guess there is one thing that is refreshing - it would be nice to see a new kid on the block to influence the performance and experiences in next-generation gaming.

Will that be Ageia? Or will they find themselves relegated to the PC gaming hardware graveyard, with nVidia and ATI's own physics-processing aspirations burying them alongside the 3DFX tombstone?

And what will Microsoft have to say about physics in DirectX10?

We shall see.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

And what will Microsoft have to say about physics in DirectX10?

Well M$ has said that DirectPhysics is GPU only, so Ageia's in a tough spot, and they'll not only have to equal the others to survive but outperform them so much as to overcome this bad press (no bad press, tell that to Intel's Prescott marketers 8O ).

I think there's a chance if there is truely a way for a PPU to be at least a multiple better than the discarded X1600 plopped alongside. Right now the X1600 can be 2X as fast, and costs about less than half the price. So that's a tall order to overcome. Heck if it was just nV in the game the somewhat weak performance of the GF7 series in phsyics would give Ageia a ray of hope, however, with ATi hiting them well enough from the start, and nV bound to improve to equal or beat ATi in future generations, then you're bound to have extremely tough competition. And heaven forbid Intel should enter the market and see an opportunity there. If that's the case, IMO it's game over for Ageia and they should look for buyers while they still have something to sell (ie Intellectual property and semi-current phsyics R&D and hardware).

In fact I'd say their best best for profiting and then the concept surviving would be to sell like someone like a more gaming interested Intel who could adopt some of their R&D into their standalone VPU or even integrated somewhat. And then the PPU itself could live on as a research product for servers and workstations. IMO that their best hope from a perspective of game theory. Of course there's that long shot that they are the killer product and that UT2K7 exposes that, and then they take off and sell bazillions. However that's a very long shot IMO, last year though I would've given them far better odds as they were cutting edge and in a market to themselves.