BF2S Forums Do you know this Product?

It all depends on whether future games are gonna be written to take advantage of it. It's a great idea but unless it's catered for it'll die a death.

I'd wait!

it seems logical enough, to add a chip to do the physics calculations. anyone know if any games really make use of this thing yet? they've been around for a while now...

EDIT: cool, at least you can play GRAW with it.

Last edited by Krappyappy (2006-07-11 06:47:58)

fon|sl4y3r wrote:

I second that. I play GRAW with it and its pretty cool. But to be honest, safe your money by now.

Atm there are two diffrent systems, one is the Physix tech by aegia (spelling?) the other one the Havoc tech. I guess in about one year or so there will be more games that support such cards, but atm its kind of erm, useless imho

could you tell us what exactly the physx card does for you in GRAW?

Krappyappy wrote:

could you tell us what exactly the physx card does for you in GRAW?

I read it only makes the explosions look better, so alot of money for a better explosion.

Edit: quoted wrong person

Last edited by rustynutz (2006-07-11 07:32:56)

DoctorFruitloop wrote:

So "more bang for your buck" hah?

!

he might not get that..lol.... FF 

Physics card is made for the same reason as graphicscards was once made. To unload the cpu with calculations that are time consuming and to move these to a specialized card that does it much better.

Just as you send alot of polygondata to be processed on the graphicscard instead of by the cpu you send alot of "physicsdata (such as simple shapes like cubes, spheres or complex shapes like a model of a car etc)" that will be handeled by the card. After that processing is done you can just ask where your stuff ended up after the card has applied all transforms that took place (in the explosion case, you added lots of points that will representing explosion particles to the card, then you uploaded the surroundings that these points will interact with.. also you tell the card at what velocity and direction these points are traveling.. then it calculates stuff like collision etc) and just render the stuff on its new places.

Hope that explains what these new cards are used for.. incase you didnt know

Elogain wrote:

Physics card is made for the same reason as graphicscards was once made. To unload the cpu with calculations that are time consuming and to move these to a specialized card that does it much better.

Just as you send alot of polygondata to be processed on the graphicscard instead of by the cpu you send alot of "physicsdata (such as simple shapes like cubes, spheres or complex shapes like a model of a car etc)" that will be handeled by the card. After that processing is done you can just ask where your stuff ended up after the card has applied all transforms that took place (in the explosion case, you added lots of points that will representing explosion particles to the card, then you uploaded the surroundings that these points will interact with.. also you tell the card at what velocity and direction these points are traveling.. then it calculates stuff like collision etc) and just render the stuff on its new places.

Hope that explains what these new cards are used for.. incase you didnt know

But the real question is, are we at the point where the Graphics Card cannot complete these calculations without wasting too many clock cycles? At the moment, I say no. But I bet that is what they said when deidcated Graphics Cards were introduced.

fon|sl4y3r wrote:

I second that. I play GRAW with it and its pretty cool. But to be honest, safe your money by now.

Atm there are two diffrent systems, one is the Physix tech by aegia (spelling?) the other one the Havoc tech. I guess in about one year or so there will be more games that support such cards, but atm its kind of erm, useless imho

puckmercury wrote:

what's the alternative to this physx card?  The betamax to this VHS?  If you're just saying that both went to the wayside, well VHS was around for over a decade

Errrrr..... try reading the rest of the thread.....

This coming from someone who has been slamming people on the thread about "what would happen if america hadn't joined in WWII" for not reading the rest of the thread and making uneducated assumptions.

Last edited by DoctorFruitloop (2006-07-11 07:50:52)

joker3327 wrote:

This is always a good place for info

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/06/19/can_ageia_uk/

any good??

This is just my own opinion but I think toms hardware went to shit years ago.  They sell their reviews to the highest bidder and to hell with reality.  I used to actually respect that site but that was a long time ago....

For a much more realistic look at the physix card and other hardware check out www.anandtech.com. 

Here is their review of the BFG Physx Card:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2759&p=1

Personally, I dont understand paying for a card that will add a few effects but ultimately degrade your overall gaming performance.  This technology may become interesting in the years to come but it's got a ways to go before it becomes more than an expensive gimmick.

DoctorFruitloop wrote:

fon|sl4y3r wrote:

I second that. I play GRAW with it and its pretty cool. But to be honest, safe your money by now.

Atm there are two diffrent systems, one is the Physix tech by aegia (spelling?) the other one the Havoc tech. I guess in about one year or so there will be more games that support such cards, but atm its kind of erm, useless imho

puckmercury wrote:

what's the alternative to this physx card?  The betamax to this VHS?  If you're just saying that both went to the wayside, well VHS was around for over a decade

Errrrr..... try reading the rest of the thread.....

This coming from someone who has been slamming people on the thread about "what would happen if america hadn't joined in WWII" for not reading the rest of the thread and making uneducated assumptions.

Touché.  Uhm, I did read it?  I don't see an alternative to the card other than NO card, which doesn't seem as much as an alternative as opting out.  As for slamming others and making uneducated assumptions, I was doing just as I asked others to do in that thread - asking a question to gain further understanding. 

Last edited by puckmercury (2006-07-11 08:07:03)

Oh, and another thing
Lets put it this way, if Halflife 2 had support for physicscards and kept its rather mundane physics (yeah yeah I know people were all worked up by the "physics" in hf2 but it aint that special ) the game itself would actually have a LOWER cpu requirement since the physicscard would do all the calculations and the graphicscard all the rendering, meaning the game could have used its cpu for other things that would increase your gaming experience..

So, I see a future for physicscards.. But I wont buy it until the "standards" war is over just as it was in the begining of 3d-card era.

DoctorFruitloop wrote:

Well that's a change of heart from the original "humble" post you just posted and then deleted.

What was it...

"Touche +1. Although in my defence it was all centred around something on the same page"

... or something along those lines.

And what's the confusion. The Physix card, or the Havoc. Seems like two options to me.

I didn't see the Havok, so I reinstate my previous humble post which I deleted because I didn't see what I had missed.  At any rate, I did re-read this and don't see the Havok on this page anywhere.  It may be in the thread I linked to, but I didn't think the arguement from that thread would migrate to this one.  At any rate, I wasn't trying to be two-faced.  Sorry for the deletion.