BF2S Forums Ageia PhysX discrete PPU

Supposedly the GFX Card companies are implementing a Havok Physics engine into the GPUs to enable Physics acceleration. I think nVidia and/or ATI is going to try to challenge Ageia before they can even push a product out... :\ I really want one of those PhysX cards!

Man I'll buy one in a second....assuming even 2 or 3 games which I'd play a lot had support for it.  For example if BF2 had supported it I would have gotten about 350 hours of enjoyment out of it already (though you should keep in mind that I also bought an FX-60 and an X1900XTX so I'm definitely more interested in the "tech" than the "value").

Anyhow, did you guys see the videos?  Any thoughts?

DTAC wrote:

I'd like to see dual monitor support. More likely for this technology to be bought up and added to a graphics card. I can't see many people buying an add-in card.

As I understand it, it doesn't output a video signal at all.  It simply offloads physical calculations from the CPU and then hands the data over to the GPU for rendering.  Dual monitor support would reside with the video card you were using.

Don't really see how it could be added to current cards though.  With 182 mm^2 die size on a 130 nm part and 128 MB of GDDR3 memory, not to mention 20 watts power consumption, I just don't see how they could pull it off.  Look at that card and imagine all that incorporated into an alreadly HUGE 1900/7900.  It would be a freakin monster.

Agreed though, it will be hell getting market penetration with jhigh end components being as pricey as they are.  many people will not spare the extra 200-300 bucks.

Last edited by ShotYourSix (2006-03-22 20:23:52)

Now "ATI says it can do physics better than Ageia or Nvidia"

Article released today over at Anandtech's DailyTECH:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=1414

Interesting note from the above article:

"ATI is also saying that its method for processing physics on the GPU is superior to both AGEIA's and NVIDIA's. According to the company, those who have already purchased any one of the X1800 or X1900 series can rest assured that their investment will last. Using its propriety API, ATI is able to offload physics processing to any GPU in a dual-GPU setup, regardless of whether or not the cards are in Crossfire mode or that they are even from the same family. This way, those who upgrade later can use their existing X1800 or X1900 cards for discrete physics processing while using the newer card for 3D acceleration duties."

Imagine when upgrading to a new video card, simply migrating your old card down one slot to use as a physics processor.  Some people gave me crap for buying an SLI MoBo for an ATI card but this now justifies my choice (assuming the above is true for ATI cards on an Nvidia SLI MoBo....)

And also an up to date overview with new video's of ageis in action:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=225

Definitely time to wait and see on this tech but it's going to be very interesting to see where this all ends up.

Last edited by ShotYourSix (2006-03-23 16:39:48)

I've been tracking AGEIA and their baby for some time now. The PPU is currently nice tool to consider for developers writing software for future applications, but will probably be present as a coprocessor on video cards (NVIDIA has expressed interest in a few articles) as GPU size and power requirements shrink by the time the public seriously decides to put one in every system. Or even if it isn't, the independant card will probably be much cheaper by the time games programmed to take advantage of it hit the shelves.

I'm not slamming this technology by any means, but I'm not in any mood to go rush out and buy a card before it is fully supported. Still, if I'm unfortunate enough to happen upon a box with one at my local PC market, I'll probably nerd out and buy it on principle.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-03-24 06:32:33)

-=|BW|=-Hollow_Moon wrote:

Anyone checked out the nVidia Physics GPU video demo yet? You can get it at www.guru3D.com Its a 21mg download & quite interesting to watch.

I noticed tha Alienware just started selling Aegia Physics cards in their hi-end systems, quite affordable, although expensive for what it is, the second graphics card as a physics processor seems to be the better option at the moment.

I tried to find the download on guru3d.com, but couldn't.  Can you provide a link directly to the download page?
On a side note, I wonder what is going to happen to Alienware since Dell bought it?

Yes, I aggree. These cards will be the future of gaming. EA YOU NEED TO SUPPORT THIS.

List of supported games: http://physx.ageia.com/titles.html

Note: EA nor Dice has signed up according to this.

PS. Bet on Soldier has a patch that adds support for this. Hint, hint EA...

Last edited by the_outsider38 (2006-04-10 23:11:03)

True, maybe ill have to go play CellFactor!!! OMFG that looks sweet. Have you seen the Video?
http://physx.ageia.com/footage.html

Just DLed the High Res, I want it BAD!!!

-_{MoW}_-Assasin wrote:

Looks.....good..........................
psychic powers... just isnt my thing

u mean physics

is it gonna use pci or pci-e?  any1 know?

-_{MoW}_-Assasin wrote:

just PCI

if it was pci-e... it would have been better

No psychic powers ain't my thing either, but those are some sweet effects. I would play it for sure. The game looks beautiful.

And hell, I'd pull my system out of SLI for that, not really concerned about expansion slots. The card probably just doesnt need the bandwidth PCI-E x16 offers so why bother using up the slot? Maybe, eventually we will have 3-4 PCI-E x16 slot boards?

And Nvidia to release software to transform the second of 2 SLI video cards into a physics card? That would be cheap and easy for all of us SLI users. I mean its just a processor on a card aint it? Its supposed to be versatile.