ChasingBlueSky 0 #1 March 9, 2005 Forget going SLI to be the king geek on the block....this is what I want in my system! From ign.com PhysX Hardware Physics Accelerator Unveiled Exponentially more stuff to blow to bits? Sign us up. March 08, 2005 - AGEIA Technologies announced today at the Game Developer's Conference that it's doing to physics what hardware manufacturers did to 3D graphics back in the mid-90s: providing hardware acceleration for an exponential increase in the amount and complexity of physics objects in games. Just as GPUs (graphic processing units) do with polygons, vertices and textures, the PhysX PPU (physics processing unit) will do for realtime phsyics. Instead of handling 50 or even 100 physics objects per scene like some games do now, games and applications that make use of the PhysX PPU will be able to handle many, many multiples of that. AGEIA is saying something around 30,000 to 40,000 physics objects per scene would be something that its PPU could handle. If you like buzz-phrases, here are a few things that the PhysX processor is tauted to handle: universal collision detection, rigid body dynamics, soft body dynamics, fluid dynamics, smart particle systems, clothing simulation, soft-body deformation with tearing, and brittle fracturing for destruction of objects in gaming environments. AGEIA's NovodeX physics API will be supported by its PhysX processor. Many developers, including Epic via its in-progress UnrealEngine3 gaming engine, are already implementing it so AGEIA expects that many PhysX-supported games will already be available by the time the processor is launched, which is scheduled to be released by Christmas 2005._________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again..... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
indyz 1 #2 March 9, 2005 I read about this earlier today, and I still can't figure out how they plan to market it. When I bought my first Voodoo, it was to play Quake 2. It was the same game before I bought the Voodoo, it just didn't look as pretty. It was optional and made the game better, but it didn't change the gameplay between systems. Having that 3D option eventually led to today, when most games can get away with requiring a 3D card. As far as I can tell, this Ageia thing won't be optional like early 3D accelerators were. You can't realisitically have two versions of a game, one with so-so software physics and another with awesome hardware-accelerated physics. The Ageia system needs a "killer app," a game so awesome that people are going to throw down $200 on top of their brand-new Radeon just to play that one game. Whoever decides to try first is taking a huge risk. Developing a top-of-the-line game like Doom3 or HL2 costs tens of millions of dollars, and if it's not quite good enough to convince hundreds of thousands of gamers to buy a new physics accelerator, then it's a multi-million dollar failure. I'd love to see this come to fruition, but Ageia has a tough road to hoe. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Newbie 0 #3 March 9, 2005 I'm pretty sure you will end up seeing games with varying degrees of physics capability dependent on what your system/card could handle, just as they do now for textures, bump mapping, reflections, shadowing etc etc. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ChasingBlueSky 0 #4 March 9, 2005 Unreal 3 looks to be the killer game. Have you read up on it or seen the screenshots? Remember how much of an impact the first Unreal had and how the graphics were a benchmark for years? It looks like Unreal 3 will be the same thing. I agree. The marketing aspect will be tough, but I think with the launch of PS3 and Xbox 2 that gamers will be used to hearing why the details matter more now than they did in the past when it comes to purchasing._________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again..... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
superman0710 0 #5 March 9, 2005 that sounds pretty hot Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CrazyIvan 0 #6 March 9, 2005 I really don't care how hot a new card is, unless it can be used to play more than 1 game (if we're talking only games here), I remember in the past, when certain cards were "designed" for certain specific games, but, those were games that perhaps a few people liked, I mean, I never felt like shelling out $300 to play Mario Bros on a PC __________________________________________ Blue Skies and May the Force be with you. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bolas 5 #7 March 9, 2005 So you never bought a 3DO blaster for your PC? Or the Sega Saturn Card? Isn't this the kind of thing that will be added onto new 3D cards or will it take up anither PCI express slot?Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ChasingBlueSky 0 #8 March 9, 2005 QuoteSo you never bought a 3DO blaster for your PC? Or the Sega Saturn Card? Isn't this the kind of thing that will be added onto new 3D cards or will it take up anither PCI express slot? Yup, but that doesn't matter anymore. PCIx will be used for the video card and that can leave up to 5 PCI slots open for you. With the wave of Nforce clones out there you can get the NIC and a 5.1 sound card built on the mobo now. Same with SATA raid, USB2.0, Firewire, and even wireless. That leaves you plenty of room to upgrade. I agree with Ivan - if there is only one game that will use it, I won't get it. If it will help any game that already exists, it will be on the top of my upgrade list._________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again..... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
