[OT] Physics Processor?

[EAGLE_01]

Permission to come aboard?

I was wandering around, dreaming about my next PC, and saw this add.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=2180959&sku=B52-7834

Please post your thoughts/evaluations...

Does this thing really make a diffierence?
Calm Seas.

[StandingCow]

There is sort of a debate going on about this.. nvidia and ati say that a 2nd card (SLI or crossfire) can do just as good a job as a physics card.

And on top of that, I am not aware of any games that can take advantage of one.

That said, I think graphics are getting close to the point where they are good enough, and physics will be the next big focus.

[Rilex]

Only on games that take advantage of it. There are very few which do.

I'd wait until nVidia/AMD start to release GPUs that provide general purpose physics if you are looking for something new.

[EAGLE_01]

Thanks for the replies.

So, essentially, none of our simulations, (SH3/4, LOMAC/Black Shark, FSX,the next Oleg Maddox IL2/BoB) are currently written to use a PPU at this time? It's somewhere down the road?:hmm:

Wow.. it has a Lifetime Warranty...

[XanderF]

While the physics card is really quite useless, the company also makes video cards, which ARE very important. And video cards from BFG, eVGA, and XFX have lifetime warranties.

XFX calls theirs 'double lifetime' - lifetime for you, and if you sell the card, the second hand buyer gets a lifetime warranty, too. eVGA and BFG also tend to 'upgrade' you if you have a much older part that dies (IE., if the card you have is out of production and they cannot replace it with the same model, they replace it with a similar model of the current gen).

[EAGLE_01]

I'm looking forward to my next video card. And, although I love AMD processors, I have always steered clear of ATI cards, and this last one I bought because it was all I could afford that was AGP, etc...is THE LAST ATI card I will ever buy.:down:
NVIDIA is hands-down the best.

[Typhaon]

The power of this Ageia PhysX card is impressive... but like the others said... it's limited to very few games... as the name says it's only for physics in games and it can handle a lot of objects at a time... and most impressive the ability to calculate fluids in real time... but at the moment it is not worth, because there are too few games to play with it...
But if you want to take a look you can watch some videos at their homepage:
http://www.ageia.com/physx/videos.html

[JREX53]

According to the Advertisement, it is a PCI card - which ancient history in the PC world, especially for video cards. The newest and greatest form is the PCI-Express which is an entirely different slot than the PCI slot..

[SteamWake]

Only game that I know of that promotes this product is Rainbow Six GRAW.

I play GRAW without the physics processor and am happy with its performance.

I imagine though as games become more and more demanding it (the processor) will be a handy gizmoe and help with offloading the CPU to some degree.

Also note that games have to be designed to take advantage of the processor or else it is ignored.

[EAGLE_01]

The power of this Ageia PhysX card is impressive... but like the others said... it's limited to very few games... as the name says it's only for physics in games and it can handle a lot of objects at a time... and most impressive the ability to calculate fluids in real time... but at the moment it is not worth, because there are too few games to play with it...
But if you want to take a look you can watch some videos at their homepage:
http://www.ageia.com/physx/videos.html

Thanks for that link. Some of those vids are pretty cool, but the one for "Heavy Rain" was VERY interesting.:o

I'm betting this will be weitten into most games before too long..I only hope Simulation Devs use it...

[SingeDebile]

it still remains to be seen if this will become the new standard,

i think the biggest thing working against that is the dual, quad, and soon to come 8x processor cores

games will start simply dedicating one processor for physics, one for AI etc..... ( cant remember where i read a great article talking about this)

couple this with the fact there is a very limited support for the card... and because of this the games can only be designed with the card offering a bonus in the visual and not interactive area (so that the game is still playable without it), I would save my money for something else

[EAGLE_01]

According to the Advertisement, it is a PCI card - which ancient history in the PC world, especially for video cards. The newest and greatest form is the PCI-Express which is an entirely different slot than the PCI slot..

Roger that.

I was under the impression this was just a Physics processor..if not, why haven't the other big graphic card makers started pushing this along I wonder.

[EAGLE_01]

Just saw your post, SingeDebile.

That makes sense.

If you watch the Heavy Rain vid, I'm wondering if that detail would be present without the PhysX job..

It would be too great to have environments like that in our subs, or in flight sims..

[Garion]

According to the Advertisement, it is a PCI card - which ancient history in the PC world, especially for video cards. The newest and greatest form is the PCI-Express which is an entirely different slot than the PCI slot..

The physics card is not a graphics card, yoo need a separate graphics card, PCI-Express or AGP to actually display the graphics.:know:

PCI slots are still fitted in modern PC's along side the PCI-express slots. I am currently running 2x nvidia cards in SLI mode and would put the Physics card in a spare PCI slot. But as as has already been said, the games have to actually support the physics cards for them to be usefull. :cry:

I also read in a tech journal that Nvdia and ATI may be adding physics chips to future graphics cards.. only time will tell though. :hmm:

Cheers

Garion

[SteamWake]

Might want to consider one of these as well

1,000 watt power supply

http://store.pcpowerzone.com/pccotu1k10po.html

[switch.dota]

You know, this reminds me about the whole 3Dfx VooDoo thing some 10 years ago: Back then people had like 4-8Mb video cards and they'd slap on a graphical accelerator IN ADDITION to their video card. nVidia's all-in-one (video card + 3D accelerator) set the standard and basically put 3dfx out of buisness.

[Typhaon]

Thanks for that link. Some of those vids are pretty cool, but the one for "Heavy Rain" was VERY interesting.:o

I'm betting this will be weitten into most games before too long..I only hope Simulation Devs use it...

I have already testet two games which support a PhysX card without it...
The first ist Roboblitz, a small game about a robot which saves the world... cute... but I could not see anything which would require special hardware... the second is Cellfactor... there was a public free beta out some time ago and I tested it...
first the game was slow as hell... ok my pc is already quite old (it can hardly handle SHIV) but it did take a lot of performance... the second thing is, that many features could not be uses without a PhysX card, like for example advanced particles, real time fluids or masses of objects calculated in real-time (there are levels, which cannot be played without a PhysX card...
But I think this kind of hardware will not be standard in the future... I think advanced processors and graphic-cards will do the job in the future...

[Typhaon]

Ah and i almost forgot... there are special clips showing a direct comparison between a scene with and without a PhysX card... it is noticable... but to be honest... I also thing some effects are overdone... to unrealistic... but still impressive:
http://www.ageia.com/physx/sbs.html

[CaptainHaplo]

The idea of a physics card is NOT directly graphix related here folks. While they do contribute to better graphics - the idea is more along the idea of deformable terrain, destructable objects, etc. The ability to process calculations for HOW an explosion or object would react in real life is the whole goal. For many, with SH4 - a large "chain reaction" set of explosions can cause a brief hiccup or stutter - like when an ammo bunker pops. The goal of physics processing is to accurately model what happens to the shockwave, and all the objects affected by it. PGU's are built with a different instruction set than a graphics card.

What the result is - is more "lifelike" and "realistic" effects - which SHOWS thru the graphics. But stuff like bloom, transparency, etc are still handled by the GPU. Right now - most "physic" calculations are still done by the main CPU - which is not the optimal solution.

The first generation of PhysiX cards are limited due to support having to be built IN Game. However, there is rumbles that DX10 may (in theory) autosupport such hardware in that physic calcs are offloaded to the PGU. I haven't definitive proof, but w/ DX10 and a card - SH4 doesnt stutter on sequenced explosions. Same rig under xp w/ DX9c - small stutter... DX11 is supposed to fully support this. When the hardware is available for it - DX will use it. Its technically reasonable of an idea to force that thru an extension standard like DX. I don't know enough to be able to say for sure - but I would bet that it will be fully in 11 given what i have seen in 10.

As for GPU's mounting a physics card - while its possible I would expect that they would avoid it. As it is, the throughput speed across the interface (AGP/PCIe) is usually the limiter - trying to offload more data to the card just uses up that pipeline that is already maxed pushing the vid data. Why suck up bandwidth that you need to make the card faster? Doesn't make sense.

With multi-threading and prediction pipelines already in place - its not unreasonable to use a (relatively) slow PCI interface to allow a PGU to process data and return results to the cpu for use as needed. As an example - you fire a HE shell at a destructable target, the CPU instruction set "predicts" the impact as the shell is fired and travels. It estimates the impact area, then offloads the explosion calcs to the physics card - which processes it and returns it - so by the time the shell impacts, the pc has already done the explosion and just has to draw it. While the travel time to us is short - to the PC its more than enough time to perform the task as laid out. And so you are given a "deformed" impact area along with more realistic explosions - eye candy that wouldn't be possible without stutter except with the use of a physics card.

As games continue to get more and more complex, the need to handle such events will be more advanced. So yes - expect "PhysiX" cards to become more and more prevalent as time passes. Hope this helps clarify why they may be included on your next gaming rig wish list.

[Typhaon]

You're right, but if you look at the videos I doubt that the physics processors are already fast enough to be fully used... the fluid and object calculating seems to be a little to slow at the moment... sure it will be better soon, but at the moment I think it's not worth the money...
although it would be nice in games like SHIV.
A physics accelerator would enable more realistic effects like dynamic waves (with influence of objects and force like 3D ship wakes or waves from explosions and impacts, realistic and large amound of shapnels and particles from explosions, realistic deformation and visual damage from attacks etc. pp... you see... advanced physics would really rock simulations... not only actiongames.

[buzzinbill]

Hey I know of a few games that use it "Company Of Heroes" and I think "Splinter Cell Double Agent" (on down) does.... ButI tend to agree with a few others on here... Your prob better off going SLI or Crossfire (whichever your MoBo uses) Saver your money (for now) let the tech "mature" a bit ... and see if the Devs jump on the bandwagon , so to speak .....:up:

[EAGLE_01]

Hey I know of a few games that use it "Company Of Heroes" and I think "Splinter Cell Double Agent" (on down) does.... ButI tend to agree with a few others on here... Your prob better off going SLI or Crossfire (whichever your MoBo uses) Saver your money (for now) let the tech "mature" a bit ... and see if the Devs jump on the bandwagon , so to speak .....:up:

Agreed. Like I said, I hope simulations start using this technology.

[Phantom Mark]

You can add ghost recon advanced war fighter to that list, demo I saw was pretty cool, but not nearly cool enough to warrant an extra slot in my box or the price.

[Rilex]

However, there is rumbles that DX10 may (in theory) autosupport such hardware in that physic calcs are offloaded to the PGU. I haven't definitive proof, but w/ DX10 and a card - SH4 doesnt stutter on sequenced
explosions.


SH4 is not a DX10 game. It takes no advantage of DX10 and has no knowledge of DX10. It uses DX9Ex (on Vista). Thus, a PPU would make no difference (not that DirectX has any support for PPUs in the first place, unless you can find something relating to PPUs here (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa139763.aspx) that I'm not seeing).


As for GPU's mounting a physics card - while its possible I would expect that they would avoid it.


Nope, nVidia and AMD are already pushing in this direction. GPUs are becoming more general purpose thus using them as PPUs in the near future.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070222-8906.html

[minsc_tdp]

AGEIA is pioneering a new direction, but the product is a complete flop. Many people want what it can do and have the money, but they don't want the PhysX. Lack of game support killed it and it will never recover from that.

NVidia/AMD are pushing in different directions and they'll probably win. The first one to come up with a way to accelerate the physics of all games, regardless of developer participation, will win big. But that is probably impossible. If the next product like this requires developer participation, they'll have to have a hell of a lot of major titles supported and publicly acknowledged commitment from major publishers like EA and Ubi and major dev groups like CodeMasters, etc to sell any.

[GT182]

The one sim I have that has game physics is MOH Pacific Assault. If you kill an enemy soldier you can run into him and his body moves. Kill one in the water and he floats, plus he moves when you run into him. Water is so real looking that the dead floating can be seen above and below the water's surface. Shoot boxes and barrels and they move. And, I'm running it with an XFX 6800 XTreme 256mb 256bit card. If this is part of the physics advancement in graphics, it sure is cool. :)

[EAGLE_01]

The article in that link states they feel they are at the point that 3DFX was with video cards. I take that to mean the technology is barely beginning, and I think you guys are right, as systems grow to quad and 8X core systems, the physics will be handled in a different way, and having another card in a slot will be a thing of the past in a hurry.

It will be nice, though. The more realistic, the better:up: .

[WernerSobe]

Physics Cards are not to improve the graphic. They are designed to calculate the movement of objects, fluids, gases etc... They relieve the CPU not the GPU. CPU is not designed to calculate such things.

However basicly it will improve the graphics in some way. Explosions, Fires and Fluids looks much more real. Objects that are being destroyed look much more realistic. Many things can be moved and fly around at same time.

in example you can have a game where you see cars crashing in each other and you can calculate the deformation in real time making every crash look different.

[XLjedi]

Shoot, it's only $150?
I might give it a shot just on a whim...:hmm:



Half the folks here have spent at least half that much buying broken collector edition games...

[XanderF]

Shoot, it's only $150?
I might give it a shot just on a whim...:hmm:

Half the folks here have spent at least half that much buying broken collector edition games...

Ummm...why?

You can get a complete list of games the card supports on Ageia's website (http://www.ageia.com/physx/titles.html). It's a ridiculously short list, even discounting the fact that they count a few games several times (once for each expansion pack), and include games on the PS3 and 360 which have "Ageia PhysX" but obviously do not benefit from a piece of PC hardware.

[XLjedi]

Ummm...why?


Admittedly... I've done zero research on the thing.

I happened to notice a couple positive reviews in the TigerDirect ad to suggest that it might even work for some games that aren't designed to specifically take advantage of it.

But I did just read a year-old writeup on the thing over at Toms Hardware and they coudn't see where the thing was worth buying.

I guess I'll have to hold back on this one...

[SteamWake]

The one sim I have that has game physics is MOH Pacific Assault. If you kill an enemy soldier you can run into him and his body moves. Kill one in the water and he floats, plus he moves when you run into him. Water is so real looking that the dead floating can be seen above and below the water's surface. Shoot boxes and barrels and they move. And, I'm running it with an XFX 6800 XTreme 256mb 256bit card. If this is part of the physics advancement in graphics, it sure is cool. :)

Pffft not all that impressive.

You want to see some cool physics play Oblivion. No processor required.

[CaptainHaplo]

Physics Cards are not to improve the graphic. They are designed to calculate the movement of objects, fluids, gases etc... They relieve the CPU not the GPU. CPU is not designed to calculate such things.

However basicly it will improve the graphics in some way. Explosions, Fires and Fluids looks much more real. Objects that are being destroyed look much more realistic. Many things can be moved and fly around at same time.

in example you can have a game where you see cars crashing in each other and you can calculate the deformation in real time making every crash look different.

Dead on - thats what I said :D

And to the gentleman regarding Vista running SH4 - vista doesnt HAVE DX9 - only DX10 (run dxdiag and see) and never heard of DX9Ex so uhm... ok. You got your view, I got mine - I simply am reporting the difference in actual gameplay. Seeing as how vista has more stuff in the background tying up cpu cycles, I am sticking with my view. But hey - its all good if ya disagree.

[GT182]

MOH PA is the best I've got SW, but it works and looks good to me. I only play the WWII sims and FS9. I don't really care for the fantasy stuff, I'm too old for that. ;)

[Chuck B.]

Physics Cards are not to improve the graphic. They are designed to calculate the movement of objects, fluids, gases etc... They relieve the CPU not the GPU. CPU is not designed to calculate such things.

However basicly it will improve the graphics in some way. Explosions, Fires and Fluids looks much more real. Objects that are being destroyed look much more realistic. Many things can be moved and fly around at same time.

in example you can have a game where you see cars crashing in each other and you can calculate the deformation in real time making every crash look different.

One thing to keep in mind is that while the Physics Cards indeed calculate the physics (if the game has dedicated support for this specific Physics Card (since there is no real standard at this point), otherwise the impact is exactly 0%) and thereby relieving the CPU of some work, the graphic card still has to display the improved physics. The tests of GRAW that I read stated that the graphics with a Physics Card actually slowed down, since the implementation of the Physics Cards was used to IMPROVE the existing physics model, thereby creating more fluids, explosion fragments, particles, etc. that were calculated very fast by the Physics Card, but required the graphics card to work harder, thereby slowing down the actual game ...

Totally useless at this point in time, IMHO.

[Rilex]

[
And to the gentleman regarding Vista running SH4 - vista doesnt HAVE DX9 - only DX10 (run dxdiag and see) and never heard of DX9Ex so uhm... ok.

Vista does indeed have D3D9. The entire Aero (Glass) interface is run by D3D9.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb173477.aspx

See figure 2.

And more information...

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb219801.aspx

[Fubar2Niner]

Hi all,
I guess I'm one of the lucky ones, or not depending on your view. I have a Ageia card and believe me it does work, very nicely too. But, and this is a big but, think on before you buy one. If like me you have 2x 8800 gtx cards and a independent sound card you'll be lucky if you can fit all four in your rig. I'm using a Asus P5N32E-SLI board and I have 2 choices sound card or PPU. I'll take my X-Fi Fatality first everytime. Also the 1000W PSU is a must, might want to look at your cooling also. If your lucky enough to find a mobo that can squeeze that lot on, you'd better have good cooling. Just my two pennies worth.

Best regards.

Fubar

[SteamWake]

Hi all,
I guess I'm one of the lucky ones, or not depending on your view. I have a Ageia card and believe me it does work, very nicely too. But, and this is a big but, think on before you buy one. If like me you have 2x 8800 gtx cards and a independent sound card you'll be lucky if you can fit all four in your rig. I'm using a Asus P5N32E-SLI board and I have 2 choices sound card or PPU. I'll take my X-Fi Fatality first everytime. Also the 1000W PSU is a must, might want to look at your cooling also. If your lucky enough to find a mobo that can squeeze that lot on, you'd better have good cooling. Just my two pennies worth.

Best regards.

Fubar

To quote myself Might want to consider one of these as well

1,000 watt power supply

http://store.pcpowerzone.com/pccotu1k10po.html

[EAGLE_01]

Hi all,
I guess I'm one of the lucky ones, or not depending on your view. I have a Ageia card and believe me it does work, very nicely too. But, and this is a big but, think on before you buy one. If like me you have 2x 8800 gtx cards and a independent sound card you'll be lucky if you can fit all four in your rig. I'm using a Asus P5N32E-SLI board and I have 2 choices sound card or PPU. I'll take my X-Fi Fatality first everytime. Also the 1000W PSU is a must, might want to look at your cooling also. If your lucky enough to find a mobo that can squeeze that lot on, you'd better have good cooling. Just my two pennies worth.

Best regards.

Fubar

To quote myself Might want to consider one of these as well

1,000 watt power supply

http://store.pcpowerzone.com/pccotu1k10po.html

Right, both of you. I was thinking it would require alot of power to run everything, and with energy comes heat.. I have fried mainboards before..:damn:

[FIREWALL]

I'm to tired to read all the posts so I should keep my mouth shut BUT,
somebody posted a link that had to do with quad core and this card and DX10 with a future game called Alan Quaid ? Out in 2008 ? The trailer was WOW!!!.

So who really knows where pc gameing heights will go in the near future.

[Chuck B.]

Hi all,
I guess I'm one of the lucky ones, or not depending on your view. I have a Ageia card and believe me it does work, very nicely too. But, and this is a big but, think on before you buy one. If like me you have 2x 8800 gtx cards and a independent sound card you'll be lucky if you can fit all four in your rig. I'm using a Asus P5N32E-SLI board and I have 2 choices sound card or PPU. I'll take my X-Fi Fatality first everytime. Also the 1000W PSU is a must, might want to look at your cooling also. If your lucky enough to find a mobo that can squeeze that lot on, you'd better have good cooling. Just my two pennies worth.

Best regards.

Fubar

Fubar, can you please elaborate a bit more on "it does work, very nicely too" - what games are you playing that support the card and what are the improvements you see in these games?

Thanks!

[FIREWALL]

Sorry All. :oops:

It's Alan Wake demo on utube that someone posted here.

A good seeme on this subject. Check it out.

[AJ!]

I really cant see any difference with the card.... HL2 proved that all the physics of a game can be handled fine by the CPU and GPU so apart from lightning the load a bit theres not much point in one.

They made a game called cell factor just to test this card and i can saftly say i was dissapointed. With SLI 7950gt cards with 512mb each, 4GB of the finest DDR2 ram and a Duel core 2.7 plus the Agiea card... The game ran terrible and i didnt see any physics displayed that couldnt already be done in HL2 without a physics card :down:

If you have the cash to throw at these things then by all means get one, just dont expect it to turn your machine into a powerhouse