AGEIA physics cards, due in december?

[JohnDoe641]

It's gonna have a hefty price tag and right now the only game I'm really playing is ut2k4. As soon as 2k7 is out, I'll be moving to that, but until then I'm going to wait for the ppu price to reduce since 2k4 doesn't support a physics card.

[jolle]

If 3dsMax picks up support for Ageia, THEN I might buy a physics card for the physics simulations, but at these prices, not for "only" gaming.. not yet anyway..

I have my doubts on Havok FX idea, sure the GPUs are powerful these days, far more powerful then a x86 CPU (at the tasks they are designed to perform), but I fail to se how there should be so many free cycles&memory on the cards to not hurt rendering performance while offloading physics, if its going to offload it in any serious way..
I guess it has to work good enough for Havok to market the thing, so.. we just have to wait and see..

[Redeemed]

I have my doubts about GPUs functioning as PPUs. I bet a dedicated Processing Unit could wipe the floor with today's greatest GPU when it comes to physics.

[superklye]

I have my doubts about GPUs functioning as PPUs. I bet a dedicated Processing Unit could wipe the floor with today's greatest GPU when it comes to physics.
It would be sweet if Havok would work WITH Aegia...think about all the money they could make. It seems pretty stupid for them NOT to be with them.

[Redeemed]

It would be sweet if Havok would work WITH Aegia...think about all the money they could make. It seems pretty stupid for them NOT to be with them.


I agree completely. Great move, HAVOK.

[superklye]

I agree completely. Great move, HAVOK.
Like, seriously. How do they expect to make any money off of using the GPU as a PPU? That makes no sense to me at all.

[Redeemed]

I know- next Intel will claim that their new CPU's can render graphics better than a dedicated GPU. BRING IT ON!!! ;) :D :D ;)

[slick]

Bleh, Intel just doesn't understand.

Efficiency > brute force.

[jolle]

I have my doubts about GPUs functioning as PPUs. I bet a dedicated Processing Unit could wipe the floor with today's greatest GPU when it comes to physics.
Not so sure about that, but the GPU has alot of things to do already as it is..
I would GUESS there is more raw power in a top of the line GPU then on the PPUs.

[Redeemed]

I would GUESS there is more raw power in a top of the line GPU then on the PPUs.


Sure there is more raw power in terms of clock frequency, memory frequency, and overall ability to computer......... GRAPHICS.

But a processing unit that is DEDICATED (in other words, designed from the ground up to process physics soley and as efficiently as possible) is another story.

To say that a GPU has enough "raw power" to function as a PPU is like saying "Gee, CPU's sure are fast these days- I'm sure a high end CPU has more raw power than a GPU". That's only true depending on the context in which it is meant. To perform graphical operations the GPU has more raw power than even today's CPU. To perform general computations (for games AI, Physics, distributing instructions, etc) a CPU has the most raw power. And for Physics, the PPU would probably have the most raw power.

How many A64s could play F.E.A.R., Doom 3, FarCry, HL2, or HL2: Lost Coast with an old PCI (not PCI-E) Trident VGA card (non-3D Accelerated)? None. If any body tried this their frames would be single digit.

The same principle can be applied to the PPU.

[jolle]

Dunno how it works, but if the PPU is doing alot of Floating point Ops, a physics engine running off a GPU could prolly pull more power from it (if it wasnt used to render the scene), then the coming PPUs.. but again thats just my guess, it could be that the parallel nature of GPUs doesnt really help in this situation, or other stuff.. IE like you said it might not be as well suited for the task..

Anyhow, saw that SoftImage XSI Advanced 5.0 has added support for Ageia, in the physics simulations..

Ageia physX high-performance rigid-body dynamics
Using the state-of-the-art Ageia physX physics simulation engine, XSI v.5.0 delivers rock-solid, high-performance physical simulation as much as a 100x performance gain over previous releases. Features include totally new high-precision actual-shape collision handling, and full support for hardware accelerated simulation using the Ageia PhysX processor (available separately).

[Redeemed]

A PPU is a dedicated processing unit for physics calculations alone. This is just as the GPU is a dedicated processing unit for graphical calculations alone. Can a CPU ever do graphics as well as a GPU? No. Can a GPU ever replace a CPU? No. The same should be applicable to a processing unit designed from the ground up for and dedicated to physics calculations.

[jolle]

A PPU is a dedicated processing unit for physics calculations alone. This is just as the GPU is a dedicated processing unit for graphical calculations alone. Can a CPU ever do graphics as well as a GPU? No. Can a GPU ever replace a CPU? No. The same should be applicable to a processing unit designed from the ground up for and dedicated to physics calculations.

yeah I know, but just cause you have one certain chip dedicated to a certain operation, doesnt mean that another chip, dedicated to another task, which concists of the same type of operation only alot more intensive, isnt better..
A GPU has a massive amount of Floating point ops compared to a general purpous x86 CPU, but not the versitility, im not contesting that..
Im only saying that if the PPUs are ment to churn out FLOPS, then perhaps a GPU would be even faster at that, but prolly overkill and more expensive.. a PPU is optimal for the task ofcource..

IE perhaps a 6800GT for example might look like a 16 core PPU if the pipeline can be adapted to do physics, like Havok wants to do, or like some guys had GPUs do sound calculations, or Gelato uses it in more relatable GPU assisted offline rendering..
Modern GPUs are programmable and it seems you can use them anywhere you need fast Floating point operations, maybe physics requires a different type of operation, I dunno.. Im just speculating loosely..
but then again, the parallelism might not be a advantage..
Like Ive said, the PPU as it is, is more optimal, its been designed for the task, its cheaper and more streamlined for physics.

Im just speculating that if its Floating point ops you need, a 7800GTX GPU might have more power.. Not saying its better to have people buy graphics cards INSTEAD of PPUs or anything like that, it would be alot more expensive for one.. nor that Havok FX is a better idea then Agiea PPUs.

I just stumbled on this, heard about it, but havent read about it yet..
http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/8887
Here is a snip about FLOPS atleast:
A Pentium 4 at 3GHz, he said, peaks out at 12 GFLOPS and has 5.96GB/s of memory bandwidth. By contrast, a Radeon X1800 XT can reach 83 GFLOPS and has 42GB/s of memory bandwidth.
Cant seem to find any numbers on PhysX..

[SlamDunk]

If 3dsMax picks up support for Ageia, THEN I might buy a physics card for the physics simulations, but at these prices, not for "only" gaming.. not yet anyway..
You guys need to check out the AGEIA site, at least do one good thorough look. Seriously :p

http://www.ageia.com/developers/tools.html

While you're at it, why not check out my little dedicated PhysX news dump page: http://personal.inet.fi/atk/kjh2348fs/ageia_physx.html

[jolle]

Nice, so now both XSI and MAX supports the cards.

[Rakeesh]

A PPU is a dedicated processing unit for physics calculations alone. This is just as the GPU is a dedicated processing unit for graphical calculations alone. Can a CPU ever do graphics as well as a GPU? No. Can a GPU ever replace a CPU? No. The same should be applicable to a processing unit designed from the ground up for and dedicated to physics calculations.

Well, GPUs and PPUs work similar enough to basically perform the same function, whereas GPUs and CPUs are much different from one another. That isn't really the biggest issue with combining the two.

The primary issue with running physics calculations on a GPU is that the ultimate goal in doing anything with a GPU is getting a higher framerate. Now you aren't going to be getting a higher framerate when you pull some of the resources of that GPU away from graphics processing. It'll really depend on what is happening in the game at any given moment, but during physics intensive scenes you'd have to reduce the quality of the graphics, which essentially defeats the purpose of having all of that high end hardware.

If you want top notch graphics and heavy physics processing at the same time in any given scene, you are definitely going to have to have a separate GPU and PPU.

[nemecb]

It'll really depend on what is happening in the game at any given moment, but during physics intensive scenes you'd have to reduce the quality of the graphics, which essentially defeats the purpose of having all of that high end hardware.
True, unless you're like me and have no intention of getting a physics card when they come out. In that case I might be willing to trade from FPS for some cool water or particle effects. Of course that would depend on what I get for the tradeoff, but it might be worth it for some people.

That said, I agree that for the absolute maximum quality all around a separate PPU is required.