Ageia!

[Fibbles]

Didn't some one post something about add in cards designed to handle in-game physics, or was that on Bit?

Anyway,. here's more: http://www.ageia.com/, http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTExNjYwMTUzNjAyN1RkMWczNlNfMV8xX 2wuanBn

[2JSC]

I think some one posted something like this here - and wow, those will make a huge difference... but are they really needed? CUrrent cards(X850XTPE & 6800 Ultra) do perform pretty damn well, so why spend even more on top of that $600+ card?

[furious trout]

I think some one posted something like this here - and wow, those will make a huge difference... but are they really needed? CUrrent cards(X850XTPE & 6800 Ultra) do perform pretty damn well, so why spend even more on top of that $600+ card? I think it's going to be a while before you really start to notice the benefit of having one of these. But I can see the advantage of offloading all you physics calcs to it's own processor. In a post half life 2 development world real-time physics is going to become pretty standard, remember the days when people thought you were mad for buying a separate gpu? In the next 3-5 years I can see this going the same way, it's only a matter of time...^_^

[zer0]

so you guys realy think people will buy addon cards for this...

why wouldent mother board manufactuers include a physics chip on the mother board or even a built in part of the cpu or gpu that deals strictly with physics in and out of games... i beleve as soon as those cards become avalable other things will take the need for an add on card like that and eleminate it. to me this seems like something that needs to be on the mother board and given extra bandwidth we all know a pci bus would limit this type of card too much.

[furious trout]

so you guys realy think people will buy addon cards for this...

why wouldent mother board manufactuers include a physics chip on the mother board or even a built in part of the cpu or gpu that deals strictly with physics in and out of games... i beleve as soon as those cards become avalable other things will take the need for an add on card like that and eleminate it. to me this seems like something that needs to be on the mother board and given extra bandwidth we all know a pci bus would limit this type of card too much. I can see them possibly being integrated into motherboards but not into a cpu , the advantage of handing off the physics work would lost then...
It'll be interesting to see if any of the big console boys decide to put a physics chip in their next gen boxes....It seems unlikely that MS will this far along into the development of Xbox 360, but if Sony or Nintendo did that could be a big deal..

[Fibbles]

I can see them possibly being integrated into motherboards but not into a cpu , the advantage of handing off the physics work would lost then...
It'll be interesting to see if any of the big console boys decide to put a physics chip in their next gen boxes....It seems unlikely that MS will this far along into the development of Xbox 360, but if Sony or Nintendo did that could be a big deal..
http://www.ageia.com/pr_05182005a.html

I did read somethign about Sony using one.

Asus is in line to start making physics processors for computer use soon.

Back in 96, I had wanted a 3dfx Voodoo 3D card for MotoRacer. There were quite a few of them just starting to trickle out then, and both my dad and my best friend said that there would never be a 'serious' need for a 3D card. Almost a decade later and everyone has one, well, almost everyone. It's going to be a very fun time, with Creative making a dedicated sound accelerator and these new cards starting to get used. If it helps take the load off of my GPU, I'll definitly buy one. I do believe game makers have to write for them though, so you probably can't just buy one and expect it to work.

I think some one posted something like this here - and wow, those will make a huge difference... but are they really needed? CUrrent cards(X850XTPE & 6800 Ultra) do perform pretty damn well, so why spend even more on top of that $600+ card?Epic is using one for Unreal 3. The demo they showed, on a high end PC ran pretty sluggishly. If the physics processor does its job well enough, you might not need to buy the latest and greatest GPU to get a good game experience. That's where I think the biggest plus is.

[Delirious]

This might be slightly off topic but doesnt the xbox 360 with its ati card have 10mb of very fast memory designated to handle things like this?

I think its the job of the video card manufacturer to put these on theyre vid cards, it wouldnt hard, it would drive prices even higher.

[furious trout]

I think its the job of the video card manufacturer to put these on they're vid cards, it wouldn't hard, it would drive prices even higher.
I'm not sure that this the implementation we'll see, all of their literature states that the idea is to offload the physics from the CPU & GPU allowing them to do those jobs more efficiently.

Of course that doesn't mean it won't happen. But initially I suspect it'll be add in cards we see coming to market. Possibly sooner than you think, it seems they're middleware dev tools are being used in some fairly high profile projects currently in development for pc and consoles so I suspect we'd better get used to the idea sooner rather than later :mellow:

[Delirious]

I think its great, even if you need to shell out more money. This would bring a performance upgrade to any video card old or new (9800 pro etc.) correct?

[furious trout]

It should yeah, but as fibbles said earlier I'd imagine the code would need to be aware of the hardware to be able to use it. But potentially what you say is correct, in a few years time you could possibly delay the upgrade of your GPU by using a dedicated physics chip. And lets face it who here doesn't like the idea of more groovy technology to play with ^_^
Not to mention the advance in gaming it could bring about B)

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

Shuttle users wount be happy with another add in card for games. :lol:

[Squelch]

Shuttle users wount be happy with another add in card for games. :lol:Hmm no comment <_<

I've been watching this progress. I remember someone saying it could even be used on the memory bus ie a special memory module that would appear as normal memory but in physics mode it reserves an area for input and output from the calcs. I can't find the original reference but will look for it.