PhysX PPU

[Khendon Sevon]

Could the world of gaming be getting another kick in the right direction? Games brought about the arrival of the GPU (graphics processing unit, i.e. video card). Desires for devilish detail and photorealistic settings have driven the continued research and optimization of such specialized processors.

Is the world now ready for a PPU? A physics processing unit? Taking away the load from the core processor (CPU - duh, central processing unit) would mean more realistic, inspired physics. Think of the possibilities! Wait, no. Better yet, check them out:

http://physx.ageia.com/footage.html

The cellfactor video made my heart nearly stop. Where is this leading?

As a guy going to college for game design, I'm stricken by the amazing potential this shows. Indeed, I have candy dreams of explosions, dynamic environmental interactions, and giant black holes slowly twisting ships into super-thin stretched strips of bacon.

I know there's been talk of this technology before. However, this is the first video I've ever seen of the PPU in action. I'm stunned, as you can tell.

Post your “ooo”’s and “aaaaaahh”’s here.

[Morgan Evanar]

I don't see this gaining ground due to the availability of dual core CPUs. Run the physics engine and AI on one core and the other threads on the other.

[Nathanial K'cansce]

Doesn't Oblivion use this Physics proccessing unit? Or rather, have the ability to use it?

[Pierce Tondry]

I was expecting something like this at some point. However, I'd just as soon not see an overabundance of dialed-up explosions in my games.

[Shawn]

Oblivion uses Havok. AFAIK, UT2007 will be the first game to support a PhysX PPU.

Personally, I'm not terribly impressed by anything they've shown so far. I think I'll wait until this is integrated with new graphics cards or something.

[Morgan Evanar]

You probably could do most physics calculations as a shader, and the math tends to benefit from simple/wide architechtures...

[Karl Valten]

Crap and I just tooled out a new Dell rig about a month ago. *sigh* Another piece of hardware to add to the list.

[Morgan Evanar]

You bought a Dell for gaming? O_o

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Dude, I got a Dell!

[Khendon Sevon]

Dell owns Alienware.

Not saying I'd buy an alienware.

[Morgan Evanar]

Originally posted by Khendon Sevon
Dell owns Alienware.

Not saying I'd buy an alienware. Heh. I work for Alienware. The smaller laptops are pretty nice. Anything with a P-M is good. The other stuff... well, I'll let you guess :p

The card has totally failed to impress. It's not like the first gen 3d accellerators, which at worst gave you the same framerate and made it look prettier.

[Karl Valten]

I bought an XPS 600 and added some components bought elsewhere. It's not a pure gaming rig, but it gets the job done. I got about a 500 dollar discount through Berbee Information Networks, so it was more feaible than an alienware.

[Morgan Evanar]

I wasn't saying you should have bought Alienware at all :p

A Dell desktop means you're saddled with the anemic P4, but for $500, it might have been worth it.

[Shawn]

Here's some framerate comparisons of the PhysX PPU running Cell Factor: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1056037

Framerates are virtually the same, and often higher with the PhysX card disabled.

[Khendon Sevon]

I just read through a bit of the thread: not having the hardware removes elements from the game that only a PhysX processor can handle.



I think this is really a matter of Aegia choosing the wrong type of thing to showcase their physics processor. Explosions are the easiest things to make dramatic, but if a cpu like mine can handle a couple hundred live bodies, a current-gen top-end cpu could probably handle a lot more. Neither, however, would be able to do fabric tearing, fluid flow(although I really didn't like the way Aegia did "fog" in their one demo), et al. Those are the kinds of things they should be making available in software mode specifically so that people without the PPU can say "Wow, this is a slideshow, I need one of these." Not, "Hey, this runs alright."

Additionally, the tests were done single player. It would be interesting to see the difference when in multiplayer.

Never the less, it's new technology, bound to suck at first. I wouldn't buy one yet.

[Morgan Evanar]

This is a technology that must not suck if it wants to succeed. That's my point. There was a blindingly obvious difference with the intial 3D accellerators. They made everything prettier, and usually smoother. There was no question about it. The results for this are something of a wash, and the hardware is obviously beta as things go.

[Khendon Sevon]

From what I understand, it took hardware accel. a while to move beyond software accel.

Let's hope this turns out to be a cool technology. It can only benefit us, after all.

[Morgan Evanar]

You're understanding wrong. The only people who used to use 3d accellerators were modelers and engineers. The low end was the 3DLabs Permedia.

Sure, some consumer cards, like the S3Virge were considered "3d decellerators" but within a few months Rendition released the Verite and 3DFX released the Voodoo. Even with the Virge, there was an imediate improvement in image quality, if only because of perspective correction and the most primitive texture filtering.