gandalf the white 0 Posted May 21, 2005 Reading it... but I don't see how it works? so it's not replacing the CPU, but it'l be a piece of hardware that will take the task of calculating physics instead of the CPU? Sounds... promosing , but won't this mean motherboards will have to be adapted? or will it use PCI-X ? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MATRA 0 Posted May 21, 2005 As I said in other threads Im looking foward to this, but AGEIA has to work hard with developers for the PPU API be acepted. Personaly, I think the future game of BIS is the ideal game for all the AGEIA´s features, but only time will tell if this new addin card have the sucess that 3DFX had when they lunch the Voodoo cards. Another thing that bother me, is the price tag between 250€ and 299€, its a lot for something that totaly new to the world of gaming. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MATRA 0 Posted May 21, 2005 Quote[/b] ]so it's not replacing the CPU, but it'l be a piece of hardware that will take the task of calculating physics instead of the CPU? Thats exactly what it does . AGEIA’s PhysX is the world’s first Physics Processing Unit (PPU), which offloads software physics processing from central processing units and graphics processing units to it. The architecture of the PhysX PPU is tailored for multi-threaded processing of vertexes, which allows game creators to develop detailed, soft and precise animation and simulation of movements, hair, clothing, liquids, fluids and other. Currently AGEIA PhysX is the world’s first and only dedicated physics processing unit. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MATRA 0 Posted May 21, 2005 Quote[/b] ]Meanwhile i'm thinking of bumping up my GeForce 5700LE 128MB to a 6800GT 256MB AGP just for Flashpoint 2. Excellent. When the game arrives the 6800GT will be a "old" card. The G70, the new nVIDIA grafics card will be presented in less than a mounth So if you are upgrading just for the new game, its not worth it, you can buy a card a lot better later for the price you ll bought a 6800GT now Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MATRA 0 Posted May 21, 2005 One presumath that you are talking about card with 512MB of GDDR3 RAM persay? Expensive they sound, a good card i would like. All for Operation Flashpoint 2. I think i'll start saving now. GeForce 7800 GTX (G70) Specs 0.11 micron process TSMC 430Mhz core / 1.4GHz 256MB GDDR3 memory 256-bit memory interface 38.4GB/s memory bandwidth 10.32Bps Fill Rate 860M vertices/second 24 pixels per clock 400MHz RAMDACs NVIDIA CineFX 4.0 engine Intellisample 4.0 technology 64-bit FP texture filtering & blending NVIDIA SLI Ready (7800 GTX only) DX 9.0 / SM 3.0 & OpenGL 2.0 supported G70 comes with 3 models; GTX, GT and Standard 256Mg Curse later the 512 will apear too. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gandalf the white 0 Posted May 21, 2005 They also said there would be a 512 MB for the Geforce 6 series... quite frankly, I don't believe there will... Matra, I also don't see why you are posting your system specs in your signature... does it help anybody? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MATRA 0 Posted May 21, 2005 Quote[/b] ]Matra, I also don't see why you are posting your system specs in your signature... does it help anybody? Ur right Gandaf, , but in thw foruns I usualy am we do this a lot, because it help here I simply didnt know what to put in there, when I remenber something Ill change it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BlackScorpion 0 Posted May 21, 2005 My upgrades before OFP2 (all pretty darn shure - had this PC for 1.5 years, without upgrades) include, and are propably limited to... New CG. New harddrive. More RAM. New screen (very propaby). New CPU (though AMD Athlon 3000+ is still good, right?). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heatseeker 0 Posted May 21, 2005 Too expensive, they better drop the price significantly because not many are willing to pay that much just for physics, plus if it doesnt become standard no one will develop anything with it, though it sounds like the perfect solution for large scale games such has the OPF sequel. I think this will be forgoten with the introduction of more powerfull cpu's, or even multiple cpu systems, we dont know. Not everyone builds their own custom machine or choose their parts, i dont see Dell's being supplied with this kind of hardware or games having a 300€ physics hardware piece in their system requirements, i dont think it will go far . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Batstat 10 Posted May 21, 2005 ... I think this will be forgoten with the introduction of more powerfull cpu's, or even multiple cpu systems, we dont know... I hope u are wrong, this wil boost the gaming experince beyond our wildest dream. If needet I wil eat bread, drink water for a month to save moeny for this chip. Finaly somthing worty to spend money on If semiconductor company Ageia has its way, the PPU (physics processing unit) will soon join the CPU and GPU as another hardware component that has a major effect on gaming performance. Current CPUs are only powerful enough to support 30 to 40 physical objects that you can interact with onscreen, but systems with a PPU add-in card will be able to support more than 30,000 objects on screen http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/03/08/news_6119896.html OK "If .. has its way", Sweeney is not sure he either. But look at the image on Ageia home site: You can't do this realtime and ingame. Maybe if you drive your car by your self and in real life The SDK utilize multiprocessing system. Acording to my memory BIS has not promised support for multiprocessing system yet, so the dev team get this also for "free". Anyway and sadly, for OFPII I can't see how BIS could switch to use this PPU now. Its to late in the dev cycle I think. I'm already looking forward to OFPIV Â Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RUKH 0 Posted May 21, 2005 I´ve been waiting for something like the PPU since forever... Just think of the ballistics, driving and flight calculations it can do. (I heard this on another forum so it´s just from the top of my head) Think of it like this, the cpu wouldnt be a very effective way of rendering speculars and bumpmappings would it...just as bad would it handle physics. All it does is streamlines all calculations with a dedicated unit build for the job with special tools inside. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Batstat 10 Posted May 21, 2005 Hopefully the waiting are soon over. To sucseed Ageia only need one good game to sell a lot. Then all gamers wil blow the brain out, and scream for more. The ball wil start rolling. In OFP there are a lot of gas station scattered around. Think of it, you break the tank, gasoline wil flow out, following the terrain! Then you ignite it, he he. Hopefully people stop doing this in real life when they can simulate it ingames. Maybe Moors law stil wil came true, measured in game realisme. Â Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heatseeker 0 Posted May 21, 2005 Yeah but another expensive piece of hardware to upgrade every now and then, more driver updates, more compatbility issues, problems... i dont know, i believe some time from now CPU's will have the juice for it, i do see how this could save cpu in OPF sequel but i dont see many people paying 300€ for this, maybe if the price drops . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Batstat 10 Posted May 21, 2005 Yeah 300 Euro is a lot of money. I tried to google for the price of firct 3dFX voodoo cards, but did not find it for sure. I was not among the first to buy it either. But I think the first 3D GPU cards was pretty expensive also. If the PPU chip become reasonable popular, the price wil drop fast. If ATI and Nvida also se this as a new marked it wil drop faster. The fact that the SDK help out using more than one CPU, wil maybe push dev teams to use it. How many among us, was happy with software rendring, we wantet the real thing. I'm not quit sure about the multiprocesing part and using the SDK. Maybe you have the use the chip also, to utilize the multiprocessing part. The white papers are not crystal clear in all aspect. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gandalf the white 0 Posted May 21, 2005 oh ffs, you all want every brick from a house to crumble when you fire an AT round at it, but you're not willing to pay for it? I agree it's an outrageous price, but we're going to step into a new era of gaming here! you'll have to pay it one way or another (invest more in a CPU). When allot of games support it, i'll save money for it Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Daddl 10 Posted May 22, 2005 The problem with this card is that it's proprietary technology. Until M$ starts supporting this directly in a future DirectX version it will be expensive and not very widespread. Only then will gfxcard or motherboard manufacturers start implementing something like that in their designs. Don't get me wrong: it's a great step forward, just as the old Voodoo cards were.Nevertheless it will just go the same way as the glide api: down the drain as soon as the 'big ones' start making their own standard. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kegetys 2 Posted May 22, 2005 I find it a bit odd that there are very little technical details available about the whole thing, the "white papers" they have on their site are mostly just PR talk. I couldn't even find a document that would say anything about what kind of license the Novodex SDK is available under, is it free to use or do developers have to pay a big load of cash to use it? How exactly does the chip work, what does it do in hardware, and why is the chip locked into that one single SDK? It's a nice idea, but something like it would need to be alot cheaper, and I very much doubt that you could actually get what people seem to be dreaming about with it. If you have 100 000 bricks in your game world, it isn't enough to just calculate the physics for them, you need to render them too and that means alot of work for the CPU and video card. If they do manage to get support for it and make some "cool" demos then maybe something like this will be mainstream in 2-4 years, but I doubt "OFP2" would need to worry about it. I havent seen a game that would properly use these "advanced" physics yet anyway (Well, Stair/Truck Dismount maybe) even though you can do quite nice things already using the CPU alone. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gandalf the white 0 Posted May 22, 2005 Kegety's, in Farcry I have seen screenshots (playable) where they rendered over 10 000 animated objects, I don't recall exact numbers, but "17 000" jumps to mind... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Scrub 0 Posted May 22, 2005 From Tom's Hardware Guide: Quote[/b] ]Asus first to integrate Ageia's physics chip May 17, 2005 - 20:29 EST Asus and Ageia reached an agreement to use the PhysX processor on add-in boards. According to a statement released by Ageia, Asus will develop boards using the chip and bring commercial products to market within this year. Further details such as features and pricing have not been released. Link.. nothing more Mainstream Physics, anyone  From Ageia's site: Quote[/b] ]Add-in Board VendorsASUS Computer: Will develop and market add-in boards with the AGEIA PhysX processor, the world’s first and only dedicated physics processing unit. Products are expected within 2005, coinciding with the release of popular game titles incorporating AGEIA physics technology. Console Manufacturers PlayStation©3: AGEIA is developing powerful physics-based middleware for the PlayStation 3 based on AGEIA’s NovodeX physics software. As the only multithreaded physics software in the industry, AGEIA’s NovodeX physics software is uniquely suited to harness the new capabilities of next-generation game consoles such as the PlayStation 3. Game Developers/Publishers Atari: Using AGEIA’s NovodeX physics software in Dragonshard™, a real-time strategy game based on the Dungeons & Dragons® universe created by Wizards of the Coast. Atari’s Shiny Entertainment Studio: Creator of Enter the Matrix™using AGEIA’s NovodeX physics software for physics-based martial arts action and gunplay, as well as physics-defying stunts and aerobatics in upcoming game titles. Big Huge Games: Targeting the AGEIA PhysX processor for hardware acceleration of upcoming real-time strategy game Rise of Nations:Rise of Legends. Bongfish Interactive Entertainment: Incorporating AGEIA’s pioneering physics technology into snowboarding game Stoked Rider featuring Tommy Brunner. Cryptic Studios: Source code agreement to use AGEIA’s NovodeX physics software as core physics engine for upcoming City of Villains and other next-generation titles. PerfectPlay Entertainment: Building first game Metathrone Project from ground up with AGEIA physics technologies. Phantagram Co.: Korean developer and creator of Kingdom Under Fire series using AGEIA’s NovodeX physics software for its upcoming title for the Xbox 360. Ritual Entertainment: Source code agreement enabling Ritual to integrate AGEIA technologies, such as AGEIA’s NovodeX physics software, into their own core technology. Spark Unlimited: New Pandora game will list AGEIA PhysX processor as minimum system requirement as part of larger technical and marketing partnership. Ubisoft:Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 3 is leveraging the unique multithreaded capabilities of AGEIA’s physics software to harness the power of next-generation consoles. Link ME LIKEY! Edit: added info Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RUKH 0 Posted May 23, 2005 small clip from Simhq e3 review showing some short ppu action. http://www.simhq.com/_technology/technology_053e.html (look under technology) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gandalf the white 0 Posted May 24, 2005 yeeeees I'm sure the left one is fake, but right... *wants PPU* Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heatseeker 0 Posted May 24, 2005 Ah! and how will this work in MP may i ask? Wont this increase data transfer and cause major lag, desinc and latency problems? Or are these abundant physics stuff client side? Even so it would still increase data transfers betwean players and server and back to players considerably, no . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
