Ageia PhysX?

ElfjeTwaalfje

Nope no way. No better effects, only more. Like lense flare once the 3D video accelerators were able to do "lense flare". Every game had lense flare. Uch yuk.

BWX

???? Huh? Physics cards doing the lens flare? Where did you hear that?

Logla

I was really tempted to get one of these but judging by what software actually uses them and how it does so (GRAW) I'm not impressed.
Plus the fact that you get a frame rate drop because of the extra stuff happening on screen I dont really see the point.
These cards were surely meant to help speed up the system not bog it down with extra eye candy.

BWX

What I would like to see is the results of the exact same scene being rendered with and without the PhysX card.. (without the extra eye candy, just the normal eye candy)
If there is a large gain in frames in complex scenes... that alone would be a good reason for people to start buying these cards.


Why they don't start advertising that benefit, I do not know. If there is no benefit there.. they need to design the drivers to create one.. and do it soon.

Cannyone

I'm not interested in Ageia's solution. When I recently read an interview with Tim Sweeny, he pointed out that all it can be used for at the moment is "eye candy". The reason is simple the "bean counters" at the software publishing house get the final say... So since not everyone has a physics processor, or can afford one, "eye candy" is all you will get. (Please remember, they want to sell their games to as many people as possible!) If the physics that affect gameplay depended on one of these processors then allot fewer copies of the software would be sold.

I do agree with Logla and BWX, if it took some of the load off the CPU or GPU, and improved framerates in most games, it would be a "must have" product. If all it does is cause a drop in framerate, due to the extra "stuff" being rendered, I'll pass. Thanks very much!

The only solution that still appeals to me is ATI's idea of using dissimular cards in a Crossfire board. This would allow me to upgrade the way I want to (buy one top of the line video card at a time) and keep the last card I purchased for processing the physics, a.k.a. "extra eye candy". And I'm sure something like an X1800 would be just as good at processing these kinds of things as this Ageia solution is now. In addition is might actually be able to add something to the render stream, so as not just to bog the system down... (Anyway that my 2¢ worth).

peterosesbookie

I am very interested in this if companys will incorporate this product into audio and videoediting programs out there. I would love to use this and make my system less stressful in processing the HD format of movies that I make.

The only way that there will be a gain in frame rates is when this card goes PCI-Express where it has its own pipelines to work with the Graphics card and CPU. I would like to see in a 4x or 8x pipeline instead of the 1x pipeline I saw photos of the prototype. The prototype was both pci and PCi-Express (card could be flipped over).

greets

clark

electrickrypt

^^excellent point.

It has potential, but it is just way too early. Ageia seems to be in a rush to make money... not good. Though, eventually, we will all need one of these just like the dedicated sound and video cards. It WILL evolve.

Dedicated sound, video, && physics... sounds like another dimension in gaming, like a 3rd dimension. ... . Go to the 4th dimension and you're in virtual reality. (some random theories) But I also cant help to think of how fast the processors are improving.