[fivefeet8]

Ageia announces PhysX processing unit

http://www.gamers-depot.com/interviews/agiea/001.htm
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/03/08/news_6119895.html

Here's an Interview with Tim Sweeney talking about the use of this new add in card with the Next UT.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/03/08/news_6119896.html

40,000 objects or characters? Much more realistic explosions and particle systems? Sounds good to me. Bring on the hardware Pysics processing.

 

[stilz]

This is awesome news, thanks!

 

[fivefeet8]

This is awesome news, thanks!

Yeah. I've always wondered about the physics limitations in most games. Even a game like HL2 which has a good physics engine is still limited in some respects. It would be nice to see a game with fully realistic physics.

I can imagine what this would allow in MMORPG's and Massive battles in strategy games like LOTR:BFME. It's also interesting that there are several mentions of this technology being in next gen consoles.

 

[D.D.]

interesting stuff ! kinda disappointing tho how its predicted that even in the future AMD and Intel's processors wont be enuff for games anymore. but cool nonetheless.

 

[Kane]

To be honest, I'd have thought they would be offloading AI first, given it's reliance on random numbers....

 

[fivefeet8]

kinda disappointing tho how its predicted that even in the future AMD and Intel's processors wont be enuff for games anymore.

That's one of the pitfalls of having general purpose computation processors I guess.

To be honest, I'd have thought they would be offloading AI first, given it's reliance on random numbers....

Haha. An AI processing Unit. I think some articles also mention an increased processing for AI as well if the PPU does well. I'm not so sure a reliance on Random numbers is more demanding than a reliance on large floating point physics calculations on thousands of objects.

 

[Kane]

I always though it woudl be a good idea to further parralelise and specialise common PC tasks.

About the random numbers, what I mean is, shurely there is technology to produce more random random numbers. I know the Winamp random number system is quite flawed, but as to whether that's CPU or program bound, I don't know.

 

[fivefeet8]

The PPU seems to be getting more industry support. Maybe we will see these PPU add-in boards at Christmas time.

UBi soft
http://www.ageia.com/pr_03082005b.html

Reality Engine Integrates
http://www.artificialstudios.com/news.php

Microsoft Announces XNA Studio
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/7778/Microsoft-Announces-XNA-Studio/

 

[GryphonKlaw]

It's about time they do something like this. When seperate physics processors become mainstream, we'll see some awesome fluid dynamics and real world physics. I can't wait. I wonder how much these cards are going to cost.

 

[stilz]

Yup, the "cost" is certainly one of the keywords here. It'd also be interesting to see if the production of the PPU cards ended up like the heated competition between ATI and Nvidia.

 

[Valcrist]

Bleh, see this is why I'm drifting further and further away from pc gaming, console gaming is just more comfortable and easier. The next gen consoles seem to be at the point where they will be able to keep up with pc's for some time to come any how. I'll leave my computer for computer stuff for now...make me want to buy a apple desktop more and more everyday...

/me hugs his new ibook

 

[Esturk]

Very cool stuff. Computers are becoming more interesting and powerful all the time.

 

[stilz]

to Valcrist: I agree that console gaming is certainly a lot easier, and in many ways more affordable than PC gaming (buying a console that lasts ~5 years vs. having to upgrade PC at least once a year if you are any kind of gamer at all). Though there are genres that would be quite awkward to play on a console, namely RTS and for some, FPS. Which makes me wonder why they didnt make consoles have wide support for mouse/keyboard in the first place.

BTW, being able to have 40,000 objects simultaneously sounds like a very good thing for strategy/RTS games. Imagine Dynasty Warriors not having a bunch of useless dummies just standing there again.

 

[fivefeet8]

Yup, the "cost" is certainly one of the keywords here. It'd also be interesting to see if the production of the PPU cards ended up like the heated competition between ATI and Nvidia.

One of the linked articles above state that the prices of these PPU cards are going to be affordable. Probably below the $200 mark. For too long have games been limited by how much physics can be computed on your CPU. With these PPU we may see the first games to actually have real world physics.

 

[fivefeet8]

Bleh, see this is why I'm drifting further and further away from pc gaming, console gaming is just more comfortable and easier. The next gen consoles seem to be at the point where they will be able to keep up with pc's for some time to come any how. I'll leave my computer for computer stuff for now...make me want to buy a apple desktop more and more everyday...

It's interesting to note that there were suggestions of next gen consoles also having some type of PPU.

 

[fivefeet8]

Looks like Sega is joining the PPU bandwagon.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050308/86096_1.html

Wow. I can only dream of what SEga can come up with if they designed a game to fully use the power of the PPU.

 

[Kane]

Do Sega make any PC games other than ports of console games?

 

[Keith]

Admin Triple Postng

.. yeah it would be cool to have PPU cards that were affordable and would a great enhancement to the already great gaming experience.

 

[GryphonKlaw]

I wonder how they are going to scale back the physics for those who don't have a PPU or an inferior one? Will devs have to do physics like how they do graphics with all those different render paths.

 

[Kane]

I suppose they'll scale back the number of concurrent physics affected objects, much like you scale back particle effects, etc.