Aegia PhysX @ Bit-Tech

[mousiness]

For any of you guys that are wanting or driven to buy the Aegia PhysX adapter this might drive you to buy one right away or make you wait a little, its a pretty good review and one of the only ones ive found so far...
After months of promises and delays, AGEIA PhysX PPU retail cards are now available for consumers to buy, following the OEM launch with partners such as Dell and Alienware. Unlike ATI or NVIDIA graphics cards, which are typically available from at least half a dozen different partners, AGEIA enter the market with just two: ASUS, and BFG Technologies. The latter were the first to supply us with a shipping retail boxed hardware, the unit we are reviewing today.


http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/05/08/bfg_ageia_physx_ppu_review/1.html

[werty316]

There are just tons of reviews of this card. Franky its a waste of $ as there is no killer app for it. Interesting enough I read that nVidia might make drivers for SLi rigs so that one card is devoted to process physic calculations which might be interesting.

[Johnie]

Exactly...its too expensive atm...and also no appropriate games/applications to support it (exept GRAW...but that only 1 exeption). I will rather wait until Nvidia and ATI make their own Physics cards or integrate that into current graphics cards...cause that was it will surely be faster and more recognized (and more game manufacturers will join them for sure)...not to mention that price will surely be lower (or they will offer more for the same price)...;)

[werty316]

nVidia has their Havoc engine; I can't wait to see what it brings.

[Johnie]

Exactly...and not that it will surely bring more joy...but also all that for lower price (at least I believe so)....so it's surely worth the extra wait...because others will follow sooner or later too...:-D ;)

[mousiness]

whoever bought one now is rich or an absoulte enthusiast, not very many games have those capabilities and by the time that that card will actually be used it will be half price and there will be better physics cards out by then too.

[werty316]

I think GRAW (Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter) is the only game. With th card there isn't even a big change. The only difference I saw in the videos of GRAW is more debris.

[Kougar]

If you have any interest in a physics card, this should be good read. Frankly, I agree that it's highly likely the tech will simply be subsumed into the GPU itself before it can emerge as it's own secondary graphics market, although it could be interesting. Imagine playing a game that recognizes you have a physics card, and automatically increases the special effects for debris, explosions, and other events to use it, whether it's on the GPU itself or not.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060514-6828.html (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060514-6828.html)

Tim Sweeney ponders the future of physics cards

Everyone agreed that 3D acceleration cards were "the future" when they first came on the scene in the late 90's, but it took some time for that future to emerge. I remember testing an early ATI card that actually ran more slowly in accelerated mode than using pure software rendering. By the time the first 3DFX card emerged, however, the benefits were obvious. Games like Tomb Raider and Doom 2 looked so much better with 3D acceleration that nobody wanted to buy a non-3D card again.

[z3r0C00L]

There are just tons of reviews of this card. Franky its a waste of $ as there is no killer app for it. Interesting enough I read that nVidia might make drivers for SLi rigs so that one card is devoted to process physic calculations which might be interesting.

Ummm nVIDIA will not devote one card entirely to physics. It will be more of a load balancing issue.

Should perform poorly on current gen nVIDIA hardware (due to the lack of a dedicated branch execution unit).

ATi's x1K hardware on the other hand is where Physics should take off. Even a lowly x1600XT beats out a 7900GTX in Dyanamic branching performance (due to teh dedicated Branch Execution unit found in x1K hardware).

ATi have also stated that it will be possible to use an x1600XT as a dedicated Physics processing unit and another ATi card as your main VPU (like x1900XTX for example).

You could also use two x1900XTX's in Crossfire and have each card load balance the physics. Either way... ATi's performance in Physics calculations should prove to be 4-5 times faster if not more then nVIDIA's current colution (G80 may change that).

Here's an article on it.

PC Perspective (http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=226&type=expert)

http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/226/perfgraph.jpg

Different ATi configs:
http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/226/cards1.jpg
In a current generation system shown above, the CPU is doing the physics work, the GPU is doing the graphical work.

http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/226/cards2.jpg
ATI is telling us that their cards will also support rendering and physics acceleration in a single GPU configuration as shown here. If the game being played, at the resolution the user selects, is able to render more frames than necessary per second than required for adequate visual quality, the extra GPU cycles can be utilized in physics calculations.

http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/226/cards3.jpg
An even better solution, for the user and for ATI, is that you have two ATI GPUs that can split the rendering and physics calculations between the two different cards. What is most impressive to me is that ATI has assured me that these two cards do not have to run in CrossFire mode, and thus they do not have to be the same GPU. If you have an X1900 XTX now, and in about eight months you buy a new ATI 2800 XTX, you can save your X1900 XTX for physics calculations. As of now, NVIDIA has said they do not support this feature but see the value in doing so. Hopefully that means the feature will be coming soon as the upgrade opportunities this offers readers are fantastic.

[mousiness]

what you said is true, ATI's X1K series has many more advanced features than nvidias cards, ive read of many of the physics features of the X1K series especially the x1900xtx series, sure, the speed might not beat out the 7900GTX, but the physics sure will.

[werty316]

I don't think the whole Physics calculations in games will take off for a while since there is no killer apps to take advantage of it, Cell factor will be a big factor come 2007; GRAW was just a joke to promote this card as the game didn't change much at all when a Physics card was used compared to if it wasn't; it isn't justified for anyone to go out and buy an AGEIA card since nothing really uses it.

[mousiness]

yep true true just as i mentioned in less detail before, eventually physics adapters will be integrated into video cards, but ofcourse like integrated graphics will be less quality if integrated.

[Johnie]

...at the end of a day...who really cares about this card...because from all articles that I read...I made a simple conclusion...and that is...lack of supported software/games and way too expensive for those few more rocks that fly by almost at random (so no real physics afterall)...at least thats what I read...that that debris isnt flying not even close to how it should with all this high-tech-physics calculations being done...dont know...who cares about rocks...hahahahaha...I rather get more details and speed...cause they surely more than compensate for this AGEIA's toy performance...:mrgreen: :twisted: :cool: :p :-D

So AGEIA or not...doesnt really matter to me...;)

[werty316]

I am with Johnie and don't give a,... if you know what I mean? You can have all the physics crap you want in a game but if the gameplay/game sucks then who cares about flying debris if its not a good game ;)

[Johnie]

Even Johnie couldnt said that better....congratulations werty316! ;)

Afterall...since majority is against any demolition, wars and other explosive stuff...we may say that we dont need such card....because i.e. in Tetris it doesnt do any good....(or maybe with this card...we could force tiles to bounce back into just the right spot in case we put them where they dont belong)!? :p :mrgreen: ;)

And since dreams are allowed...just imagine if we could force Kitty to jump higher and further with help of AGEIA...anyone tried that? I believe even 10Kft would be possible if the physics were calculated as they should be...:mrgreen: :p :-D ;)

[mousiness]

werty im completely with you on, couldntve said it better myself

[Kougar]

For anyone interested in following the tech, here's a just released update.

BFG PhysX and Performance Updates (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2759)

As for games which will include PhysX hardware support, the only three out as of this week are Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (GRAW), Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends (ROL) and City of Villains (COV). Rise of Legends came out last week, and we have been extensively testing it. Unfortunately, PhysX hardware support will only be added in an upcoming patch for which we have no real ETA.

---

Ideally, the PhysX GPU will not only reduce the load on the CPU (or GPU) by unloading the processing of physics code, but will also give developer the ability to perform even more physics calculations in parallel with the CPU and GPU. This solution absolutely has the potential to be more powerful than moving physics processing to the GPU or a second core on a CPU. Not only that, but the CPU and GPU will be free to allow developers to accomplish ever increasingly complex tasks. With current generation games becoming graphics limited on the GPU (even in multi-GPU configurations), it seems counterintuitive to load it even more with physics. Certainly this could offer an increase in physics realism, but we have yet to see the cost.

[Johnie]

Nice advertising stunt if someone asks me...just to sell more of them...:mrgreen: :p

It surely may reduce the load on CPU and/or GPU....but not as much as they would like to show here...and even if...then there will surely be "more trafic" across that CPU-PPU-GPU pyramide...so some other parts might slow down as a result of that...well nevermind....thats just my opinion...BUT...I am still 100% sure that best way would be to have everything integrated on 1 card...GPU&PPU...it would surely be faster if nothing else...the only question is...how much data approx. is transfered to this PPU for some game physics calculations?...I think that PCI-E bus can easily transfer few more MB/s because of PPU data (or are we talking bigger numbers?-guess not)...:cool: :p ;)

I know for myself that I will wait few more months until all this settles down and new similar products come to market...and they decide (cause if nothing else...price will surely drop and better,faster physics cards will come by)...;)

[mousiness]

johnie what you said about having the PPU on a single card is a good idea, but also not a very good idea, it would be like having IGP graphics, and then, the cards would become too big and would need crazy cooling IMHO.