I'm tempted to pick up one of these Ageia PhysX cards.
It would take a bit of load off my 8800. I had some difficulty running CellFactor too without additional hardware.
Team - Will the Unreal 3 engine and/or BioShock in general take advantage of advanced physics processing? I understand DX10 has some additional processing for physics, especially with stuff like water. I wanna be prepared.
I think they haven't mentioned Ageia support yet. But because of the great physics it would certainly help to have a PhysX card, maybe just a bit (if the game is not optimised for that too).
geez... Technology these days
About five years ago all I knew is that computers were good for some internet games and stuff like these forums
then I got into real PC games and actually found out the power of how a graphics card can make your computer not act like shi- uhh... do these forums have censors? I've never needed to use strong language here that I know of... lol, nice comunity
anyway, now there are these new fangled Physics Cards? wow, and if I sound old from not being caught up with technology... I'm fourteen years old lol
I have Ageia PhysX software installed so I can play Roboblitz. What does the card do that the software doesn't? I'm sure quite a bit, but I'm not sure you would need the card if the software would do.
The PhysX card just handles the processing of the physics that's usually processed by the GPU. It basically lightens the load on the video card and lets the GPU do what its supposed to do - render video...not process physics algorithms.
BioShock utilises the Havok engine for its physics. Since the Havok and PhysX API's are different (and rival) I very much doubt the Ageia card would really improve the performance of the physics engine.
The Ageia software PhysX can do anything the hardware can do, although noticeably slower. The PhysX cards were designed with physics in mind and do calculations related to that very very fast.Originally Posted by MF9000
Umm, there seem to be some missunderstanding here. It's the CPU that do the physics, not the GPU. Granted, Havok recently released Havok FX that can do calculations on Shader Model 3 GPU graphic cards, but no titles out use it yet, and I doubt Bioshock will use it too.
I never liked the idea of PhysX cards, to be honest. And I don't think it have a good chance to become mainstream. Dual-core CPU setups are rather common now on gaming computers (even though I don't have it yet) and even quad-core CPUs are here, and soon from AMD too. Plenty of CPU power for physics. Sure the PhysX card do the calculations far faster than the CPU, but with multiple cores it barely matters. Havok did a lot of physics for Psi-Ops, a multiplatform game released in mid 2004. And it runs fine on a 300mhz PS2.
The big downside with PhysX (and Havok FX to some extent) is that they can't really do game related physics on them cause a too small % of the target audience have the needed equipment, and they want a large % to be able to play it so they make $$$. So the extra only stuff you get is eye candy physics, mainly for particles. And since the gain is so small, very few will buy it. But there won't be a larger gameplay gain until people have the cards.
We don't really need PhysX cards unless the software use an extreme amount of physics (physics for the character clothes, hair and so on, but that would make the game require such card and that would be a suicide from a market standpoint, since so few have it.
The only really demanding physics game I know of is Alan Wake, but that game is using Havok. But when they showed the game last fall at some Intel show, they actually recommended a quad-core CPU for it, and said multiple times that the game would be pretty unplayable on a single core CPU. They also showed a tornado ingame, which was very impressive and it became rather appearant why it needs so much processing power, at least in those kind of sequences. Even so, the game won't be out this year, and it will require Vista and I reckon that the vast majority of computers with Vista have a dual-core CPU. So they don't really loose much of a market % from it.
Hrm, this post became a lot longer than I expected
Thanks for the info Freddo. It looks like physics cards won't be making any in roads and right now a waste of money. Do you have any info on when AMD might be coming out with a quad core? I'm trying to hold off upgrading my motherboard/CPU until something significant comes out. Thanks again.
According to this article, AMD Phenom FX/X4 should come out later this year sometime in Q3. Would guess on september.
Ahha, good info Freddo. I guess I was a little misinformed. I was convinced that physics was processed by the GPU, not the CPU. Regardless, I have an Athlon X2 and tried Cellfactor. Obviously have the PhysX software installed, and it ran like crap. I can't say multi-core processors benefit all that much; i myself would much rather have a card dedicated to handling the physics and taking the load off my CPU that's already bottlenecking my performance.
A lot of owners of these physics cards agree in that respect. Not long ago, these cards were expensive ($250+) and really had no benefit for anything. People noticed small differences in Havok physics and such, but nothing mindblowing. Slowly people are taking advantage of it, and I think we'll see it being used more and more now that the cards are $140 or so. Probably not by the big games out there, but it still seems worth utilizing if not to merely lighten the load on other hardware. I'm still gonna go for it.
True. Cellfactor is rather demanding, but it's also a free piece of software that was developed from Ageia fundings. It started out as a small PhysX techdemo to make people buy PhysX cards, and then grew a quite a bit until the full version was recently released. But it's still just a techdemo in my eyes, and not the norm of the industry.
Let us know how it turns out. I would like to hear what you discover using the card.Ahha, good info Freddo. I guess I was a little misinformed. I was convinced that physics was processed by the GPU, not the CPU. Regardless, I have an Athlon X2 and tried Cellfactor. Obviously have the PhysX software installed, and it ran like crap. I can't say multi-core processors benefit all that much; i myself would much rather have a card dedicated to handling the physics and taking the load off my CPU that's already bottlenecking my performance.
A lot of owners of these physics cards agree in that respect. Not long ago, these cards were expensive ($250+) and really had no benefit for anything. People noticed small differences in Havok physics and such, but nothing mindblowing. Slowly people are taking advantage of it, and I think we'll see it being used more and more now that the cards are $140 or so. Probably not by the big games out there, but it still seems worth utilizing if not to merely lighten the load on other hardware. I'm still gonna go for it.
They said the same thing about the first 3D cards too.
Yeah, the company that made that (Artificial Studios) is in my home town a couple of minutes away. In fact, the brother of my best friend is a lead programmer there and another person I know does difficulty testing.
There are no more jobs for game testing though
They did?They said the same thing about the first 3D cards too.
In late 1997 and 1998 when the 3D cards were coming, the games were usually shipped in both a software version and a 3D hardware version. And the difference between those two was very noticeable (Quake 2, Half-Life, Jedi Knight, Redguard, Unreal and so on), and everyone I knew jumped on the 3D graphic card train and got themselves a Voodoo card. And by 1999 there were plenty of games already that required a 3D card.
It's been a year with PhysX now and basically nothing has changed. We don't really see many titles out there using it, and the few who does (Ghost Recon 3 - Advanced Warfighter) show a minimal difference, showing a few extra particles affected by physics. The only exception to this is Cellfactor, which is a techdemo.
There isn't a "rush" for these new cards, as it was back when Quake 2 was the king of games and everyone wanted to play the "good" version and bought the hardware to do so.
What PhysX needs is a "Quake 2", but I don't see that happening. Instead it's Alan Wake that show an extreme amount of physics (go to 3:54), and it's all done by the CPU.
Last edited by Freddo; 05-15-2007 at 04:16 PM.
Bioshock is definitely using Havok? I hope it's the FX, then I can flog my shiny new GPU until it's a glowing molten rock
Seriously I do wonder if Ageia will survive at this rate, their cards are still pricey, and few games take advantage of them (those that do don't really fully utilise the PPU either). As it is Havok has its name on big titles so it's familiar and with Dx10 looking to incorporate physics, it looks like Physx is going to be crushed between the twin Behemoths of nVidia and AMD. It's a shame... but someone has to win the format war.
Gift.
Last edited by Giftmacher; 05-16-2007 at 03:01 AM. Reason: typos
I think I saw this discussed elsewhere, and as far as I know it I don't think BioShock is compatible with physics cards. Maybe the devs could shed some light on it.
I have no idea what physics engine BS will be using...but Havok seems to be the standard these days so i guess we'll see.Bioshock is definitely using Havok? I hope it's the FX, then I can flog my shiny new GPU until it's a glowing molten rock
The only thing Ageia is really producing now is the PPU chip and the software...other companies such as BFG are manufacturing the cards which is cool.
I think with the more complex the physics get (the progression of realism in gaming is only going to make this demand higher), we'll be seeing more hardware devoted to it.
I think I heard somewhere that it was Havoc.
I severely doubt that physics cards are of any use in games that do not have specially written relevant code. And so far no games of consequence have that. You all can just forget the whole thing. Unless Microsoft announces a next-gen console with physics chips, or something on similar scale, developers will not bother with this stuff.
I agree with that. Until Xbox360 came along with it's 3 cores, most developers didn't spend a thought about making their game multithreaded.
Granted, dualcores are still fairly new too, so it's a bit of a hasteful conclusion. But that's how it seems to me.
FYI - i just found this @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhysX
The Unreal 3 Engine also uses Ageia PhysX, resulting in a performance boost in all of the Unreal 3 Engine based games as well as offering physics that are not possible on a normal CPU core.
Physics cards are absolutely no use unless the game has code for them. This is why Ageia need titles out there to establish themselves, otherwise their cards (or BFG's cards utilising them to be more accurate) won't find a market.
Gift.
Last edited by Giftmacher; 05-16-2007 at 10:47 AM.
Interesting... Thanks. That's good to see, Ageia really need titles/engines like this on their books.
Gift.
The Unreal 2 engine used Karma for the physics, but many ignored that and used Havok instead. Like the older Irrational Games; Tribes: Vengeance and SWAT4. This is what Irrational call their Vengeance Engine.
Last edited by Freddo; 05-16-2007 at 11:20 AM.
Hoping this one doesn't stay at the bottom and gets answered by a dev member
UT3 will make use of PhysX cards, I was kinda hoping BioShock would as well.
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