Ageia preps PCI Express games physics card

[dafloppyone]

By Lars-Göran Nilsson [More by this author]2nd October 2006 14:53 GMT Find your perfect job - click here from thousands of tech vacancies Physics processor chip specialist Ageia is about to launch a PCI Express version of its PhysX card, the company told Reg Hardware today. Considering that Ageia had PCI-E and PCI production samples in March, it's a wonder it has taken them this long to announce product.

Ageia admitted there won't be any performance benefits from the move to PCIe x1 over PCI, and it said that it's not even close to using up the bandwidth that the PCI bus offers. The new cards will be announced on 12 October and should be available shortly thereafter.
Also announced today is a new version of the Ageia PhysX SDK - version 2.6 to be more precise - which adds Windows Vista 64-bit and Linux support, along with a set of new deformable objects and self-collision prevention capabilities. Expect a set of new drivers based on the new SDK in the near future.

The Linux support in the SDK should make it easier for Mac versions of games to support PhysX, although there are already third-parties working on this. Age of Empires is one of the first Mac games that support the PhysX API, although only in software so far.

Ageia is also going to announce a new benchmark for its physics cards, called Realitymark. This will be available shortly and will give anyone who owns a PhsysX card a good idea how much it improves your system performance and image quality when you're running PhysX-enabled games. Realitymark is based on CellFactor: Combat Training rather than being a synthetic benchmark. ®







http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/10/02/ageia_pcie_x1_physx_card/


Bets on how long it takes for pottesy to replY!

 

[fornowagain]

I was gunna say, its been 30 seconds and no Pottsey

 

[FreeStream]

Still not worth buying one.

Ill stick with my 3.6ghz Conroe.

CR.

 

[VeNT]

I was gunna say, its been 30 seconds and no Pottsey

well atleast we've had that time without his annoying quoting technique

its not going to make ANY difference, right now the cards are pointless as no games realy benifit from them

 

[Cyber-Mav]

whats the point of this, no one is bothering to buy the card in pci format and they think that pci express packaging will boost sales? they must be dumber than they look.

 

[Hxc]

One day Physics cards will really be worthwhile, I personally think we can count on that

 

[Pottsey]

It seems like a waste to me and is only to please the idiots who think PCI Express is better then PCI. The same people who think 256meg cards are automaticly better then 126meg.

Are there really that many people who want a PPU and don’t have a spare PCI slot?

 

[Borden]

If i were to buy a PPU (which i will never do until i see a real benefit) then i would have no spare PCI slots as i have a dedicated soundcard and wireless card. I suppose it will only be useful for people in my position who would want a PPU. I find it annoying that all new motherboards have PCI espress x1 slots now but there are hardly any cards that are sold on the PCI express interface.

 

[uvarvu]

If I win the lottery I'll buy the entire UK shipment and take them to the tip.

 

[Bry]

Im glad they are going to PCI-E, as the amoutn of PCi slots on my mobo is very small. However, ims till hoping these cards will die and cease to exist. Will dual core cpus and quad core's around the corner i really think it would be betetr (at elast for the consumer's) if one core can't be dedicated to physics rather than needing yet another card in your pc

 

[rippling]

Still not worth buying one.

Ill stick with my 3.6ghz Conroe.

CR.

whats your rig? how do you get it to 3.6 ?

 

[lay-z-boy]

It seems like a waste to me and is only to please the idiots who think PCI Express is better then PCI. The same people who think 256meg cards are automaticly better then 126meg.

Are there really that many people who want a PPU and don’t have a spare PCI slot?

Dude what are you on?

PCI-E > PCI by thousands of miles.

PCI needs to die as fast as possible, even if that means releasing pointless hardware like physics cards on the arch.

and 256 cards are better than 128 if they have the same processor.