AGEIA respond to ATI physics..not with benchmarks but with excuses

[Sharkypal]

“I'm taking a little stab in the dark here (well, semi educated) but Pottsey appears to be something of a 3D graphics hardware enthusiast. One thing that we can't deny is that the PhysX card is an extremely clever idea (ignoring the implementation for a moment) and that seems to be something that gets Pottseys 'juices flowing'.
Am I close Pottsey? - I checked out the links in your sig...”
That’s pretty much 100% right, I cannot deny being a 3D graphics hardware enthusiast. I found the past two generations of PC 3dCards to be relative boring just more of the same. So hardware physic both on the ATI GPU and by AGEIA are festinating to me as its something new and fresh with lots of potential. Same for the recent mobile phone and PDA 3Dchips those are festinating. I hope the DX10 3dcards go back to be interesting like the older generations. We need something more then just a new generation with xx speed improvements.




“Do you own an Ageia card too? Just out of interest ”
Not to sure if that was aimed at me or kdd. I own the 256meg Asus PPU. My current games are Ghost Recon, Switchball and Cellfactor. I look forward to UT2007, Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends & the real big game for me is Sacred II.




”Pottsey just out of curiosity if you aren't an ageia employee why are you such a staunch supporter of physx cards? I can't see anything to be excited about tbh, everyhting displayed so far has been overwhelmingly crap tbh.”
I truly believe Ghost Recon is only the start and the rest of the games will make much better use of the PPU. The PPU has lots of potential and I personally believe Ghost Recon is barely stressing or using much of the PPU’s power. I also don’t think Ghost Recon is as bad as people say as the physics effects in motion are good but there is room for improvement. Too many people got stuck on first impressions and didn’t notice or don’t believe the problems have been fixed. Now that is partly AGEIA’s fault but I don’t think it’s fair.





“what cases would they be then? what cards out there can you directly compare pci and agp performance with?“
A PCI kyro is the same performance as an AGP Kyro as the card doesn’t need the extra bandwidth from the AGP slot. I believe it’s the same for Voodoo 5’s the PCI cards are no slower then the AGP cards.

The reason I don’t believe in using a cards raw speed as a measurement. Is because its often miss leading. Take a Kyro 1. Its core speed at 115Mhz with two pixel pipes and one TMU per pipe gives a pixel/texel rate of 230Mpps/230Mtps. For comparison that’s less raw power then a TNT 2. For those that don’t remember TNT2 are per Geforce 1 cards. Yet in benchmarks and games the Kyro is around the same speed sometimes faster then a Geforce 2 MX.

If you go by the raw specs you would think the kyro was useless running at TNT2 speeds but it doesn’t in games. What if the PPU is like a Kyro and the ATI card is like the Geforce. ATI might have more raw speed but it doesn’t mean they are faster they could both be the same speed. It’s to early to tell either way. ATI could be x5 faster or x5 slower.

This guy just wants attention. He's figured out that if he keeps arguing this utopian fantasy that Aegia is somehow A : Good and B : Worth the money, that people will keep replying.

Lets just say there was a video card out there that ran 1 game and had a questionable future? How well would it do?

Bottom line is, you've made your point Pottsey. You like Aegia, you bought the card etc (Buyer's remorse maybe?) In my mind there is no way to make the present situation vis a vis Aegia positive in anyway. Honestly, its like me showing up at my mates tonight and saying "Buddy, look at this Porsche 959 I bought for 7K", and then telling him it has no wheels, engine or dashboard.

Whether it will be successful remains to be seen. My money is on no, and thats my opinion. You are of course entitled to your's Pottsey. I think it is safe to say that we know where you stand and it may be time to stop stirring the pot.

S

 

[james.miller]

“what cases would they be then? what cards out there can you directly compare pci and agp performance with?“
A PCI kyro is the same performance as an AGP Kyro as the card doesn’t need the extra bandwidth from the AGP slot. I believe it’s the same for Voodoo 5’s the PCI cards are no slower then the AGP cards.

The reason I don’t believe in using a cards raw speed as a measurement. Is because its often miss leading. Take a Kyro 1. Its core speed at 115Mhz with two pixel pipes and one TMU per pipe gives a pixel/texel rate of 230Mpps/230Mtps. For comparison that’s less raw power then a TNT 2. For those that don’t remember TNT2 are per Geforce 1 cards. Yet in benchmarks and games the Kyro is around the same speed sometimes faster then a Geforce 2 MX.

If you go by the raw specs you would think the kyro was useless running at TNT2 speeds but it doesn’t in games. What if the PPU is like a Kyro and the ATI card is like the Geforce. ATI might have more raw speed but it doesn’t mean they are faster they could both be the same speed. It’s to early to tell either way. ATI could be x5 faster or x5 slower.

That's not many cases pottsey, that's one card that doest require enough bandwidth to saturate the pci bus, let alone the agp bus. Its very much ide vs sata isnt it? we dont know how much bandwidth is required by a ppu because ageia is keeping very quiet on the subject. There is no reason why it wouldnt perform better on a pci-e interface. I Honestly believe you have to move a lot of info between the cpu,gpu and ppu and i believe a pci-bus wont hack it.

 

[ihatelag]

LOL wicked but still not a games developer - but I will accept that you're a very smart cookie

I guess another reason for keeping the observations to something we all know is that as the end user we want to know about what is directly relevant to us.

I am a games developer (mostly consulting), but I can't say where though (otherwise I would have said earlier)... because one of the games we're creating here is using novodex/PhysX SDK (not the one im working on) with the physx API lol..go figure! (I hate being last to hear about such things!) I was also told off for slagging it off...guhh. Well nvm, I guess we have to wait and see what will work out best.

Well, in the mean time Steve, check out the specs of the PhysX API and tell me if im qualified enough to speak on the topic.

http://www.ageia.com/developers/api.html

So...as my boss says, "Novodex is a great stepping stone towards getting better physics realism in games today..and with time comes the pay off, with better looking games and a greater immersive experience..." or something like that! Hehe I forgot what else the boss said... my ipod was working OT then!!

Well you all know my opinion. (same as my bosses )

*Edit*
Aha, I asked my boss what would have happend if I didn't tell him about this, he said I would have lost my job immediately And If I told the company name...I would be in total fudge! He pointed out there was a contract I signed (when I started work) that will cause me major problems if I discussed where I worked (Big time fines).

/me *waves big AGEIA flag*

 

[SteveOBHave]

I am a games developer (mostly consulting), but I can't say where though (otherwise I would have said earlier)... because one of the games we're creating here is using novodex/PhysX SDK (not the one im working on) with the physx API lol..go figure! (I hate being last to hear about such things!) I was also told off for slagging it off...guhh. Well nvm, I guess we have to wait and see what will work out best.

Well, in the mean time Steve, check out the specs of the PhysX API and tell me if im qualified enough to speak on the topic.

http://www.ageia.com/developers/api.html

So...as my boss says, "Novodex is a great stepping stone towards getting better physics realism in games today..and with time comes the pay off, with better looking games and a greater immersive experience..." or something like that! Hehe I forgot what else the boss said... my ipod was working OT then!!

Well you all know my opinion. (same as my bosses )

*Edit*
Aha, I asked my boss what would have happend if I didn't tell him about this, he said I would have lost my job immediately And If I told the company name...I would be in total fudge! He pointed out there was a contract I signed (when I started work) that will cause me major problems if I discussed where I worked (Big time fines).

/me *waves big AGEIA flag*

MMMMPHHH - BWAHAHAHAHA - Now THAT Alanis is IRONY!!!!

M8y, you just made my day LOL

EDIT: My physics is a little rusty and my knowledge of coding in relation to a physics API is non-existant so I shant attempt to pass judgement on your being qualified to comment on the PhysX API

 

[ihatelag]

MMMMPHHH - BWAHAHAHAHA - Now THAT Alanis is IRONY!!!!

M8y, you just made my day LOL

EDIT: My physics is a little rusty and my knowledge of coding in relation to a physics API is non-existant so I shant attempt to pass judgement on your being qualified to comment on the PhysX API

It's all good..btw I am having people look over my shoulder watching me write this so...I need to look like im doing something for the next 25 mins, then im off to watch the football with the lads. Hehe.

Here is a flavor of the work at the moment. I am creating an RTS game. It has tanks and a few sides.

That's all I can possibly say on what I am working on...time to go do some work lol it's getting a little bit crowded. I'll be back after the England game! GO ENGLAND!!

 

[Subtlesnake]

Gigaflops aren't a meaningful measure of real world performance.

The Cell has 216 of them, the X800 XT has up to 200 of them. Which do you think is better at graphics?