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Cellfactor and Physx
- Thread starter Flanno
- Start date
I have read all the threads here and don't want to provoke an argument. I just wanted to know if anyone with a physx card downloaded this free game which was built from the ground up for physx; and did it offer tangible improvements besides the reported framerate increases. Reviews are not too clear on this. This will give me an idea hopefully of what to expect when UT2007 and Hellgate come out later this year, as I may get one then if they are available in pci-e form factor.
By the way, another 2gigs ram would probably be an even bigger waste for me.
By the way, another 2gigs ram would probably be an even bigger waste for me.
As far as I know that was when GRAW came out. Since then there has been newer physix drivers and updates for many games and physx does give a framerate improvement...at least from what some members of these forums who own these cards have posted. Also from readimg the early Cellfactor reviews there are even levels that are so physx dependent they won't run without a physx card, presumably because the cpu is slow or maybe because the developer wished to showcase the abilities of physx in these levels. I would like to know what the eye candy and effects are like in this game with a physx card v without.
The main difference with and without the physx card is when you enabled fluid dynamics and cloth effects in cell factor, without a physx card these will pull you down to 5fps max even on a 4+gig conroe... turn these off tho and theres little difference in performance as the game doesn't use enough "primitive" physics objects to bog down most CPUs...
Marketing ploy ? Eh ?
Of course they will put stuff into the game to showcase physx since it was designed from the ground up with this in mind. And of course they will hope this draws awareness to physx and it sells more cards. But the game is free so am downloading it now myself.
Just read a review on Techage which was pretty positive.
"The entire game is centered on the use of the Ageia hardware. While you can use it without, 3 of the 5 levels will reduce your experience to a slide show and personally, this isn’t what most would consider enjoyable. To use the PPU to its fullest, the in game characters can certainly be used to stress the PhysX card."
<edit>Thanks Rroff. In your view do these effects make a visible difference to how the game looks or plays. If this is the sort of thing we have to look forward to in UT2007 I am wondering is the 130 quid investment worth it, for effects which can be simply turned off. I guess my question is how much difference do these type of effects make to gameplay</edit>
Of course they will put stuff into the game to showcase physx since it was designed from the ground up with this in mind. And of course they will hope this draws awareness to physx and it sells more cards. But the game is free so am downloading it now myself.
Just read a review on Techage which was pretty positive.
"The entire game is centered on the use of the Ageia hardware. While you can use it without, 3 of the 5 levels will reduce your experience to a slide show and personally, this isn’t what most would consider enjoyable. To use the PPU to its fullest, the in game characters can certainly be used to stress the PhysX card."
<edit>Thanks Rroff. In your view do these effects make a visible difference to how the game looks or plays. If this is the sort of thing we have to look forward to in UT2007 I am wondering is the 130 quid investment worth it, for effects which can be simply turned off. I guess my question is how much difference do these type of effects make to gameplay</edit>
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Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
to be fair, and maybe it will be a good comparison, i've downloaded it but yet to install it. my current view is they are useless, the effects they can do aren't realitive or needed in gameplay, merely enhance a couple graphical effects. i'm solely, right now, on the side of, prettier dress on some chick that can look damaged more realistically, or better water effect will not affect gameplay at all.
i could be wrong, i'll smack it on, run with and without the effects, even if it is at 5fps you should be able to see them and see if they make a single bit of difference to you.
but, and this is a big question, the physx chip isn't massively fast, or with a huge transistor count so how much can it really do. maybe it does a couple of effects in such a way that it only works well on their hardware, but could be programmed to work well on a different kind of architechture? i don't know the answer simply.
i could be wrong, i'll smack it on, run with and without the effects, even if it is at 5fps you should be able to see them and see if they make a single bit of difference to you.
but, and this is a big question, the physx chip isn't massively fast, or with a huge transistor count so how much can it really do. maybe it does a couple of effects in such a way that it only works well on their hardware, but could be programmed to work well on a different kind of architechture? i don't know the answer simply.
Associate
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- 6 Nov 2005
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- 173
drunkenmaster said:
For the kind of calculations the PPU is designed to do it is pretty fast. The only other similar type of hardware that can do the same calculations at a similar speed is a GPU. However, this is already tied up doing graphical calculations. At present GPU physics is also purely for graphical effect and does not effect gameplay.
The type of calculations the PPU can do cannot currently be run on a CPU at playable framerates.
Having said that if you don't like any of the games that the PPU supports it is probably a waste of money.
Caporegime
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- 8 Jul 2003
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- In a house
Theres a thread on it in the Games section here 
carlazai said:
Because my old spec couldnt run any games very well.. the ageia ppu is only used for 20ish games
my spec can be used for all games... so it wasnt a stupid comment at all
Its £120 for a fan as someone said in the other thread... if it was used for more games, games that people actually played and got rated high etc etc then it wouldnt be such a waste of space and more importantly, money...im not gunna post in here anymore, dont wanna be reeating myself from the other thread
“I've seen benchmarks when them crappy cards actually decrease FPS.“
No PPU games decrease FPS anymore. One game that had PPU support tagged on last min form 8 months ago that had a performance bug that has since been fixed does not count.
Please stop spreading miss information. GRAW had a major bug that caused a performance problem the patch notes talked about a fix that worked. All the evidence points towards the CPU not havein enough power. Even the tech specs of how a CPU work say its not a good choice. Most if not all PPU games get a decent performance boost from a PPU now the drivers are no longer new and have been worked on.
“Marketing ploy anyone.”
Did it every accrue to you that perhaps the CPU really is to slow at physics which is why cloth and liquids cannot turn fast in this game or any other?
“the physx chip isn't massively fast,”
It’s only about 50x faster then a single core at physics.
No PPU games decrease FPS anymore. One game that had PPU support tagged on last min form 8 months ago that had a performance bug that has since been fixed does not count.
Please stop spreading miss information. GRAW had a major bug that caused a performance problem the patch notes talked about a fix that worked. All the evidence points towards the CPU not havein enough power. Even the tech specs of how a CPU work say its not a good choice. Most if not all PPU games get a decent performance boost from a PPU now the drivers are no longer new and have been worked on.
“Marketing ploy anyone.”
Did it every accrue to you that perhaps the CPU really is to slow at physics which is why cloth and liquids cannot turn fast in this game or any other?
“the physx chip isn't massively fast,”
It’s only about 50x faster then a single core at physics.
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Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
Pottsey said:
that doesn't really mean anything, if one cpu can do 50 trillion calculations a second, and one cpu can do 10 million a second, but those 10 million are specifically geared towards one thing it might be faster in that one thing. it doesn't mean its a faster chip. also, i think the physics cpu's could easily be manipulated to be incredibly good at something the cpu is specifically not very good at, and make the software aimed at the ppu. while a different set of software could indeed run very well on a cpu. its a suspicion, theres no way to prove or disprove it. as i've said before many many times, you don't need 100% accuracy to model a simple falling object, its overkill to take into account every minute detail because the end result will look almost identical to a well setup estimating engine that simply takes some things for granted, but can be run on minimal power while uber realism can't. they are purposely putting in a lot of overly accurate stuff that simply does not need to be there.
