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Physics Cards
- Thread starter Biohazard
- Start date
The games do need to be coded to make full use of the PhysX card. But even then it is a waste of time.
Some tests I have seen show the difference between a game coded for PhysX played with and without the card.
Biggest difference: The flags in the game didn't wobble.
So basically a PhysX card is the best way to spend a lot of money on something that more or less is pointless.
SiriusB
Some tests I have seen show the difference between a game coded for PhysX played with and without the card.
Biggest difference: The flags in the game didn't wobble.
So basically a PhysX card is the best way to spend a lot of money on something that more or less is pointless.
SiriusB
Associate
- Joined
- 27 May 2006
- Posts
- 97
- Location
- Teesside UK
Hi, I would save your money for now and wait another 12 months or so and see how it takes off and read any web reviews on them etc, as if you buy now you are just wasting your dosh.
Associate
- Joined
- 23 May 2006
- Posts
- 295
aye bit of a flop at the mo. The new Ghost recon uses them but i don't think they do a lot extra in that apart from take some of the burden of the CPU. I think ATI are making a driver for the second card in crossfire to do physics calculations.
Processors still have to do a lot of AI calculations for games, well untill some one makes an AI card.
Processors still have to do a lot of AI calculations for games, well untill some one makes an AI card.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 8 Jul 2003
- Posts
- 30,063
- Location
- In a house
Yeah ATi are doing Physics with Havok, as said above its using crossfire, but the 2nd card is solely used as the Physics card, means you can pair any cards together e.g x1900 and an x1600, as you would use the x1600 solely for the Physics, id wait and see which one comes out on top, id say it would be the Havok as even an x1600 working as a Physics card destroy's the Ageia ones.
Associate
- Joined
- 1 Mar 2004
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- 859
- Location
- Cardiff, UK
Personally I cant wait till we get to the stage where Crossfire/SLI is the norm, with one old card (eg. 2 x X1900XT's and a X1600XT) being used as the physics PU.. But, can you imagine the power consumption of that beast!?
“so far... it reduces the FPS.“
in 5 out of 6 games it boosts FPS and it doesn’t matter anyway as its job is not to boost FPS. When it does reduce FPS its for such a sort amount of time you cannot see it, less then half as second. Now with new drivers and patch’s it often boosts FPS. I got 104fps without the PPU and 111 with the PPU in Bet:On Solider and extra effects. Average was the same with and without the PPU, average was 60.
When the minimum FPS is so short you cannot see it then it doesn’t matter. I don’t understand why so many people get all worked up about 3 frames being low out of 60 per second. Minimum FPS is only a problem when it’s for a long time.
“id say it would be the Havok as even an x1600 working as a Physics card destroy's the Ageia ones.“
Please don’t make stuff up. There have been no benchmarks to compare the two and in fact know meaningful numbers on *** x1600. We have no idea which is faster or slower. There is no way to tell if x1600 will destroy Ageia.
“I take it that these will only really make any improvement on new FPS, or do games need to be coded to use them?”
Games need to be coded to make use of them. For the most part you neither lose or gain FPS all you get are better physics. If you turn off the better physics and just use the PPU you gain FPS over not using the PPU.
With Bet:ON Solider I gain FPS with the PPU then when I turn on the new liquids my FPS goes back down to the level it was without the PPU. So I am happy with it.
in 5 out of 6 games it boosts FPS and it doesn’t matter anyway as its job is not to boost FPS. When it does reduce FPS its for such a sort amount of time you cannot see it, less then half as second. Now with new drivers and patch’s it often boosts FPS. I got 104fps without the PPU and 111 with the PPU in Bet:On Solider and extra effects. Average was the same with and without the PPU, average was 60.
When the minimum FPS is so short you cannot see it then it doesn’t matter. I don’t understand why so many people get all worked up about 3 frames being low out of 60 per second. Minimum FPS is only a problem when it’s for a long time.
“id say it would be the Havok as even an x1600 working as a Physics card destroy's the Ageia ones.“
Please don’t make stuff up. There have been no benchmarks to compare the two and in fact know meaningful numbers on *** x1600. We have no idea which is faster or slower. There is no way to tell if x1600 will destroy Ageia.
“I take it that these will only really make any improvement on new FPS, or do games need to be coded to use them?”
Games need to be coded to make use of them. For the most part you neither lose or gain FPS all you get are better physics. If you turn off the better physics and just use the PPU you gain FPS over not using the PPU.
With Bet:ON Solider I gain FPS with the PPU then when I turn on the new liquids my FPS goes back down to the level it was without the PPU. So I am happy with it.
Soldato
- Joined
- 10 Apr 2004
- Posts
- 13,497
X1600 has the potential to beat it, it has a lot more power.
and yes, its really not worth £200, get a better GPU/CPU/mobo/mem
CR.
and yes, its really not worth £200, get a better GPU/CPU/mobo/mem
CR.
“X1600 has the potential to beat it, it has a lot more power.”
It has a lot more graphical power. But when it comes to physics its got a lot less physics power.
Just look at the internal structure of the two cards. Ageia has a peak instruction bandwidth of: 20 Billion/sec way more then ATI. They also do 533,000/sec sonvex-convex collisions and 530 Million/sec sphere-sphere collision on the PPU. If ATI have more power please show me a links saying they can do that much physic work. The last number I read from ATI said 20,000 collisions which very far off half a million that Ageia do.
None of the specs ATI have given have been anywhere near the level of Ageia. The only spec ATI gave which was better then Ageia had nothing to do with physics so even though it was better it doesn’t mean it’s faster at physics.
Now I don’t want to flat out say Ageia is faster until I have seen benchmarks. But as the tech specs show Ageia as faster and there haven’t been any benchmarks. I fail to see how people can say for sure ATI has more power faster.
It has a lot more graphical power. But when it comes to physics its got a lot less physics power.
Just look at the internal structure of the two cards. Ageia has a peak instruction bandwidth of: 20 Billion/sec way more then ATI. They also do 533,000/sec sonvex-convex collisions and 530 Million/sec sphere-sphere collision on the PPU. If ATI have more power please show me a links saying they can do that much physic work. The last number I read from ATI said 20,000 collisions which very far off half a million that Ageia do.
None of the specs ATI have given have been anywhere near the level of Ageia. The only spec ATI gave which was better then Ageia had nothing to do with physics so even though it was better it doesn’t mean it’s faster at physics.
Now I don’t want to flat out say Ageia is faster until I have seen benchmarks. But as the tech specs show Ageia as faster and there haven’t been any benchmarks. I fail to see how people can say for sure ATI has more power faster.
the physics processors ar still in their first generation, the technology has prooved it can make a small differance now we just have to wait for the technology in these processors to evolve to a leavel in which they can take all the physics processing away from the CPU or GPU.
the way desktop gaming systems are headed now is the way of the supercomputer, losts of processors each dooing a part of the whole operation. eventualy we will have a gaming rig with up to 8 possibly more physical processing cores, just as many GPUs and seperate processors to take on physics and sound. Somone may yet develop another way of off loading processor useage from the CPU so that they can be devoted soly to the things they're needed to process. you could for example design a RAM drive with a built in processor dedicated to the operating system, the benifits there are endless!
the way desktop gaming systems are headed now is the way of the supercomputer, losts of processors each dooing a part of the whole operation. eventualy we will have a gaming rig with up to 8 possibly more physical processing cores, just as many GPUs and seperate processors to take on physics and sound. Somone may yet develop another way of off loading processor useage from the CPU so that they can be devoted soly to the things they're needed to process. you could for example design a RAM drive with a built in processor dedicated to the operating system, the benifits there are endless!