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PhysX Accelerators

Don't bother. The games that do support it seem to exhibit an FPS drop if anything when the Phsyx card is in use. They're just a waste of money, at the moment anyway.

Have you not got 2x 8800GTX's anyway??
 
“Don't bother. The games that do support it seem to exhibit an FPS drop if anything when the Phsyx card is in use.”
That’s not been true in over 6 months, drivers have improved over the past year and games now get up to a 30% FPS boost with extra effects. Only the first game had a large FPS loss and even that was half fixed with patches and drivers so its no where near as bad as it was when the card first came out. Look at the newer games or older games with new drivers.





“There may be hundreds of games that use the PPU but I cant say I have seen a game to date that anyone has said "this games runs and looks 100x better with a PPU vs non PPU system".”
There are not 100’s of PPU games out there, there are 100+ Ageia games which is why Ageia will not go bust/die anytime soon but not all those games are PPU enabled.



EDIT:Another developer dumps Havok for Ageia.
http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/764/764975p1.html
 
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Pottsey said:
EDIT:Another developer dumps Havok for Ageia.
http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/764/764975p1.html
Click to expand...


Still struggling with that quote button Pottsey? :p JK

Well to be fair they were using Ageia from the start - curious call tho, unless I have the wrong end of the stick since Ageias Physx is hardware dependant they'll be cutting themselves off from a good section of PC owners.

Ageis marketing and management still seem to need a good slap - they just can't get it right. I'd hate to know how much of a cash cow the PhysX card has been on Ageia - seems from an outside view they could've done it a little more intelligently.

Save your pennies till the hardware is more applicable, currently it is just an addition to your central heating and with summer coming the need for it will be less, for at least the next 5 months anyway :D
 
Pottsey said:
“Don't bother. The games that do support it seem to exhibit an FPS drop if anything when the Phsyx card is in use.”
That’s not been true in over 6 months, drivers have improved over the past year and games now get up to a 30% FPS boost with extra effects. Only the first game had a large FPS loss and even that was half fixed with patches and drivers so its no where near as bad as it was when the card first came out. Look at the newer games or older games with new drivers.





“There may be hundreds of games that use the PPU but I cant say I have seen a game to date that anyone has said "this games runs and looks 100x better with a PPU vs non PPU system".”
There are not 100’s of PPU games out there, there are 100+ Ageia games which is why Ageia will not go bust/die anytime soon but not all those games are PPU enabled.



EDIT:Another developer dumps Havok for Ageia.
http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/764/764975p1.html
Click to expand...

dude do you work for ageia or something? :confused:
 
Gashman said:
dude do you work for ageia or something? :confused:
Click to expand...

Lord, don't start that again. No he doesn't, he happens to be something of an enthusiast in the PPU field - and whilst I personally think his trust in the PhysX product is a little misplaced - he has done some homework on the matter and has been following the development somewhat closer than the rest of us.

Aside from that, he's entitled to his opinion regardless of whether you agree with it or not. Lets try an intelligent counter discussion rather than random accusations about his working for Ageia - we cleared that one up a long time ago.
 
SteveOBHave said:
Lord, don't start that again. No he doesn't, he happens to be something of an enthusiast in the PPU field - and whilst I personally think his trust in the PhysX product is a little misplaced - he has done some homework on the matter and has been following the development somewhat closer than the rest of us.

Aside from that, he's entitled to his opinion regardless of whether you agree with it or not. Lets try an intelligent counter discussion rather than random accusations about his working for Ageia - we cleared that one up a long time ago.
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lol it was just an honest question, i mean how on earth am i meant to know he doesn't :rolleyes:
 
Gashman said:
lol it was just an honest question, i mean how on earth am i meant to know he doesn't :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Fair enough - read any of the other PhysX threads - every time Pottsey pipes up he gets slammed for being an Ageia employee. Sorry if it seems I snapped at you but it needs to be stamped on before it snowballs into another flame war.

I personally have quite a low opinion of the PhysX hardware and expecially for Ageias marketing and management departments - IMO they couldn't have made a worse hash of releasing a product.

Great idea, crap implimentation.

Again sorry - didn't mean to snap.
 
SteveOBHave said:
Still struggling with that quote button Pottsey? :p JK

Well to be fair they were using Ageia from the start - curious call tho, unless I have the wrong end of the stick since Ageias Physx is hardware dependant they'll be cutting themselves off from a good section of PC owners.
Click to expand...

Ageia's Physx API is not hardware dependant. It will run in software on the CPU (multiple core or single) if a PPU is not present.
 
SteveOBHave said:
Has that changed since the GRAW days? I was pretty sure it could only be properly enabled if the PhysX card was present.
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I think that was a decisions made by the developers. Obviously you wouldn't want to have effects that are comutationally expensive running on the CPU so the developer would only enable additional effects when a PPU is present. However I believe it can all be run on the CPU.

Gears of War on the xbox 360 uses Physx for its physics simulation. That runs on a CPU.
 
“Originally Posted by SteveOBHave
unless I have the wrong end of the stick since Ageias Physx is hardware dependant they'll be cutting themselves off from a good section of PC owners”
Its not hardware dependant over 100 games are out that use it in software mode only. Some of the effects are not done in software as it’s to slow. Well they can be done in software but bring the FPS down to single digits so you don’t see them.

As for your comments on Ageia's marketing and management, I couldn’t have said that any better. They are useless.

Back to the Ageia API is actually very popular with developers. Its only the hardware which is takeing a while to take off.


For those interested a new Cell Factor: Revolution Interview http://www.planetphysx.com/weblog/archives/2007/04/cell_factor_revolution_intervi_1.html#more

At last marketing had a good idea
http://techreport.com/etc/2007q1/gdc/index.x?pg=3
Its not enough but if the games good could help kick start the hardware.


EDIT:
What’s going on with GPU physics? API has been out over a year and the hardware a while now. By now I was expecting there to be more Ageia API games out along with hardware GPU physic games out.
 
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Thinking about it fairly, it seems that Aegia have had a bit of a problem with this since day one.

I mean to get developers to use your physics solutions, you need to give them an incentive, like a good, solid support base at consumer level.

But to get that support, you need to get the big names to start supporting your physics solution.

Although I really think it would help if there was a bit more choice as far as the hardware goes. I would buy one of these for UT2007 if it was a little more cheaper. Maybe Aegia should consider a "cut-down" version with not as many effects?
 
Pottsey said:
EDIT:
What’s going on with GPU physics? API has been out over a year and the hardware a while now. By now I was expecting there to be more Ageia API games out along with hardware GPU physic games out.
Click to expand...

From what I am given to understand ATIs GPU physics kinda stomped all over Nvidias version in the demos and Nvidia have now gone all quiet on it. ATI is still in development but haven't produced a final product. Incedentally there are a number of motherboards out there that have 2 PCI-e x16 slots and one graphics expansion slot in them so there is obviously some level of industry anticipation.

So far Ageia does seem well placed to get a good hold on the PPU market if they can sort their proverbial out. The flip side, from my perspective, is that if they are going to compete with the opportunity of using a £40 GPU to do a similar job to the PhysX hardware they have two things to catch up on - lower price on the PhysX card and/or totally out of scale performance - but so much of that lays on the lap of the games developers that I believe Ageias PhysX hardware to still be a little precarious.

Good on them for covering bases a bit with making the API available as a software component - it certainly puts it on a more even keel with Havok.
 
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