Physx card

[Boogle]

There are absolutely no recent (as in the last 12 months) reviews where the PhysX cards reduce performance. They never, ever decrease the FPS and to say so shows great ignorance.

On a related note, they're utilised so little that it only makes sense to get one if you have money to burn and a free PCI slot. I would argue if you do have the money to burn - just get a second GPU. The performance increase will be very noticeable, and the image quality increase will be significantly higher (lots more AA across the board, maybe higher detail too).

 

[Marc Fraser]

Well they are supposed to give you the same if not better frame rates whilst giving you loads of extra effects in game, in reality you get worse frame rates for some crappy extra effects and there is hardly any support for it. Unreal tournament 3 is its main hope but i bet it will be just like GRAW, lower FPS for a few extra sparks . UT3 has also been put back for the PC, the360 and PS3 will have it first, another nail in the coffin for physx.

Everytime a thread on the PPU comes up people say it is rubiish and use GRAW as their basis for it. GRAW has been proven to be an utterly useless example of what the PPU can do but but is brought up everytime.

People seem to conviniently ignore any evidence that shows the PPU to be quite useful.

Can you find another game that lowers FPS when the PPU is used?

 

[Participant]

is it worth forking out the £100 for the bfg physx card

Run away!

 

[Greenboi]

There are absolutely no recent (as in the last 12 months) reviews where the PhysX cards reduce performance. They never, ever decrease the FPS and to say so shows great ignorance.

On a related note, they're utilised so little that it only makes sense to get one if you have money to burn and a free PCI slot. I would argue if you do have the money to burn - just get a second GPU. The performance increase will be very noticeable, and the image quality increase will be significantly higher (lots more AA across the board, maybe higher detail too).

Or if you want an expensive case fan/warmer

theyre very good things to have....if youre a fanatic of the games that use them

I hope they take off in the future, though im happy with the havok engine, it seems to be doing a good enough job of the physics we have at the moment, as im sure plenty here will agree

 

[evilcrowuk]

Can you find another game that lowers FPS when the PPU is used?

Is there actually any other games out there worth playing? The hardware never caught on and the performance was and still is dire, just go to their website and look what games they have that support it, its laughable for the time it has had to establish its self. And please, post up some links showing the cards performance in games actually worth playing. Todays GFX cards can easily do what the PPU does, only better.

 

[Marc Fraser]

Is there actually any other games out there worth playing? The hardware never caught on and the performance was and still is dire, just go to their website and look what games they have that support it, its laughable for the time it has had to establish its self. And please, post up some links showing the cards performance in games actually worth playing. Todays GFX cards can easily do what the PPU does, only better.

The point of whether there are any games worth playing is not the point I was questioning. You have stated that it drops frame rates and the performance is dire. Pottsey has already posted plenty of links showing what the PPU can do and the fact it doesn't drop framerates in previous threads. The only game that has shown a drop in frame rate was GRAW when the drivers were very weak. If there are other examplels please post them.

Could you explain how the GPU can do physics better than the PPU?

Havok FX which supports accelerating physics on the GPU has been out for well over a year and not one single game yet supports it. Hellgate London will be the first. The current version of Havok FX will also only accelerate non gameplay physics. Any gameplay physics will still be run on the CPU.

 

[Squakingcow]

Any gameplay physics will still be run on the CPU.

The same is true for the PPU. All the boxes in cellfactor are still done by the cpu, and that's the only thing that affects gameplay

 

[Participant]

tbh, grapics cards as physics procs will prob serve better than physx

Tbh, you talk rubbish.

 

[Marc Fraser]

The same is true for the PPU. All the boxes in cellfactor are still done by the cpu, and that's the only thing that affects gameplay

Do you have any evidence to support this please?

As far as I was aware, when a PPU is present all of the physics calculations are handled by the PPU.

When a PPU is not present they are run on the CPU.

The PPU is specifically designed to offload all of the physics calculations from the CPU. Not just ones designed for special effects. This is the main difference between GPU accelerated physics and the PPU.

 

[Pottsey]

Boogle can I ask a big favour. You remember me right? I remember when you had the old longer name and we used hang around the same threads along with your website. Can you please confirm I was on the forums a lot back I 2002-2004 ish. Just so people know I am not lying. A lot of people still seem to think I work for Ageia and only sighed up recently.




“ Originally Posted by Squakingcow
All the boxes in cellfactor are still done by the cpu, and that's the only thing that affects gameplay ”
Anyone who has played the game with a PPU knows you’re making stuff up. Box’s are not the only thing that effects gameplay that the PPU does and box’s are not done by the CPU but the PPU proven by the benchmarks.






“ Originally Posted by Cyber-Mav
if you want the same effect as that physx card save yourself 100 quid and just downclock both the cpu and the gfx card. and bham!!! instant replica of physx card performance and you saved the cash.“
That is a flat out lie and not the first from you. Why are you so anti PPU? Why do you keep making stuff up that’s proven to be not true? No reviews in the past 8+ months have shown a performance loss. Even if you look at old reviews only 1 game out of 20ish shows a performance loss and that one game GRAW has been fixed so it’s not as bad as it was 12 months ago.

PPU’s are limited they only work in a small amount of games and so are not useful for everyone. But the few games they work in they do provide a performance boost with extra effects.

If you don’t like a PPU or you think it’s useless due to lack of game support fine. But please don’t make stuff up like it lowers performance in PPU games. I have shown enough benchmarks with up to a 30% performance boost. I have shown that GRAW was fixed. You can also read the driver notes

If you have GRAW PC Patch 1.10 , dated May 24th,2006 with drivers 2.4.4 or newer you don’t have performance problems.
http://www.ageia.com/pdf/rn_7.05.06.pdf for driver readme notes.





“Is there actually any other games out there worth playing?”
It depends on what games you like. Some are pretty popular like COH others not so popular like AOA but there are no triple AAA+ killer games like Unreal 3 at least not yet. The PPU’s biggest problem is lack of game support; they should have had way more games out by now. I can see why people don’t wont one with the lack of games.

 

[Pottsey]

tbh, grapics cards as physics procs will prob serve better than physx.

In theory going by specs that’s not true. Graphics cards will be slower then a physx PPU but a GPU is still loads better then a CPU.

In practise who knows there is no way to do a fair comparison yet.

 

[Pottsey]

just go to their website and look what games they have that support it, its laughable for the time it has had to establish its self......Todays GFX cards can easily do what the PPU does, only better.

I just noticed that comment. I challenge you to find a game doing decent destroyable cloth and liquids like the PPU does only on GPU. At the same time 100’s of physical objects moving around.

As for the list of games Ageia PR team need sacking. There are tons more games out not on there list. There list has actually got smaller over the past 8 months even though more games have game out.

 

[Pants]

The problem is games developers don't want to waste time implementing PhysX when only 1% of people have the cards. And people dont want to buy the cardws because of a lack of game support and the price.

The only way good physics acelleration will work is if it's a requirement of the next DirextX (i.e. DX10.1 or DX11) therefore Nvidia and ATI will have to add some chippery!

Or it could take off if Nvidia or ATI simply decide to add good physics acceleration in the GFX core.

But these PhysX card will not take off on their own. I for one am glad because I dont want to have to pay for yet another card. But i will welcome it with open arms when the GFX cards start to support this or something similar.

 

[Squakingcow]

Anyone who has played the game with a PPU knows you’re making stuff up. Box’s are not the only thing that effects gameplay that the PPU does and box’s are not done by the CPU but the PPU proven by the benchmarks.

*sigh*
The 5th time I've said it.
In cellfactor: combat training (with good physix drivers) there was no distinguishable differance between a pc with a physx card and a pc without the card(using the "EnablePhysX=flase" command line). And when playing without the card there were no gameplay elements missing, just some cloth+fliud dynamic effects (which don't contribute to gameplay).

Now, with cellfactor: revolution there is a large(ish) difference between the performance of a non-physx system, and a physx one. But the only reason for this is that software 'cloth' effects have been implemented, which doesn't affect gamplay in any way, it just serves the purpose of crippling performance. I'm fairly sure you still need a decent dual-core system to run cellfactor with a physx card, simply because the cpu is still doing everything bar cloth+fluid effects (with a physx card installed the cpu no longer calcuates the cloth physics, just boxes and lumps of debrie, which in turn gives faster fps, giving the card an actual performance game).

Now my main proof for this, is that limbo fueling station was 100% playable in combat training, and with similar (close) to a physx system. But it's now crippling my system due to the awful software cloth effects. However, with a physx card (and bearing in mind there is no way of turning the cloth off) the cloth effects are hardware accelerated (whereas boxes+other stuff is delt with by the cpu still), taking away what was originaly crushing the performance. Thus giving massive increases in fps.

I would be willing to run some benchies on my system if there were a way to turn off the cloth effects to do a comparison with yours (I assume you have a physx card?) and see if you acctually get any performance increase, or, if it's as I suspect it's just the cloth effects (maybe purposefully done?) crippling everything.

 

[Marc Fraser]

*sigh*
The 5th time I've said it.
In cellfactor: combat training (with good physix drivers) there was no distinguishable differance between a pc with a physx card and a pc without the card(using the "EnablePhysX=flase" command line). And when playing without the card there were no gameplay elements missing, just some cloth+fliud dynamic effects (which don't contribute to gameplay).

Now, with cellfactor: revolution there is a large(ish) difference between the performance of a non-physx system, and a physx one. But the only reason for this is that software 'cloth' effects have been implemented, which doesn't affect gamplay in any way, it just serves the purpose of crippling performance. I'm fairly sure you still need a decent dual-core system to run cellfactor with a physx card, simply because the cpu is still doing everything bar cloth+fluid effects (with a physx card installed the cpu no longer calcuates the cloth physics, just boxes and lumps of debrie, which in turn gives faster fps, giving the card an actual performance game).

Now my main proof for this, is that limbo fueling station was 100% playable in combat training, and with similar (close) to a physx system. But it's now crippling my system due to the awful software cloth effects. However, with a physx card (and bearing in mind there is no way of turning the cloth off) the cloth effects are hardware accelerated (whereas boxes+other stuff is delt with by the cpu still), taking away what was originaly crushing the performance. Thus giving massive increases in fps.

I would be willing to run some benchies on my system if there were a way to turn off the cloth effects to do a comparison with yours (I assume you have a physx card?) and see if you acctually get any performance increase, or, if it's as I suspect it's just the cloth effects (maybe purposefully done?) crippling everything.

Where is your evidence that the CPU still does the box physics when a PPU is present. Everything I have seen shows all physics calculations are done on the PPU when one is present.

Please post some evidence to back up your point.

 

[Pottsey]

*The 5th time I've said it.
In cellfactor: combat training &
Now my main proof for this, is that limbo fueling station was 100% playable in combat training, and with similar (close) to a physx system. But it's now crippling my system due to the awful software cloth effects.”

Err if you go back and read you said cellfactor before not Cellfactor Combat Training. Generally speaking when people refer to a game name they mean the full game that’s out now. Not some 1 level beta from over 1 year ago. What you said is wrong as the full game does not just use the box’s for gameplay. The other PPU effects are used in gameplay. Yes the beta might not use all the other effects for gameplay but that doesnt really matter as it’s the full game everyone’s going be playing not the year old beta.

As for cloth crippling your system. Full cloth is impossible to do on a CPU at fast speeds. One of the main points of the PPU is to do cloth effects at useable speeds without the slowdowns you get when the CPU does it.

 

[HangTime]

Looking at that system I would say you would see far more benefit by spending the ton elsewhere, i.e. X-Fi Music instead of Gamer, 640meg GTS instead of 320, and a bigger HD.

PhysX cards are still too overpriced to be worth a place in all but the most expensive of rigs (ones which already have quadcore, SLI and a gorgeous monitor). If software support was better then maybe, but as it stands the benefit far outweighs the cost compared to what else you could get for your money.

Or in other words I would urge anyone spending under £2000 (minimum) on a system inc monitor to reconsider if they have a physx card included.

 

[Squakingcow]

Err if you go back and read you said cellfactor before not Cellfactor Combat Training. Generally speaking when people refer to a game name they mean the full game that’s out now. Not some 1 level beta from over 1 year ago. What you said is wrong as the full game does not just use the box’s for gameplay. The other PPU effects are used in gameplay. Yes the beta might not use all the other effects for gameplay but that doesnt really matter as it’s the full game everyone’s going be playing not the year old beta.

As for cloth crippling your system. Full cloth is impossible to do on a CPU at fast speeds. One of the main points of the PPU is to do cloth effects at useable speeds without the slowdowns you get when the CPU does it.

What ppu effects are included in gameplay? Tearing cloth ceartantly doesn't...

The only reason I use combat training as an example is because it's the only version of cellfactor where you can acctually get rid of the cloth effects to get benchmarks where the results aren't biased because of these effects. It's not my fault Ageia make the cloth effects manditory to cripple non-physx systems. Due to this it makes it increadibly difficult to determine if the rest of the physics (like boxes) are acctually being accelerated. Ageia proberbly did this on purpose just for the reason that you can't tell/ make a fair comaprison between a non-physx and a physx system. Because no matter what the one without will always have crippled performance due to the cloth.
The "year old beta" also runs on the same engine, so I doubt there are going to redo the entire way in which the physics are calculated, the cloth was just added to make some distinguishable difference (after ageia stated that it was impossible to run the beta without a card, guess they tryed to cheat this time by giving the hardware an unfair advantage ).

 

[Marc Fraser]

What ppu effects are included in gameplay? Tearing cloth ceartantly doesn't...

The only reason I use combat training as an example is because it's the only version of cellfactor where you can acctually get rid of the cloth effects to get benchmarks where the results aren't biased because of these effects. It's not my fault Ageia make the cloth effects manditory to cripple non-physx systems. Due to this it makes it increadibly difficult to determine if the rest of the physics (like boxes) are acctually being accelerated. Ageia proberbly did this on purpose just for the reason that you can't tell/ make a fair comaprison between a non-physx and a physx system. Because no matter what the one without will always have crippled performance due to the cloth.
The "year old beta" also runs on the same engine, so I doubt there are going to redo the entire way in which the physics are calculated, the cloth was just added to make some distinguishable difference (after ageia stated that it was impossible to run the beta without a card, guess they tryed to cheat this time by giving the hardware an unfair advantage ).

So are you now saying you don't know if the box physics are accelerated or not? A few posts ago you were certain.

 

[squiffy]

If the PPU acted as a additional CPU in Windows, when not being used as a physics accelerator perhaps it would be more likely to take off. Rather than replace dual core CPU with quad core (or even whole system upgrade) Add a Aegia card, so you get gaming acceleration (if widely supported, which it isn't) plus faster Windows when you're doing lots of heavy CPU multi-tasking