PhysX + Cellfactor = great fun.

Octavian.UK · 8 May 2006 at 19:48

Gamespot has cellfactor being released late 2007 so dx10 cards should handle it no problem.I wonder how much money they got to release this demo to sell physx cards?

Cyber-Mav · 8 May 2006 at 19:57

hahaha this is gonna be a real flop, fome dx10 havok fx will be out and its guaranteed to be 100 times faster than this crappy ageia implementation.

and its not gonna be hard to be 100 times faster than the physx card, since software physx is 10 times faster

[ui]ICEMAN · 8 May 2006 at 20:04

Cyber-Mav said:
hahaha this is gonna be a real flop, fome dx10 havok fx will be out and its guaranteed to be 100 times faster than this crappy ageia implementation.

and its not gonna be hard to be 100 times faster than the physx card, since software physx is 10 times faster

Do you ever have anything positive to say? First off you insult those who bought this card, without people like me and lowrider no-one would know the benefits/downfalls of this product. I have always been at the forefront of technology, it's one of the reasons I was asked to review for bit-tech many years ago, I enjoy delving into the unknown and would prefer not to be touted as a rich fool/idiot.

Secondly, this will come as a shock to you because you have apparantly made up your mind already, hardware is FASTER in Cell Factor even with MORE detail. The software version (editor) is missing a lot of the effects from the actual game, both general gameplay and the physics examples run at a much better fps than without.

One of the major things I pride myself on is keeping an open mind and not developing an opinion until i have *all* the facts and am in a perfect position to form one.

james.miller · 8 May 2006 at 20:06

[ui]ICEMAN said:
Secondly, this will come as a shock to you because you have apparantly made up your mind already, hardware is FASTER in Cell Factor even with MORE detail. The software version (editor) is missing a lot of the effects from the actual game, both general gameplay and the physics examples run at a much better fps than without.

It still runs like a bag of crap though, right?

n3x · 8 May 2006 at 20:12

gotta agree with iceman, it doesnt look anywhere near as good running through the editor without a ppu.

Out of interest whats the load like on the CPU whilst running CF with a ppu? Is it fully loaded like mine is most of the time or is fairly low?

Final8y · 8 May 2006 at 20:14

Its not a good idear to only demo with added strain on the gfx cards.
I see both are maxing out the AF at 8 on one card & 16 AF on 2 cards.
Huge loss of FPS in some games at that level.

Lets see how Chill-F runs with out the added extras forced on.
Thats why when the well known review sites test the latest gfx card they do it first with out the AF & AA.

[ui]ICEMAN · 8 May 2006 at 20:18

Final8y said:
Its not a good idear to demo with added strain on the gfx cards.
I see both are maxing out the AF at 8 on one card & 16 AF on 2 cards.
Huge loss of FPS in some games at that level.

Lets see how Chill-F runs with out the added extras forced on.

The graphics options affect it very little bar resolution and per pixel motion blur to be honest. I personally saw no drop when enabling 16xAF over 1x (default). Again up to about 1600x1200 I saw very minor drops in fps too, anything over that really starts to hurt it.

Final8y · 8 May 2006 at 20:21

[ui]ICEMAN said:
The graphics options affect it very little bar resolution and per pixel motion blur to be honest. I personally saw no drop when enabling 16xAF over 1x (default). Again up to about 1600x1200 I saw very minor drops in fps too, anything over that really starts to hurt it.

IC. Its early days yet lets hope things get much better in time.

Things change I've changed · 8 May 2006 at 20:39

[ui]ICEMAN said:
Do you ever have anything positive to say? First off you insult those who bought this card, without people like me and lowrider no-one would know the benefits/downfalls of this product. I have always been at the forefront of technology, it's one of the reasons I was asked to review for bit-tech many years ago, I enjoy delving into the unknown and would prefer not to be touted as a rich fool/idiot.

Secondly, this will come as a shock to you because you have apparantly made up your mind already, hardware is FASTER in Cell Factor even with MORE detail. The software version (editor) is missing a lot of the effects from the actual game, both general gameplay and the physics examples run at a much better fps than without.

One of the major things I pride myself on is keeping an open mind and not developing an opinion until i have *all* the facts and am in a perfect position to form one.

here here, and your secound paragraph is very true, cell factor would practicly come to a stand still in software mode if it had all of the missing effects running, tbh nobody can really judge if physX is going to be a failure until at least when UT2007 comes out and by then most highend users will have conroes and next gen gpu's in their systems anyhow.

Darkwave · 8 May 2006 at 20:50

I think we need an "Official Ageia PhysX Whining Thread" so that all the arguments about this card can be kept in one place.

And no, I am not an Ageia supporter, I think this is a pile of crap.

[ui]ICEMAN · 8 May 2006 at 21:17

n3x said:
gotta agree with iceman, it doesnt look anywhere near as good running through the editor without a ppu.

Out of interest whats the load like on the CPU whilst running CF with a ppu? Is it fully loaded like mine is most of the time or is fairly low?

Will check this for you now, give me a minute.

[ui]ICEMAN · 8 May 2006 at 21:29

I can't be entirely sure that the game is dual core optimised, it seems to be though. CPU usage, was around 65-75% tops in game. However the editor definitely supports multi threading and the PhysX card works whilst in the editor too, CPU usage was on average 20% less than without the card in the editor.

superjimbob · 8 May 2006 at 21:59

I had a open mind on it the developers talked of vast improvements ,yes even in frame rates with the cpu off-loading its calculations while the GFX card got on with the rendering pushing the belief that Frame rates would be very high and stable even at intense action points, taking games to the next level, taking this into account it looks at this point er disappointing to say the least :confused:

too much hype?

Teknodeamon · 8 May 2006 at 22:01

the extra flying bits and debree look really pants imo =p

Energize · 9 May 2006 at 00:36

Jaggies everywhere, that looks last gen

Darkwave · 9 May 2006 at 00:37

Energize said:
Jaggies everywhere, that looks last gen

Ageia PhysX, A.K.A. "The WayBack Machine!"

Sir Random · 9 May 2006 at 01:17

We need a game/demo that has the built-in option to be played in 'software mode' or 'hardware mode' so we can make direct comparisons.

If HL2 were patched so that there was an option to have the 'Havok' physics calculated by a PPU, then we could make a map with hundreds of objects and record a 'demo' of blowing them up. Then we could play the demo with the PPU, and without it, to see exactly how much difference the card makes.

Maybe my expectations were a bit too high, but I fully expected these cards to allow the movement and collision of hundreds of objects, with no loss of FPS. I had envisioned brick walls collapsing dynamically and killing, injuring or even trapping enemies beneath the rubble.

Darkwave · 9 May 2006 at 01:24

Sir Random said:
I fully expected these cards to allow the movement and collision of hundreds of objects, with no loss of FPS. I had envisioned brick walls collapsing dynamically and killing, injuring or even trapping enemies beneath the rubble.

So did I, and I was excited about it.

The moral of this story: Never get your hopes up about anything (in the computer hardware business.)

n3x · 9 May 2006 at 08:16

Im still optimistic about Physx.

You can slate it all you want, I think hardware physics looks quite spectacular. This isnt about gfx and fancy effects its about object interaction! If u look closer theres far more going on than a few extra blocks flying around. The cloth and materials looks awesome, water effects arnt bad but still not amazing (to be expected). Every item appears to break up into many seperate pieces when shot. Non of this happens in software.

At the end of the day you dont have to buy one, and I doubt I will be buying into the first gen of ppu's. I applaud Ageia for trying to bring something new and revolutionary to the market. I still believe this is a waiting game and i really hope the people who shelled out their hard earned cash for one of these will have the last laugh

JonnyGLC · 12 May 2006 at 23:05

We can now totally get around the PhysX checker, and play the real game