Whatever happened to Physx?

SteveOBHave · 6 Sep 2006 at 12:03

First off, not wanting to start a flame war, so please keep it on an intelligent well thought out level. If your thinking of posting a "Physx i5 *** 5ux0rzzzz!!!!1111!!!1111eleven" type post - DONT BOTHER.

So... curious, those that went ahead and purchased one of the various Physx iterations out there, are you getting any use out of them?

Is there any news from Ageia regarding more titles out there that utilise the hardware?

Have subsequent driver updates produced some decent increases in performance?

Looking on the Ageia site there appears to be one added title to the list of "Available Now" games called "Dark Physics". Has anyone purchased this and had a go?

EDIT: Dark Physics is not a game at all, it appears to be a dev tool for games developers... my bad... so no new titles?

Gibbs · 6 Sep 2006 at 12:17

6 games on the market that will take advantage of Physx. It doesnt push me into buying one. Its a nice concept, very nice but untill games developers start to put into games i think its just a waste of money.

From what i have seen in videos it looks good, but just not good enough. I think a few on here have the cards but havnt seen much word on the performace they are getting.

There are a few topics on hardforum.com that pushed out some suprising results but then again only in the 6games that are in store.

I would love to see Unreal Tournament 2007 using Physx, i have always liked the UT seriies of games.

Its like all new tech developments, hardware firms push out the technology while the consummer waits on the software to make use of it.

Pottsey · 6 Sep 2006 at 12:34

”Is there any news from Ageia regarding more titles out there that utilise the hardware?”
Yes there have been more titles but not really looked at them as they don’t interest me.

”Have subsequent driver updates produced some decent increases in performance?”
Yes and the 64-bit drivers should be out this month.

Andy298 · 6 Sep 2006 at 12:34

I'm sure when more game developers start to incude PhysX in their games then more peeps will start buying these.
Personally at their current price and lack of support I wouldn't buy one.

SteveOBHave · 6 Sep 2006 at 12:35

Gibbs said:
6 games on the market that will take advantage of Physx. It doesnt push me into buying one. Its a nice concept, very nice but untill games developers start to put into games i think its just a waste of money.

From what i have seen in videos it looks good, but just not good enough. I think a few on here have the cards but havnt seen much word on the performace they are getting.

There are a few topics on hardforum.com that pushed out some suprising results but then again only in the 6games that are in store.

I would love to see Unreal Tournament 2007 using Physx, i have always liked the UT seriies of games.

Its like all new tech developments, hardware firms push out the technology while the consummer waits on the software to make use of it.

I agree, it is a brilliant concept, but surely it must hurt a company to have their hardware sitting there not generating royalties? Surely at this stage they can't be pulling in that much income from whatever the developers are paying to use the PhysX API?

SteveOBHave · 6 Sep 2006 at 12:37

Pottsey said:
”Is there any news from Ageia regarding more titles out there that utilise the hardware?”
Yes there have been more titles but not really looked at them as they don’t interest me.

Can you point me towards them at all Pottsey? I'm curious to have a look.

Pottsey said:
”Have subsequent driver updates produced some decent increases in performance?”
Yes and the 64-bit drivers should be out this month.

Are there any numbers that you have seen anyone publish?

VaderDSL · 6 Sep 2006 at 12:43

Here's the games list

http://www.ageia.com/physx/titles.html

but I think it's been like that for a while now. I liked the idea, but sadly it never seemed to take off

dafloppyone · 6 Sep 2006 at 12:44

Company promises AI accelerator for games - [briefly]
04:24 PM EDT - Sep,05 2006 - post a comment

After Ageia's PhysX physics accelerator and Bigfoot Networks' Killer NIC gaming network accelerator, a company called AIseek is promising an accelerator for artificial intelligence. Where PhysX allows physics interactions with a greater number of objects than software physics, AIseek says its Intia processor supports a greater number of intelligent non-playable characters than standard general-purpose processors.

To accomplish this feat, the Intia processor accelerates low-level AI tasks including movement, path-finding, terrain analysis, and line-of-sight sensory simulation. According to AIseek, Intia can run path-finding calculations 100-200 times faster than a standard processor running a software algorithm. Such speedups might not bring huge improvements to close-quarter first-person shooters akin to Doom 3, but AIseek says real-time strategy games and RPGs that often have many characters on-screen would greatly benefit from AI acceleration.

AIseek has a handful of demos of accelerated AI on its website, although they seem to be down right now. The site says nothing about a shipping product, so right now it's anyone's guess when or if the Intia processor will become available commercially.

Pottsey · 6 Sep 2006 at 13:35

“Can you point me towards them at all Pottsey? I'm curious to have a look.”
Since the last thread I made there has been the Bet on Soldier: Blood Of Sahara Expansion Pack , COV patch and I heard something about a Joint Task Force demo in the hardocp forums. Still not enough games mind you but its at least its better. Not looked at any of the games or demos my self so I cannot give any feed back. Though I must take a look at the Blood Of Sahara Expansion Pack and see whats changed over Bet on Soldier.

Waiting for Scared II and the next UT my self.

“Are there any numbers that you have seen anyone publish?“
I did a quick search and could not find any reviews or benchmark with the new drivers. The only reference to performance boosts are in the driver notes and from end users.

SteveOBHave · 6 Sep 2006 at 14:19

Pottsey said:
“Can you point me towards them at all Pottsey? I'm curious to have a look.”
Since the last thread I made there has been the Bet on Soldier: Blood Of Sahara Expansion Pack , COV patch and I heard something about a Joint Task Force demo in the hardocp forums. Still not enough games mind you but its at least its better. Not looked at any of the games or demos my self so I cannot give any feed back. Though I must take a look at the Blood Of Sahara Expansion Pack and see whats changed over Bet on Soldier.

Waiting for Scared II and the next UT my self.

“Are there any numbers that you have seen anyone publish?“
I did a quick search and could not find any reviews or benchmark with the new drivers. The only reference to performance boosts are in the driver notes and from end users.

Almost seems like they are keeping a low profile until UT comes out - probably a wise course of action considering the fizzer that was the initial release.

Arthalen · 6 Sep 2006 at 14:28

Interesting thread.

I'm more keen to hear about ATI's idea of another ATI card being used to accelerate physics. Would make use of that 4x PCIe slot on my mobo.

An X1600 Pro/XT/whatever would be cheaper at present but would it support the Ageia API ? I don't think so. ATI would have to code their own 'support' into Catalyst I would have thought.

Actually, thinking about it driver support might be a nightmare. Not unless AMD bought Ageia too

mdjmcnally · 6 Sep 2006 at 14:32

Sony licensed the SDK for the PS3. As such it maybe that once the games come out for the PS3 then more games will arrive on the PC with the Physix support as they tend to develop for the games consoles and PC. If coding with Physix for the PS3 then it should make it more worthwhile to develop on the PC as well.

Once Microsoft get there Physics API into DirectX if that works with the Physix card as well then that again should make it more worthwhile to code.

Rusty739 · 6 Sep 2006 at 14:44

deos anyone actually know a official date for releasing UT2007? cant wait to play it, dont get me wrong i love UT2004 but after playing quake 4 or HL2 and then going back to UT2004 it just doent feel like im getting the best out of my £600+ Graphics cards. i almost bought the asus Physic card but opted out for it in the end as i wouldnt of been able to have it plugged with two GPU's and an X-fi, pretty lame that most motherboards only let u plug 1 pci card in whilst using 2 GPU's?

Arthalen · 6 Sep 2006 at 14:54

mdjmcnally said:
Once Microsoft get there Physics API into DirectX if that works with the Physix card as well then that again should make it more worthwhile to code.

Had no idea MS were doing a physics API into DirectX.

This would no doubt make it very easy Nvidia & ATI to support with video card, rather than a dedicated card such as Ageia's.

Perhaps we'll all be buying something along the lines of a X1900\X1600 combo for GPU/PPU gameplay if MS wins the day on this little format war.

Psycho Sonny · 6 Sep 2006 at 15:17

Arthalen said:
Had no idea MS were doing a physics API into DirectX.

This would no doubt make it very easy Nvidia & ATI to support with video card, rather than a dedicated card such as Ageia's.

Perhaps we'll all be buying something along the lines of a X1900\X1600 combo for GPU/PPU gameplay if MS wins the day on this little format war.

this has already been showcased by ATI using two x1900's and a x1600 for physics, but paying for 3 cards outweighs any real performance gains in my opinion

SteveOBHave · 6 Sep 2006 at 15:40

Arthalen said:
Had no idea MS were doing a physics API into DirectX.

This would no doubt make it very easy Nvidia & ATI to support with video card, rather than a dedicated card such as Ageia's.

Perhaps we'll all be buying something along the lines of a X1900\X1600 combo for GPU/PPU gameplay if MS wins the day on this little format war.

Apparently there is a difference between the ATI/Nvidia and Ageia PhysX. That being that ATI/Nvidia are effect physics whilst Ageia is affect physics, however there has been speculation that the math used in the PhysX API is not overly accurate nor complete enough to provide an accurate physics representation and as the math is hardwired into the hardware, these innaccuracies are here to stay.

Edit: By effect physics, I mean it is a predetermined response calculated by the physics engine (or scripted) where affected physics is actually in direct response to player interaction and is calculated based on object mass and velocity.

Pottsey · 6 Sep 2006 at 15:47

“however there has been speculation that the math used in the PhysX API is not overly accurate nor complete enough to provide an physics representation and as the math is hardwired into the hardware, these innaccuracies are here to stay.“
Never heard that before is that just talk on forums or is there an actual article you can read on it? If there is can you give a link?

Going by the current games, tech demos I find it very hard to bealive its true. Also didn’t some professional 3D apps add Ageia PPU support? Surly they wouldn’t do that if there are inaccuracies in the hardware.

Arthalen · 6 Sep 2006 at 15:50

Psycho Sonny said:
this has already been showcased by ATI using two x1900's and a x1600 for physics, but paying for 3 cards outweighs any real performance gains in my opinion

That setup in question utilised Crossfire. In ATI's brief, if you read it correctly, a single GPU card solution for video and a single card solution for Physics is possible.

As regards to the Effect/Affect debate, surely this is down to the API itself, and not the hardware ???

Pottsey · 6 Sep 2006 at 15:52

”Had no idea MS were doing a physics API into DirectX.
…. MS wins the day on this little format war.”
There is no MS physics API there where some rumours MS where working on one due to some employee adverts they put up saying coders with physics skills wanted. But that could be for a dozen things.

Last I heard MS said there was no API and it’s just a rumour started by there advert for something else.

SteveOBHave · 6 Sep 2006 at 15:55

Pottsey said:
“however there has been speculation that the math used in the PhysX API is not overly accurate nor complete enough to provide an physics representation and as the math is hardwired into the hardware, these innaccuracies are here to stay.“
Never heard that before is that just talk on forums or is there an actual article you can read on it? If there is can you give a link?

Going by the current games, tech demos I find it very hard to bealive its true. Also didn’t some professional 3D apps add Ageia PPU support? Surly they wouldn’t do that if there are inaccuracies in the hardware.

Toms Hardware said:
Kenny Erleben, assistant professor at the Datalogical Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, is working on physics-based animation and simulation modelling. He says that from a researcher's theoretical viewpoint, and from what he's heard so far, the PhysX card doesn't look promising, for two main reasons. First, the physics algorithms are locked into the hardware, which prevents programmers from changing the algorithms if they find better ones. Second, as we mentioned earlier, the factors that influence physics cannot be simplified into an equation in a satisfying way. This basically means that you're stuck with what you have and cannot go forward.

Source: http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/08/03/the_scientists_opinions_on_gaming_physics_uk/page4.html