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Hardware Physics Accelerators


Bokishi

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Well if you haven't already seen it, this demo's pretty awesome. Seeing an 8 ft tall Jinga tower crashing down in realtime without lag is pretty r0xx0r.

 

http://www.novodex.com/rocket/NovodexRocket_V1_1.exe

 

 

Ooooops, shouldn't have skimmed the article, i thought:

 

PPU can respond to gamer actions as well as environments contributing to pervasive interactive reality.

 

meant it was one of those virtual reality or thought reading things. Like the bowling game you control just by thinking.

 

 

but, heres my questions, how does that program (tho neat as it was) show in anyway what they are talking about with their new chip (hardware)

 

they say themselves:

The current trend among game developers is to use software-based physics engines to enable objects and characters to interact in a real-world manner and provide some of the industry's most stunning effects. However, without dedicated physics hardware game developers are unable to fully unleash the power of physics on today's platforms.
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I see it as the demo showcases the current physics they have at a small scale. A hardware addon can incorporate the physics being demonstrated into a much larger world and at a bigger scale. For instance the blades of grass demo included on the program can be multiplied by the thousands and used as grass in a game level.

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I see it as the demo showcases the current physics they have at a small scale.  A hardware addon can incorporate the physics being demonstrated into a much larger world and at a bigger scale. For instance the blades of grass demo included on the program can be multiplied by the thousands and used as grass in a game level.

 

 

ahhh, anyways, the jenga was nifty :ermm:

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Great. More crap on which to spend money.

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but, heres my questions, how does that program (tho neat as it was) show in anyway what they are talking about with their new chip (hardware)

 

they say themselves:

The current trend among game developers is to use software-based physics engines to enable objects and characters to interact in a real-world manner and provide some of the industry's most stunning effects. However, without dedicated physics hardware game developers are unable to fully unleash the power of physics on today's platforms.

 

Yeah, those Novadex guys have visited us a couple times and demonstrated some things that have been pretty neat. If released games actually support those add-on physics cards, I'll be pretty tempted to get one. :lol: But I'll have to wait and see what comes out that supports them first.

 

For the most part, it's a matter of scaling.

 

An example might be:

Without the hardware physics card, you have partical effects that interact with the ground, block walls that can be broken down, ragdoll stuff, and some nice smoke effects.

 

Then you add the physics card to your computer and the game might have:

The partical effects interact with the ground and also brush aside the tendrils of grass sticking up as they pass through.

Smoke effects that move along the ground realistically, or rise and pool underneath ledges.

Block walls that can be knocked down but the blocks themselves will be breakable as well with the right pressure applied.

More demanding cloth physics.

More demanding fluid dynamics.

 

I know I'll be interested to see what games support this stuff and how it looks when they start coming out.

 

-Akari

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okay for the dummies here .. and lazy ones who didn't really read it all .. yep that's me! :shifty:

 

what is this actually?? some new graphic card?

 

from Akari's explanation it sounds pretty amazing .. what ever it is! :ph34r:

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A physics card would be like a smaller computer (installed IN your computer, like a graphics card), with CPU and possibly RAM of it's own, and it would compute the physics (as opposed to the graphics, with a GRAPHICS card), and be dedicated as such, in games that supported the use of this 'card', or mini-computer even. Physics being real time calculation of such things as how objects hit eachother, possibly simulating exactly how a bullet enters and leaves a body. If you shoot the antenna on a car, the antenna would pop off or bend at the point of impact. Explosions would be able to leave realistic craters, objects would fall and hit at the expected rate, cloth would move and shift as it bumped against objects. You might even be able to see wholes in objects when you puncture them or blow them up in some way.

END explanation.

 

Blah... it IS just more to spend your money on. Why do they have to do that? They'll start having "AI" cards in a few years, at this rate...

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Sounds cool, but the separatedly made AI-card sounds even better. Give the NPCs brains or brain.

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as long as they put a male brain in there I don't mind .. I wouldn't want my games to freeze up because I didn't tell them I appriciate their company from time to time..

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:D

 

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  • 7 months later...

Well the word on the street is $250 - $300 there will be more then one version of this card.

 

It will come out late november or early december.

 

Havox Physics software firm recenmly talked to gamespot and said that Agiea's hardware card is not necessary, that the CPU and graphic card can handle the physics. Agiea later answered this and said why do we keep creating better graphic cards and CPU's if we don't need to fully use them? of course we use all the processes during games.

 

Agiea had a demo showing 6000 boulders doing down a hill using graphic card and CPU only. it was 20 FPS

 

Agiea used its physX canrd with the graphic and CPU and it ran at 40 FPS

 

Radeon is now currently in the works in creating an extra chip on their graphic cards to help process the physics engine, but ageia says that theres wont have all the bells and whistles bundled on top of their graphic card that the PhysX will.

 

It still intrests me. The price is crippling although. This seems to be for the fanatic in my opinion.

 

The BIG question is - Who is goig to be supporting this? Unreal 2007 engine is the only bigshot i see so far.

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Ageia might be on to something with their physics chip. I'd buy one if they released it and got the support needed from developers. But I think ATI might be on to a better solution. They've designed their latest GPU's (X1800 for example) to be able to use unspent calculation power on different tasks, other than graphics.. for example physics!

 

Check this out: http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/8887

 

I really think this is one way to go, even though I suspect a dedicated physics card would be more powerful.

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