The reason for no PCIe card yet

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From: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=41877

We also managed to learn the problem with PhysX and PCIe. It turned out that not all motherboards featuring PCIe x1 slot are compatible with PhysX card, but not in a way you would imagine. Loads of 1st generation motherboards with PCIe x1 slots do not adhere to PCIe x1 specification and there is quite a lot of jittering in signal, resulting in errors during operation.
Ageia's prototype PCI/PCIe card had issues with several popular motherboards and company decided not to risk the release of a product that might not be compatible with some users. Couple of card manufacturers confirmed this to us as well, but it all depends on what latency you require from the slot.
 
Nice...let me guess that these are the same problems that plauged X-Fi owners on nForce Motherboards?

And yet AGEIA and Creative got/gets all the blame....funny.
 
Ageia asked for us to come see their card in action today with UT3....I stipulated that we would need to actually PLAY THE GAME LEVEL to give them our time. They also wanted to pimp mobile PhysX. We told them we were not interested in mobile. They never called back. :p
 
Good call on that one, That'd be like watching a used car salesman driving a car around a parking lot and then asking you how much you like. Doesn't seem like much sense to go watch a pre planned demo. thats altered to make the card look good, or choosen from hundreds of scences of gameplay.
 
[21CW]killerofall;1031361298 said:
....Ageia's prototype PCI/PCIe card had issues with several popular motherboards and company decided not to risk the release of a product that might not be compatible with some users....

So.... they didn't want to release a piece of hardware that was incompatible with a handful of things.... Why don't we go ahead and take a look at the list of games that do not support their current card.... well, I'm not gonna put a list here. Use Google. C'mon now... just release the damn thing and make a list of the motherboards it won't work with or something... the demand for a 1x card was/is pretty high.
 
Sounds like the start of the end IMO.
 
If AGEIA businesses were decaying, they don't even bother to release a mobile chip. I think there will be many surprises from AGEIA. Just wait and see.
The problem with AGEIA is they don't promote very well their technology, their site is not updated very often and they don't announce new supported games.
 
[21CW]killerofall;1031361298 said:
From: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=41877

We also managed to learn the problem with PhysX and PCIe. It turned out that not all motherboards featuring PCIe x1 slot are compatible with PhysX card, but not in a way you would imagine. Loads of 1st generation motherboards with PCIe x1 slots do not adhere to PCIe x1 specification and there is quite a lot of jittering in signal, resulting in errors during operation.
What an odd analysis. PCIe 1.1 was made exactly because cards were failing validation on 1.0a compliant specs, so timing and jitter specs were loosened.

Sounds like Ageia made a 1.1 spec card, and it doesn't work reliably in 1.0a boards. The fault in that case is neither one, but Ageia should have aimed for broader compatibility.

A quick summary of the changes in PCIe 1.1 is on pages 4-5: http://www.wavecrest.com/market_applications/pdf/pciexpressquickguide.pdf

IMO, that alone wouldn't be the main problem since they are probably using a bridge chip that could be swapped out directly or with a minor PCB redesign. There is probably some other problem(s) they're having with drivers and/or compatibility moving to a bridged design.
 
It really would have been a great opportunity for them to deliver their pci-e card while piggybacking on the release of UT3.
I honestly don't see any other future opportunities for them and I dont see their mobile chip grabbing a significant percentage of the mobile gaming market. Well not enough to save them anyway..
but with support from Dell, and probably companies like Alienware to come, who knows??
 
the reality is that while people like me would prefer a PCIe PhysX card, the vast majority of PC's out there in the hands of gaming enthusiasts HAVE got a spare PCI slot.

What I want:
> Good games that realy support PhysX (tick) UT3
> Reasonable price (tick) $99
> PCIe (waiting)
> Smaller process size for passive cooling (waiting)

The two most important factors have already happened, and i am now tempted, the other two would just seal the deal quicker.
 
the reality is that while people like me would prefer a PCIe PhysX card, the vast majority of PC's out there in the hands of gaming enthusiasts HAVE got a spare PCI slot.

What I want:
> Good games that realy support PhysX (tick) UT3
> Reasonable price (tick) $99
> PCIe (waiting)
> Smaller process size for passive cooling (waiting)

The two most important factors have already happened, and i am now tempted, the other two would just seal the deal quicker.


Same here. If i saw a pci-e ppu available, i would buy it right now :D
 
Ageia should pair up with ASUS or some motherboard manufacturer and make PPU's a integrated thing.
 
That would be cool as heck.

Just what we need, add in math co-processors to come back. NO!


Fix the damn PCI-E standard and make it Standard, the sound card and now physics card issues are not the fault of either manufacturer other then maybe being to close on timing tolerances.
 
I remember Mobo with voodoochip on board in the day the voodoo produkt got decent sucses.
 
Just what we need, add in math co-processors to come back. NO!


Fix the damn PCI-E standard and make it Standard, the sound card and now physics card issues are not the fault of either manufacturer other then maybe being to close on timing tolerances.

They have been making PCI-E sound cards for a long time now...

I remember Mobo with voodoochip on board in the day the voodoo produkt got decent sucses.

Yes. I remember that board, it was my dream board when it came out at the time :)
 
Not sure if this has been mentioned here yet but I pulled this straight from Ageia's FAQ page...

Ageia FAQs said:
Q: Are there different board configurations available such as increased memory or PCI-Express?

A: At this point, every AGEIA PhysX Accelerator is configured as a PCI 2.1 add-in board with 128MB GDDR3. The PCI interface is more than adequate for handling complex physics calculations, so changing the design to PCI Express would be simply to address slot availability on the motherboard, not to enhance raw performance.

AGEIA has no plans at this time to create a retail PCI Express product or to introduce additional memory configurations. Some system integrators do offer a PCI Express 1x version of the PhysX Accelerator as a part of a new system configuration.
 
It makes sense to make the PhysX card PCI-Express and maybe not even bother with a PCI version (if there weren't compatibility problems with PCI-e anyway). After all, only people with reasonably modern systems would be interested in a PhysX card. Those with older systems without PCI-e would probably benefit more from upgrading their other components than getting a hardware physics card.
 
> Reasonable price (tick) $99

The two most important factors have already happened, and i am now tempted, the other two would just seal the deal quicker.

Show me where?!
 
Why wont my physx card show any effect in tony hawks pro skater 3 :(

:p
 
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