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Bfg + Ageia

R

Russ

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 14, 2005
Messages
1,875
Wow guys! Have y'all seen the news on the [H] front page???

BFG is producing the PPU's now! We'll have them in no time. I'm really excited about all this, can't wait for them!

[H said:
ardOCP.com]
Big News From BFG Technologies & AGEIA:
BFG Technologies has just announced that they are entering into a retail distribution agreement with AGEIA Technologies to produce stand-alone PCI cards with the AGEIA PhysX processor and 128MB of local memory, which is used for storing and processing physics data during game play. Products will be available at the end of this year. Pricing and other product details will be announced at that time.

September 01, 2005 – AGEIA™ Technologies, Inc., the pioneer in hardware-accelerated physics for games and BFG Technologies®, Inc., a leading U.S.-based supplier of advanced 3D graphics cards and other PC enthusiast products, announced today that they have entered into a retail distribution agreement. Under the contract, BFG Technologies will manufacture, sell, market and distribute personal computer add-in cards powered by the AGEIA PhysX™ processor to retail, e-tail and distributors in the United States, Canada and the European Union member states.

AGEIA’s PhysX chip defines an entirely new category of processor: the physics processing unit that, when coupled with the PhysX SDK, provides cost-effective hardware acceleration of physical interactions within a game environment, such as fluid dynamics and rigid body dynamics. The result will re-ignite the enthusiasm of gamers and game creators alike, and has the potential to propel physics technology into unexplored new markets.

“There is no doubt that the next evolution of PC gaming hardware will include technologies that dramatically improve realistic motion and physics in the game environment,” said Scott Herkelman, executive vice president of marketing for BFG Technologies. “We are proud that AGEIA has chosen BFG Technologies to be one of the driving forces for getting their ground-breaking new PhysX processor into consumer’s hands.”

“BFG Technologies brings to the table an in-depth understanding of the channel as well as extensive knowledge about what makes gamers tick,” said Manju Hegde, CEO and chairman of AGEIA. “BFG Technologies is trusted by game players and PC enthusiasts, thereby making them poised to bring the PhysX processor to market.”
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FEAR's got a physics option :-D

I'm hoping it wont need that much optimization. I mean, you just code the game so it can have tens of thousands of objects and they get sent to the physx if it's there by some driver or something. If you don't have one, you have to use a lower setting or something.

I might buy one initially just to support ageia. Just doing my part to make sure this part is popular and will get support eventually.
 
Personally i think its an interesting concept but its just another thing to eat up my money. we went this long and had some food physics in games we dont need another $300 item to play games. :mad:
 
Russ said:
FEAR's got a physics option :-D
Click to expand...

Does it support the PhysX card though?

If BFG is going to be making these cards that gives me a little more reassurance that they might be worth getting. I wish somebody would announce what new games will support it, or which current games will be patched to support it.
 
It seems a bit premature to be getting a boner over this thing. I think its a good idea, but how will things work in retrospect???? Are all the developers gonna buy into it??? and what will it cost to have a few more dust particles in the air???? What will it cost in performance??? We'll just have to sit tight. I like BFG.
 
For me it depends on cost.. Though I'm currently using an AGP based board, I assume it will be for PCI-E only?

I'd get it if gave me a 25-35% performance increase for $150.

hmm.. would it be worth it, if it only worked with FPS?
 
Mazgazine1 said:
For me it depends on cost.. Though I'm currently using an AGP based board, I assume it will be for PCI-E only?

I'd get it if gave me a 25-35% performance increase for $150.

hmm.. would it be worth it, if it only worked with FPS?
Click to expand...

I think i heard it was coming out only for regular PCI at first, and PCI-E later
 
Maybe my thinking is way off but I'll tell you what I think. I wouldn't mind another high-priced piece of hardware if it can remove physics calculations from the CPU's workload. In my mind, the "plus" side of this would be that:

1)GPU's would be less likely to be CPU limited.

2)Games could be even more interactive with more sophistated A.I.

3)Having a wreck in your favorite racing game would look insane (and hopefully sound insane as well)

the "negative" side that i see would be that (in theory):

1)The game industry isn't Instantly going to start programing every wall, floor, ceiling, duct, pipe, car etc for the type of material it is. Sometime later they will......but not right away

2)When physics cards do come into the mainstream, it will evolve like graphics did.
Initially, physics cards will calculate the general stuff we have going on now in games. Year by year material definitions and physical properties will become more detailed.

My little self made theories could be completely wrong. But either way, I figure a dedicated physics processor is a great idea that I hope will flourish into a great product to help us see better and better games over the next few years.
 
While i'm not OMFG all over this, I think it is pretty interesting piece of equipment and would surely drop some clams on this if it helps out with fps.

I agree with rock and roll about his positives, but I think the first negative will be outweighed by smartly designed engines, kinda like the geo mod thing for red faction. As for the graphics card thing, that happened to any sort of peripheral card out there as the technology gets better and better. It's just a neccessary evil.

But seriously, I can't wait to see what this technology will bring as it really seems to be a major step forward in boosting tech that's out there today.

Btw, is the ageia thing only going to come out in a math co-processor flavor or would it (or could it) come out for gpus? I know no one really knows right now, but it would still be interesting... :D
 
beanman101283 said:
I think i heard it was coming out only for regular PCI at first, and PCI-E later
Click to expand...
Thats what I hear. Glad to see that BFG is an early adopter of the technology. Cant wait to read some reviews :)
 
For some reason, I just don't see this product being put in a Dell or Gateway, or other large OEM pc maker's pc.. What exactly that means, I am not sure.. But, I don't think it will be good for Ageia.. My magic ball says wait for their next gen consumer level product, (if there is one).. Magick ball has been wrong b4, maybe again... Dunno
 
Puts on dumb hat:
Wouldn't a CPU's second core if utilized correctly be just as effective as this card?
 
Major_A said:
Puts on dumb hat:
Wouldn't a CPU's second core if utilized correctly be just as effective as this card?
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Not necessarily. The CPU is designed to do many things. This card is designed to do one thing. It's why game consoles can "do better" than PC's with "less" and why sound cards do better than on-board. I'm sure a multithreaded game could have very realistic physics with a dual core CPU, but the PhysX card I think would have the edge in the end.
 
Thanatos. said:
Personally i think its an interesting concept but its just another thing to eat up my money. we went this long and had some food physics in games we dont need another $300 item to play games. :mad:
Click to expand...

The same thing was said about graphics cards when they were first released :rolleyes:
 
Jeriko_Cherry said:
I think it would be hard to justify paying something like $250-300 on something like that.
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definatly...this is going to have to be a sub $100 dollar thing to get my money.

my rig can crunch the numbers fine as it is....but it will be interesting to see how this turns out (FPS wise)
 
robberbaron said:
Not necessarily. The CPU is designed to do many things. This card is designed to do one thing. It's why game consoles can "do better" than PC's with "less" and why sound cards do better than on-board. I'm sure a multithreaded game could have very realistic physics with a dual core CPU, but the PhysX card I think would have the edge in the end.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the simple fact that the AGEIA card has more transistors on it than a P4 (to give you an idea) and all of those transistors are dedicated towards processing physics. A P4 is not dedicated to anything.

I think the comparison is a single core cpu could render 200-300 objects, dual core maybe like 500, physX can render 8000
 
Can't you wait for dual Physx cards?! PhysMark07!? hehe, sounds like it could be fun, but it also sounds like more $$$ if you want to build a gaming machine.
 
Erasmus354 said:
The same thing was said about graphics cards when they were first released :rolleyes:
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funny thing is Ageia is founded by a good chunk of the guys from 3Dfx
 
How does one pronounce AGEIA? Just wondering.

I'm saying "Age-Ee-Ah" but I'm pretty sure that's wrong.
 
Elios said:
funny thing is Ageia is founded by a good chunk of the guys from 3Dfx
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then wouldn't it bode well for the successful integration of physics cards into the future of the pc market? They did it with the graphics card, frankly I could care less if AGEIA is the dominant physics card maker 5 years from now. I just hope that 5 years from now we see some amazing things in games as a result of physics cards.
 
If it can do wonderous things for $100 I'll consider it, but it can't be another one of those "change it every year" cards. The thing needs to be a once every three years product.

What I'm seeing is the possibility (maybe not ever reality), of the AGEIA doing physics, and dual core CPUs... one core feeding the graphics subsystem, one doing game calculations such as interaction and AI.

Things could really leap forward at that point.
 
Here's my thought,...my 6800GT AGP OC'ed to Ultra,....AGEIA PhysX™ processor,...OC'ed dual core X2,...4GB RAM (Just because),...and I will have one kick ass gaming box without the need for SLI,..."Long live AGP". :D
 
It's a whole lot more worth it to buy this than to upgrade from a 6800GT to a 600$ uber card.
 
they are saying that it is supposed to do 32,000 objects in its best version. A while ago they were saying that the initial ones would only do like 8k or something. Thats still thousands more than any CPU can do right now.

I think that graphics will take an enourmous leap forward with this innovation, even if it is crippled when it fir comes out. This isn't like the first graphics card, AGEIA is leaping straight into huge gains right from the start.

edit:
Obi_Kwiet said:
It's a whole lot more worth it to buy this than to upgrade from a 6800GT to a 600$ uber card.
Click to expand...
QFT
 
YmkFX said:
How does one pronounce AGEIA? Just wondering.

I'm saying "Age-Ee-Ah" but I'm pretty sure that's wrong.
Click to expand...


I heard a tech guy at E3 pronounce it A-gee-ya.

I think it's the correct way.
 
It depends on a few things before I would buy this piece fo hardware:

Price
API
Support

If it can meet those requirements then I'll be happy and willing to have it in my system, although I doubt I'll be an early adopter.
 
Erasmus354 said:
then wouldn't it bode well for the successful integration of physics cards into the future of the pc market? They did it with the graphics card, frankly I could care less if AGEIA is the dominant physics card maker 5 years from now. I just hope that 5 years from now we see some amazing things in games as a result of physics cards.
Click to expand...


thats what i was getting at :D so thay know what there doing this isnt some upstart like the "phnatom" btw that die yet or is it still trying to come out lol :rolleyes:
 
Elios said:
thats what i was getting at :D so thay know what there doing this isnt some upstart like the "phnatom" btw that die yet or is it still trying to come out lol :rolleyes:
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Pretty much dead. The system is very poor spec now and the playing the actual game idea has already been done by Valve and will be with Nintendo's Revolution.
 
hehe yea i just looked at there site thay took down there msg boards lol
 
I'm looking forward to this product just as much as I looked forward to puting in 3dFX Monster II. When I used GLIDE for the first time. I remember Hexen 2 and Quake 2 running in real time 3D.

Anthony
 
I don't know how many of you where at Qcon when Ageia was demoing the card but I must say that I was very impressed. It's capable, according to the speaker, of calculating more physics at one time then they used in the end sceens of LOTR(last one). You know the sceen w/ the bajillions of bad guys. We shall see though, if the gaming industry adopts the chip games will never be the same..IMO of course. If games adopt this tech then I will def go buy one.
 
I'll buy one just to say I have it. And to satisfy my unholy craving for more realistic death...:p
 
i read asus was supporting this technology first. ive heard prices between 200-250 and were suppose to be out around christmas.
 
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