Interesting comment about the AGEIA PhysX PPU

[SlamDunk]

http://www.truevision3d.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=76777#76777

Those things don't do any useful physics calcs, actually. At this moment, the PPU's are simply marketing babble with no real world use -- and therefore we will not be supporting them until they make our recommended updates to the unit to actually speed up physics processing, instead of adding useless semi-physics-based goodies.

That's a pretty harsh and kind of a surprising comment, considering the developer support PhysX has gotten so far. Do you guys have anything to say about that?

 

[UltimaParadox]

I am still a firm believer that its all in the software, and that will probablly where it will be in the future, with dual core procs taking the duty to crunch all that physics code

 

[DermicSavage]

That message could be taken pretty far out of context...

What I believe he is referring to is not just simple collision and trajectory calculations, which is what we have been seeing in all these demos, but more complex matters. Like calculating realistic fragmentation systems(ie, make a peice of wood fragment and split like a peice of wood would under impact)

From that viewpoint, what these cards are doing right now is really nothing in terms of the complexity it would take to execute one realistic fragment system

EDIT: this is not to say that the cards are worthless, but definetly expresses that it is not worth the trouble of re-designing their engine to make use of a still alpha level technology

 

[Talonz]

I agree with Dermic, physics simulation is very different from in-game physics.

 

[griffinhart]

I love the idea of Physics Cards, but I've been curious about the PPU concept with the advent of Dual core CPU's. If they idea is a physics processing unit offloading calculations from the CPU, what's to stop a game developer to dedicate the second core of a Pentium D or X2 for physics? Not being a programmer I honestly don't know, but wouldn't that be a great way to take advantage of the second core?

 

[NKDietrich]

I really don't like the idea of yet another application-specific CPU.

 

[TheBluePill]

I really don't like the idea of yet another application-specific CPU.

+1, Unless they Integrate them on Video Cards, I don't forsee buying one anytime soon.

 

[xonik]

I really don't like the idea of yet another application-specific CPU.

If it is economical to use application-specific microprocessors to accomplish a specialized task, why limit yourself to less performance by using a general purpose microprocessor?