Jeff Yates, Havoc, and your GPU

No one mentioned this aspect of integrating Physics and GPU's.....

What if you could take these integrated video mobo's (I got a ATI 200 in my lappy), outfit them with dual 16X PCI-E slots from the factory and have as an option to use the integrated video for Physics? That would be cool! Then if you feel the need for better Physics, purchase a PPU. That makes sense to me. The little guys would have the option for buying SLI/Crossfire upgrades, a starter integrated video GPU, and a starter PPU after they upgrade to extra graphics cards. That is a practical solution I think. But before the little man sees the need for a PPU, Ageia (shoot me for spelling) is going to have to roll out the red carpet for these PPU's. And we need to purchase them if they are as good as they advertise. Hell my local EBGames doesn't even sell graphics cards; could you imagine some kid trying to get his mom to buy a $300 PPU??? I will do a major upgrade of my main system in the near future, and a PPU would be a great purchase for me. I was raised in the "Do it right the first time" mold, so I don't mind spending extra for quality and future proofing. But I believe that there should always be an alternative to the high end. Maybe my idea could be just that...

Kelly
 
cageymaru said:
No one mentioned this aspect of integrating Physics and GPU's.....

What if you could take these integrated video mobo's (I got a ATI 200 in my lappy), outfit them with dual 16X PCI-E slots from the factory and have as an option to use the integrated video for Physics? That would be cool! Then if you feel the need for better Physics, purchase a PPU. That makes sense to me. The little guys would have the option for buying SLI/Crossfire upgrades, a starter integrated video GPU, and a starter PPU after they upgrade to extra graphics cards. That is a practical solution I think. But before the little man sees the need for a PPU, Ageia (shoot me for spelling) is going to have to roll out the red carpet for these PPU's. And we need to purchase them if they are as good as they advertise. Hell my local EBGames doesn't even sell graphics cards; could you imagine some kid trying to get his mom to buy a $300 PPU??? I will do a major upgrade of my main system in the near future, and a PPU would be a great purchase for me. I was raised in the "Do it right the first time" mold, so I don't mind spending extra for quality and future proofing. But I believe that there should always be an alternative to the high end. Maybe my idea could be just that...

Kelly
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An onboard video being used as a substitute for a PPU? Rather unlikely, you have to understand that all those number crunching power for computing polygons, texture, lighting, etc. are not used for physics computations. Only SM3.0. Which only makes up a small part of the total practical horsepower, which is barely passable for an onboard chip in the first place, and may not even be enough to offset the time lost moving the data through the GPU, as opposed to the CPU doing it itself.

The case for the GPU used as a PPU is assumed to be the highest SM3.0 capable hardware available (6800's/7800's). Not counting mobiles, onboard video don't get those, infact, they usually get the cheapest GPU available. I can still see GPU's on the 6800 level (maybe even 6600s) doing passable physics computations. But a 6200?

Curiously, what mobo has the highest onboard GPU in the market today?
 
If what you're saying is true then why are we having this conversation? That's retarded to even suggest a GPU for a physics processor if you can only use high end cards. I used to work at Wally World and I was the one that everyone was referred to when it was time to purchase a computer. It was hard as hell to make a parent step up $150 so that they could have a dedicated graphics slot. I usually had to sell them the step up computer, a couple of puzzle games and one big title like Doom or UT2003, and wait for them to come back in to sell them the videocard when UT2003 wouldn't run or would run as a slideshow. Don't shoot me because I made excellent return sales!!! Anyway if I still worked there I can't imagine me convincing the average parent that they need an extra GPU as a Physics processor if they couldn't use the one that came in the darn thing in the first place as a point of reference. You have to remember that HardUsers are the minority, not the mainstream. It seems to me that PPU's and GPU/PPU hybrids are strictly for the high end user and will never be for the mainstream if the purchaser doesn't have a point of reference in the first place. I mean unless Dell is willing to lose to HP by a few points on 3DMark, due to the fact that they turned on the Physics functions on the 7800GT, we'll never see it as a mainstream product. That's right I said lose! Why? Because the average consumer will glance at the chart and base their purchase on who has the bigger bar graph line. I know that IQ means more than 3DMark, but everyone scans the numbers in the chart to see who won. That's just natural. Same reason AMD's 2 Ghz procs will never measure up to a 3 Ghz Intel chip in the average Joe's eyes. All Intel has to do is throw up a chart stating that they run faster. Consumer sold! It takes effort to explain that one chip does more instructions per turn! And uneducated consumers base their purchases solely on those graphs. That's life. I can't fathom any of the HardUsers losing 33% of their FPS for physics. Hell they might as well bought the 6600 and the dedicated PPU. Probably would come out with the same result! Or better yet I could see some trying to figure out if HL2 Lost Coast looks better at 1600X1200, HDR off and Physics on or 800X600 HDR on and Physics on. I'd take high resolution, HDR on, Physics on. That's me! Games are getting more SM 3.0 intensive not less! Maybe ATI should piggyback 800XL's when you purchase a Crossfire system. I could imagine someone buying a Wally World type graphics card (5200's and 9200's- what average consumer buys) and turning on Physics processing in the Havok engine. Game returned to store...

Just my opinion,

Kelly
 
personally im at the belief at the moment that ageia is by far the best solution, hands down no contest, but i dont think its going to be used in mainstream games until its used in mainstream computers. ageia needs to get a deal with dell.
 
Lord of Shadows said:
They are talking about running physics code on the gpu itself, which exists on all dx9 level hardware already. Some neat examples can be found here, http://download.nvidia.com/developer/SDK/Individual_Samples/samples.html The gpgpu ones do general physics on the gpu, storing data in textures and the like.

Although I do think the particle demo is kind of impressive, ill look at the others in a bit.
http://home.swbell.net/aw2001/particle.jpg[img][/QUOTE]

Well, I assume if they are to have any success doing this they will need to design future gpus with somewhat of a dedicated ppu processing area. They won't just keep designing gpus as they are and run physics on them. Neat demo though.
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Dr. X said:
Well, I assume if they are to have any success doing this they will need to design future gpus with somewhat of a dedicated ppu processing area. They won't just keep designing gpus as they are and run physics on them. Neat demo though.
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another interesting fact about gpgpu solutions is that one such application (GROMACS) the X1800 is 2x as fast as the 7800 series, yet is still only marginally faster than a CPU. Judging that a PPU is tremendously faster then a CPU at physics, what is that to lead us to believe about gpu's being reappropriated for physics?
 
Erasmus354 said:
...what is there to lead us to believe about gpu's being reappropriated for physics?
Click to expand...

Benchmarks run on the G90 clearly show that GPU physics is the best solution. ;)

-SEAL
 
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