New physics unit comming out

Joined
Mar 16, 2006
Messages
4,064
Sometime in the near future Ageia will be releasing a version of its PPU as an external add on to laptops. They had one running at a demo at a LAN party in St. Louis that I went to in January. Of course there is a slight performance loss from it being an external unit, other than that it is the same card that is in desktops. BTW at that LAN party they were giving away 9 physics cards and I got 1 of them ;).
 
Thinkcomputers appears to have some more info. Looks like it will be for laptops only, but I could see it having a bigger market if it worked for desktops since alot of people dont want to sacrifice their x-fi's for a physx card. The site also has a couple of pics
LINK
 
@EDIT: Correction - that link doesn't like to be posted on forums, aparently. Here's a TinyURL link instead - works fine.

Linky
 
I think they should rather focus their energy on the current desktop hurdles that they have to overcome (pcie for example) and gain support of game developers and work on their pricing structure... before they should bother to go with laptops.

I don't think they are going to sell any of these if they keep releasing more cards for more computers but still have all of them face the same fate... no killer ap, high price, and no alternative interfaced versions.

What is interesting is that this one is a PCIE solution, so perhaps something similar is around the corner for desktops.
 
Why on earth are they going for laptop support!?

Get production costs lower, PCI-E, and good developer support.
 
/offtopic

Killerofall - What lan was this? I haven't lived in Stl very long, and so far the only lan i've been to was a 21 and over one at a bar. Don't remember the name of the group that organized it.
 
So this is what their R&D team is doing? Making PPUs for laptops:rolleyes: Give me affordable ppus and some good games, who cares about a laptop ppu.
 
Guys, this isnt a new PPU. This is a pci-cardbus bridge that ASUS and Dell have put out. It's the same PPU, and they dont have anything to do with it's development as far as I know.
 
[21CW]killerofall;1030806588 said:
Also they do make a PCI-E version just you can only get it in a complete system from system builders.

Link to proof.
 
one more thing to drain batteries even faster. laptops dont generaly have top of the line graphics cards, especialy not SLI/Crossfire, though i suppose it would be able to pick up performance because of this, there isnt a nice gfx card that can do physics already so you would actualy see the performance gain in a laptop. but usualy people who have a laptop also have a desktop, and if you have a desktop why the hell would you game on a laptop?
 
Link to proof.

Ockie, from AGEIA's FAQ..

"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."

Can't get more positive proof than that.
 
one more thing to drain batteries even faster. laptops dont generaly have top of the line graphics cards, especialy not SLI/Crossfire, though i suppose it would be able to pick up performance because of this, there isnt a nice gfx card that can do physics already so you would actualy see the performance gain in a laptop. but usualy people who have a laptop also have a desktop, and if you have a desktop why the hell would you game on a laptop?

People with a desktop replacement laptop. Wich could have every common feature desktops have. People wich could not have a DesktopPC, because that what the laptop is also for. Posibly some will have a dockinstation.
And probaly game with or use it on infuse of a 110/220~ V adaptor.
 
Ockie, from AGEIA's FAQ..

"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."

Can't get more positive proof than that.

Show me any integrator or card, I've yet to see pictures, information, or anything of it.


So but nice try, I don't believe everything I read on a web page. Especially when no one has seen one. It's easy to say that you have one, hard to prove to back it up. Until I see it I don't believe it as nothing has indicated as such.

According to Ageia's news readings, these things should have been out in an abundance in Q1 2007 and would have been released October 2006.... XPS would have also benefited from this...... still nothing.
 
you could always just get an IDE to cardbus converter, and plug this bitch in...but it's still a waste. I am predicting that AGEIA will lose out to GFX Physics processing, by the time they get it all together.
 
you could always just get an IDE to cardbus converter, and plug this bitch in...but it's still a waste. I am predicting that AGEIA will lose out to GFX Physics processing, by the time they get it all together.

WTF? IDE to CardBus? Maybe you're thinking IDE to PC Card. CardBus is the laptop variant of PCI (point to point PCI instead of on a bus). IDE is pin-for-pint compatible with PC Card (16-bit) and CompactFlash, but it is no way pin-for-pint compatible with CardBus.

Also, as a reference to something above. There is no such thing as a PCI->CardBus bridge. There _are_, however, CardBus->PCI bridges. The reason for this is that CardBus is pin-for-pin compatible with PCI on the data and control lines. CardBus adds a few extra lines for handling low-power startup, so that's why you need the CardBus->PCI bridge. The bridge is dumb logic (doesnt even have an oscillator) that translates INT requests from the point-to-point CardBus over to the bussed PCI.

I'm an electronics hardware design engineer, so I've got quite a bit of experience with this. I specialize in mobile applications and just yesterday wrapped up a CardBus card using a Conexant PCI video capture chip.
 
Show me any integrator or card, I've yet to see pictures, information, or anything of it.


So but nice try, I don't believe everything I read on a web page. Especially when no one has seen one. It's easy to say that you have one, hard to prove to back it up. Until I see it I don't believe it as nothing has indicated as such.

According to Ageia's news readings, these things should have been out in an abundance in Q1 2007 and would have been released October 2006.... XPS would have also benefited from this...... still nothing.

here you go

http://xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=122827
 
Interesting... very interesting.

I wonder what the cost would be for an OEM version from Asus. HUmmm...
 
"AGEIA has no plans at this time to create a retail PCI Express product..."
Translation: "Please, keep your money, we're not interested in selling our product."

When Ageia folds up shop, someone should tattoo that on the president's forehead so he has to look at it in the mirror every morning.
 
Translation: "Please, keep your money, we're not interested in selling our product."

When Ageia folds up shop, someone should tattoo that on the president's forehead so he has to look at it in the mirror every morning.

You obviously don't know a lot about business. While I, too, wish that there were retail PCI-E versions of the PhysX cards, in the end it's just not that simple. To send a card to retail, you've got to design and manufacture packaging, establish additional support channels for that card variant, manufacture them in very large quantities to get them onto store shelves, etc. By limiting them to OEMs, AGEIA can still get the cards out to market, but they don't have to worry about retail marketshare and packaging _and_ they get to shift the burden of support onto the OEMs rather than bearing it themselves.

In the grand scheme of things, AGEIA is a very small company -- nowhere near the size of nVidia or ATi (pre-AMD). Thus, they have to make very exacting choices about how far they can extend themselves on the back-end for support and the like.
 
You obviously don't know a lot about business. While I, too, wish that there were retail PCI-E versions of the PhysX cards, in the end it's just not that simple. To send a card to retail, you've got to design and manufacture packaging, establish additional support channels for that card variant, manufacture them in very large quantities to get them onto store shelves, etc. By limiting them to OEMs, AGEIA can still get the cards out to market, but they don't have to worry about retail marketshare and packaging _and_ they get to shift the burden of support onto the OEMs rather than bearing it themselves.

In the grand scheme of things, AGEIA is a very small company -- nowhere near the size of nVidia or ATi (pre-AMD). Thus, they have to make very exacting choices about how far they can extend themselves on the back-end for support and the like.


Ironic how big deal you make it out to be when they already have vendor channels, already have suppliers, distributes, and even importers.... not to mention retail packaging and supplies....

I think you are forgetting that they do have a PCI version they sell proudly. A simple fix on the packaging (even a sticker) would indicate that it's a PCIE variant.


Looks like the kettle is calling the pot black, as you are not familiar with businesses and how simple it is to retool for a different flavor.
 
Ironic how big deal you make it out to be when they already have vendor channels, already have suppliers, distributes, and even importers.... not to mention retail packaging and supplies....

I think you are forgetting that they do have a PCI version they sell proudly. A simple fix on the packaging (even a sticker) would indicate that it's a PCIE variant.


Looks like the kettle is calling the pot black, as you are not familiar with businesses and how simple it is to retool for a different flavor.

You focused simply on the packaging. Packaging _is_ fairly straightforward (though not a straightforward as you made it sound). You totally ignored the support back-end portion of the equation which is by no means trivial.

Also, you make it sound like all of these suppliers, distributors, and importers are somehow "obligated" to distribute a PCI-E part if AGEIA wants to sell it. Not so. Every company in the supply chain is in business for one reason: to make money. If the market is telling these companies that there is not enough _volume demand_ to support distributing, stocking, and working with a PCI-E variant, then the supply chain will simply refuse to play ball.

While we on the [H] all want to see a PCI-E variant, the market at large is not demanding that. The equation works out like this. High end PC gamers (the current target for the PhysX) card are likely running their configurations with a full ATX board possessing two or more available PCI slots. Since PCI cards are cheaper and easier to tool and manufacture than PCI cards, that's where the market heads. The PCI-E variant is limited to OEMs because these vendors generally sell PCs on mATX (or smaller) mainboards that likely don't have any PCI slots available (none at all, or occupied by other add-in cards).

As I noted above, I'm a design engineer and I have to deal with these same supply chain issues all the time. From my seat, I don't deal with the supply chain for getting a product to retail, but rather in my ability to sample and purchase new components. It all ends up working out the same regardless of which side of the equation you're on though.
 
You focused simply on the packaging. Packaging _is_ fairly straightforward (though not a straightforward as you made it sound). You totally ignored the support back-end portion of the equation which is by no means trivial.

Also, you make it sound like all of these suppliers, distributors, and importers are somehow "obligated" to distribute a PCI-E part if AGEIA wants to sell it. Not so. Every company in the supply chain is in business for one reason: to make money. If the market is telling these companies that there is not enough _volume demand_ to support distributing, stocking, and working with a PCI-E variant, then the supply chain will simply refuse to play ball.

While we on the [H] all want to see a PCI-E variant, the market at large is not demanding that. The equation works out like this. High end PC gamers (the current target for the PhysX) card are likely running their configurations with a full ATX board possessing two or more available PCI slots. Since PCI cards are cheaper and easier to tool and manufacture than PCI cards, that's where the market heads. The PCI-E variant is limited to OEMs because these vendors generally sell PCs on mATX (or smaller) mainboards that likely don't have any PCI slots available (none at all, or occupied by other add-in cards).

As I noted above, I'm a design engineer and I have to deal with these same supply chain issues all the time. From my seat, I don't deal with the supply chain for getting a product to retail, but rather in my ability to sample and purchase new components. It all ends up working out the same regardless of which side of the equation you're on though.


And the PCI variant has such a huge demand that it would significantly offset the PCIE variant?

Perhaps the simple fact of the matter is that they don't want to release a PCIE yet, then they can release it later on in time and sell it for more money, vs as where they would have to sell right now for a compeditive price with thier PCI variant.

It's a huge mistake as these devices were targeted towards higher end machines, not the end user with his P4 dell... and these specific end users are the ones desiring pcie the most.
 
High end PC gamers (the current target for the PhysX) card are likely running their configurations with a full ATX board possessing two or more available PCI slots.
High-end gamers with SLI or Crossfire rigs have jack-all for open PCI slots. It's rare for these boards to have more than one, and the Creative X-Fi usually gets first dibs. The current target for the PhysX can't fit their product into their computers.

(I worked at an electronics card manufacturer. We could build and distribute cards in far smaller production runs than Aegia would be faced with. If they don't want to play with PCIe, then let someone else distribute the cards. If Aegia would sell me the boards at cost, I'd do it myself.)
 
(I worked at an electronics card manufacturer. We could build and distribute cards in far smaller production runs than Aegia would be faced with. If they don't want to play with PCIe, then let someone else distribute the cards. If Aegia would sell me the boards at cost, I'd do it myself.)

Congratulations. Then, that means that you're aware that AGEIA is a fabless company, right? They've obviously designed a PCI-e variant (we've seen it), so it's up to their partners (ASUS, BFG, and ELSA) to put them into production for the public. As far as I've been able to see, only ASUS has actually started manufacturing them and they're all going to the PC OEMs as explained above.
 
Back
Top