Regarding PPU's..

[MD]

Deja Vu anyone? Comman VooDoo I? Whole 3D thing?

First it was like VooDoo I PCI and there was not so much things You can run with it (few demos etc.)

Then came games but You have allready needed VooDoo II and preferably SLi 12 MB models with good 2D card and then came TNT with 32 MB that did it all with one card and better.


How long before every gaming card has PP capabilities anyways?


Well I have mixed feelings. I've did it all once long time ago I tend to wait bit longer and see. Might be it comes with me getting older (or tired of following a game) or budgets and market that allways ask for more and more hard earned cash


I don't know...



MD

 

[Amanda]

As with 3D gaming, it's all about the games... It needs some killer aps (like Kyle's article said). Without the games that support it, and make it have a huge difference, it won't be adopted. Right now, it looks good. It looks great! I want one. But, right now it's only eye candy... Which NVIDIA is countering by turning their GPU's into PPU's...

 

[board2death986]

Yea i like nvidia's idea of using pre-existing hardware to do the same job, if not better. Although this would be better if you could use a PCI-E x1 or x4 card or have the second SLI card be a different model, so if you don't already have SLI you can buy a top end card and get a mid range for the PPU, this works best for the mid range crowd that already has SLI up and running, if this was already out i would see the 7800/7900GT's as the most common setup, but would the extra physics processing be worth the cut back on graphics power? Since nvidia only has to do the software end of things to make their hardware compatible with this technology, I imagine it shouldn't be too long before it hits the market, but will nvidia charge for this software update?

 

[[RCKY] Thor]

The big difference is the GPU physics are effects, while the PPU physics are actually part of the game. With games already pushing GPUs to their limit, I'm not willing to sacrifice any graphics performance for physics that don't actually affect the game.

 

[Amanda]

The big difference is the GPU physics are effects, while the PPU physics are actually part of the game. With games already pushing GPUs to their limit, I'm not willing to sacrifice any graphics performance for physics that don't actually affect the game.

I was under the impression that the first gen PPU's were mostly on the effects, while the next gen are going to be more of the interaction and real life physics stuff...

And I think that if you can afford an SLI system, you can afford a cheaper PPU. And if not, you may not want to give up much of your graphics anyway!

 

[GotNoRice]

How long before every gaming card has PP capabilities anyways?

Yea i like nvidia's idea of using pre-existing hardware to do the same job, if not better.

There are two issues at hand here, the first as has already been mentioned is that GPU physics will be effects physics only. If you’ve seen the Cellfactor videos, that kind of stuff is not going to be possible with current GPU physics due to limitations on a very basic level.

The 2nd issue is that we are talking about two different things. GPU physics will use the Havok FX engine while the PPU will use the PhysX engine. Games will either use one engine or the other. Unless a game somehow incorporated both engines, you are going to be limited to one hardware solution per game.

Imagine if Nvidia only supported OpenGL and ATi only supported DirectX. You wouldn’t see benchmarks between cards or anything like that. If you played OpenGL games you would get nvidia and if you played DirectX games you would get ATi. This is how it will be with PPU and GPU Physics unless a game used both engines (probably unlikely) or if they licensed each others tech somehow (also unlikely at this point).

 

[[RCKY] Thor]

I was under the impression that the first gen PPU's were mostly on the effects, while the next gen are going to be more of the interaction and real life physics stuff...

And I think that if you can afford an SLI system, you can afford a cheaper PPU. And if not, you may not want to give up much of your graphics anyway!

No, the first gen PPU is a fully capable product that will add /more/ features through later drvier updates. I've had a chance to use one at quakecon, and the physics environments are fully interactive and affect gameplay.