What do physics processors really do?

well physics processors pretty much just solve the movement ecuations of several particles, taking into consideration a lot of factors, like wind speed, relative velocity, etc. So in the end u have the real or at least a very good approximation of the trayectory of let say a bullet for example, cuz u know in real life they don't in a straight line, they do a little parabola.
 
so if you have a 9800gx2, do u need a physics card or can the gx2 do the physics too?
 
mnewxcv said:
so if you have a 9800gx2, do u need a physics card or can the gx2 do the physics too?
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No GPU support PhysX as we speak, NVIDIA promised GPU-physic on the 6800 series back in 2006...it never came.
My bet:
Only the new line of NVIDIA GPU's will support(a bunked down) version of PhysX...the rest will not get it...if we are to look at NVIDIA's track record of keeping their promises regarding GPU-Physics...:rolleyes:
 
the new line will have it, i am just waiting for them. they basically take the task of computing numbers from cpus, like having a second processor, i think.
 
Sorry I'm kind of a newb when it comes to this.
So does the game you are playing have to support the physics card for it to work?...and is it actually altering your game play?
 
IMHO, it's far more cost effective to spend your money on a better CPU. They've pretty much been taking care of the physics processing load by making better CPU's these days. Besides, how many other applications will you be running while you're gaming?
 
DirDrlr said:
IMHO, it's far more cost effective to spend your money on a better CPU. They've pretty much been taking care of the physics processing load by making better CPU's these days. Besides, how many other applications will you be running while you're gaming?
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Wrong, my quadcore dosn't come close to my PPU when speaking physics performance.
 
DirDrlr said:
IMHO, it's far more cost effective to spend your money on a better CPU. They've pretty much been taking care of the physics processing load by making better CPU's these days. Besides, how many other applications will you be running while you're gaming?
Click to expand...
atech is right.
it is not like that.
1st the game you playing have to support it.
2nd the ppu does nothing but calculations. and it is better doing that, than a normal cpu. capable of doing heavy physics calculations. like having a spock in the starship enterprise.
 
Wait for a bit. Aegia was bought by another company, so I expect physics processing will be built into newer generation video cards.
 
nVidia said that all current 8 series based cards were going to get PhysX acceleration is the very near future via CUDA.
 
Supposedly, the nVidia 8800 series of cards will be able to run PhysX-enabled games once the new CUDA drivers are released.. When that happens though is anyone's guess..
 
i think it will eventually happen, but much more slowly and gradually than if ageia's solution had more widespread support. perhaps dx11, or should i say, the real dx10, lol?
 
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