Why Ageia will Fail

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Faction

The Chairman
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This tid bit of information seems to have gone unoticed -

Nvidia will be adapting the SLI configuration so that for instance, a 7900GTX can sli With a 7600GT (or any card really for that matter) and use it as a Physics processor. Why would anyone get an Ageia PPU when we can get a 7600 for under 200 dollars... not to mention no special programming for AGEIA PPU, this is a much more viable option for people wanting a seperate physics processor. Sorry for anyone who bought the Ageia- you wasted your money.
 
Faction said:
Nvidia will be adapting the SLI configuration so that for instance, a 7900GTX can sli With a 7600GT (or any card really for that matter) and use it as a Physics processor.
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Where did you read that? ATI has announced unmatched cards for physics, but AFAIK nvidia hasn't.

And it's not nvidia supporting SM3 physics, it's Havok (Havok FX) and it will work on various cards.

Finally, Havok FX has been discussed many times here before. There are advantages and disadvantages to all the methods (CPU physics, GPU physics, PPU physics). But your last statement shows the spirit of your post was more to troll than inform. :rolleyes:
 
I like the Ageia technolgy. I like that they jumped up and made aproduct that the big guys were unwilling to come up with, but you may be right. I don't know about the specific reasoning you used, but stuff like that won't help. As soon as the vid-card guys start putting physics on every card, there will be no market left for Ageia. Plus, if console games are being produced in paralel to the PC games, there may not be an overwhelming number of physics using games out there, simply becasue they won't want to program the same game twice.
 
They may fail. Maybe not, I don't know.

However, we've discussed the GPU vs. PPU debate many times here. A GPU cannot do what a PPU can. The physics on a GPU are just basically special effects that don't effect gameplay. Gameplay physics is still handled by the CPU. Ageia's card can do these physics effects, and accelerate gameplay physics. For physics purposes, the PPU is a much more capable piece of hardware.

Will games supporting the PPU actually take advantage of the capability of the hardware? That's the big question mark.
 
The other question we don't know the answer to is how much of a performance hit enabling physics on the GPUs will cause. Declaring the PhysX dead is way premature, and the OP is nothing but trolling.
 
apparently no one listens to the E3 Coverage...

I have good news. It's very well possible that you can have for example a Geforce 7900 GTX as primary graphics cards and pair that one up with a GeForce 7600 GT to do the physics calculations ... now that's saving money for sure and it sure as hell is a way cheaper alternative compared to the 300 bucks Ageia solution.
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Source: http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MTg3OTIsTWF5ICAgICAgLDIwMDYsaG5ld3M

I am not trying to troll but being realistic to those who are wondering if it will be worth it.
 
I don't know if the rushed support for physics acceleration via Nvidia/ATI's SLI/Crossfire tech will cause the downfall of Ageia... it's far too early to tell. Personally I think it is the price-point that is more-likely to hurt them.

Enthusiasts already spend $500 - $1000 on their video card setups. Do we really want to spend another $300? And how about the mid-cap market; for those of us who spent less than $299 on our present video cards? $150 -$200 would have been much more reasonable and would have probable helped their initial sales a bit.

But hey, look at how sound cards have 'evolved'. :rolleyes:
 
well if you have sli/crossfire and you want physics then youre a bit stuck arent you ;) :p and physics generally appeals to the enthusiasts who have sli/crossfire
 
Mayhs said:
...physics generally appeals to the enthusiasts who have sli/crossfire
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Not really... considering you don't "need" an SLI/Crossfire setup to play any game out there right now. You won't "need" a physics card either... but if properly implemented a physics card has the potential to make it so a lower end graphics card could enjoy more visually enticing gameplay than before. If I'm going to spend $300 to upgrade my graphics capabilities, I'm going to get a 7900... not a PhysX card.

It's just like games "only for the Xbox" - Ageia, like Microsoft, is going on the assumption that "everyone will buy one." There are plenty of people who want to play Halo2 and would happily pay for it on the PC... but MS keeps holding out for the ten percent of people who will buy a console -just- to play Halo2. Unfortunately this business model isn't going to work well for Ageia... the amount they sell at $299 is nothing compared to the amount they could sell at $150. I however guarantee nothing. ;)
 
For the many games that are coming out with support for the PhysX engine, no configuration of SLI is going to accelerate that. This isn't like ATi vs. nVidia where both solutions support OpenGL and DirectX; you have the PPU that supports PhysX and then you have HavokFX which runs on any SM3.0 card. If the game supports PhysX nothing short of a PPU is going to give you hardware acceleration. If the game supports HavokFX, the PPU isn’t going to do anything for you, but most boxes with a PPU will likely will still have a SM3.0 GPU anyway.

Faction said:
this is a much more viable option for people wanting a seperate physics processor. Sorry for anyone who bought the Ageia- you wasted your money.
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If the game they play supports the PhysX engine, please tell me how a separate Physics solution that isn’t capable of accelerating the game in any way is a “more viable option”?
 
GotNoRice said:
If the game they play supports the PhysX engine, please tell me how a separate Physics solution that isn’t capable of accelerating the game in any way is a “more viable option”?
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Not that I disagree, but anyone remember EAX vs. Aureal... :p

One will eventually win... and it will most likely be the one with the most money (i.e. Nvidia/ATI) or the one which requires less initial investment in order to function (again, Nvidia/ATI.) Frankly, with what Nvidia did to ULi, I'm surprised PhysX hasn't been licensed and incorporated or bought-out by Nvidia yet. :D
 
IMHO I think it's the price that makes all the difference when talking about ppu.

If people will buy soundcards for 200 bucks why wouldn't they buy a ppu for around the same.

If you can get a ppu card for say 100 who in their right mind wouldn't,

myself is very intrigued with it but when I saw the price it crushed my curiousity, for a more dust particles or some extra fps, for that I rather buy a newer vid card.

I think a price decreas will serve a lot of good for the ppu cards... :D
 
ALL OF YOU!!!!!!
Remember that if the physics is GPU based it is eye candy only. There is no collision detection, so no swirling fog around you etc. If you touch anything etc. it makes no difference. It has to go back via the cpu a couple of times (due to it being a gpu), and this will create massive latency and thus lower fps.

However, all that the aegia seems to be doing at the mo is adding eye candy and therefore reducing performance....

f
 
freddiepm61 said:
ALL OF YOU!!!!!!
Remember that if the physics is GPU based it is eye candy only. There is no collision detection, so no swirling fog around you etc. If you touch anything etc. it makes no difference. It has to go back via the cpu a couple of times (due to it being a gpu), and this will create massive latency and thus lower fps.

However, all that the aegia seems to be doing at the mo is adding eye candy and therefore reducing performance....

f
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I know this... buy I'd argue that it's only a matter of time before Nvidia/ATI add support for all operations, including background ones, to their solution. In this market it would have made far greater sense for them to come out with a cheap product which could be widely adopted BEFORE ATI/Nvidia could catch up... because right now, they are just going to go the way of Aureal Audio.

If they sold the product for $200, alot more people would buy one, if they sold it for $150 an even greater percentage of people would buy one and if they sold it for $100, Emachines would start coming with them as a free upgrade. :p
 
i think its still new, and will take some time, and more games to fully enjoy and im sure the prices will drop.
they have my interest as more games become not only more real looking but immersive in the fact that the enviroment will be interactive.

be nice to see more destroyable stuff in BF2 and CS:s.
 
dwilson041781 said:
i think its still new, and will take some time, and more games to fully enjoy and im sure the prices will drop.
they have my interest as more games become not only more real looking but immersive in the fact that the enviroment will be interactive.

be nice to see more destroyable stuff in BF2 and CS:s.
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agreed, sound blaster fatal1ty's x-fi system has X-Ram and only a coupel games have that, where's the "X-ram will fail" bandwagon? it'll just take sometime.
 
dwilson041781 said:
i think its still new, and will take some time, and more games to fully enjoy and im sure the prices will drop.
they have my interest as more games become not only more real looking but immersive in the fact that the enviroment will be interactive.

be nice to see more destroyable stuff in BF2 and CS:s.
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I don’t think we’ll see many older games updated to support PhysX, mainly new/future games.
 
Orinthical said:
Not really... considering you don't "need" an SLI/Crossfire setup to play any game out there right now. You won't "need" a physics card either... but if properly implemented a physics card has the potential to make it so a lower end graphics card could enjoy more visually enticing gameplay than before. If I'm going to spend $300 to upgrade my graphics capabilities, I'm going to get a 7900... not a PhysX card.

It's just like games "only for the Xbox" - Ageia, like Microsoft, is going on the assumption that "everyone will buy one." There are plenty of people who want to play Halo2 and would happily pay for it on the PC... but MS keeps holding out for the ten percent of people who will buy a console -just- to play Halo2. Unfortunately this business model isn't going to work well for Ageia... the amount they sell at $299 is nothing compared to the amount they could sell at $150. I however guarantee nothing. ;)
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true that its not necessarily for people who have sli/crossfire, however a survey was conducted in a pc magazine in the uk and 75% of the people who wanted to purchase the physix card HAD sli/crossfire...nuff said :) i cant really be bothered to get into a debate right now...but in the uk market (which isnt as big as the america/european) the general consumers without sli/crossfire do not want the 'physix chip' because if i remember correctly the said 'it wasnt worth it'...

edit: damn pressed submit :( anyways...i believe this will all change in a few years when compatibility issues are no longer an issue :p
 
Orinthical said:
You won't "need" a physics card either... but if properly implemented a physics card has the potential to make it so a lower end graphics card could enjoy more visually enticing gameplay than before.
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This isn't the case, in fact the exact opposite is true. If you want the benefits of the physics card you're going to need an even more powerful GPU. Your graphics card has to render all this "visually enticing gameplay" and the more visually enticing it is the more GPU power you're going to need.
 
bildad said:
This isn't the case, in fact the exact opposite is true. If you want the benefits of the physics card you're going to need an even more powerful GPU. Your graphics card has to render all this "visually enticing gameplay" and the more visually enticing it is the more GPU power you're going to need.
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Actually no - because what I was referring to was the demo flash video from GRAW. They both looked very close - however the one with PhysX enabled had extra particles, debris, added particles to the explosion, etc. You may not be able to up the resolution or turn on extra FSAA with a physics card (not what I was saying) but the game itself could become more immersive IF it was written or updated to including code for PhysX at the same resolution/graphics options.
 
Mayhs said:
true that its not necessarily for people who have sli/crossfire, however a survey was conducted in a pc magazine in the uk and 75% of the people who wanted to purchase the physix card HAD sli/crossfire...nuff said :) i cant really be bothered to get into a debate right now...but in the uk market (which isnt as big as the america/european) the general consumers without sli/crossfire do not want the 'physix chip' because if i remember correctly the said 'it wasnt worth it'...

edit: damn pressed submit :( anyways...i believe this will all change in a few years when compatibility issues are no longer an issue :p
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I don't wish to debate it either... but I will point out that your poll reference is a bit flawed in that it was taken from a gaming magazine. That limits your demographic base rather severely. I can guarantee you that the average 'gamer' does not have an SLI setup - no where near the 75% you or the magazine quoted. :)

But I digress, we'll merely have to wait and see...
 
Orinthical said:
Not that I disagree, but anyone remember EAX vs. Aureal... :p

One will eventually win... and it will most likely be the one with the most money (i.e. Nvidia/ATI) or the one which requires less initial investment in order to function (again, Nvidia/ATI.) Frankly, with what Nvidia did to ULi, I'm surprised PhysX hasn't been licensed and incorporated or bought-out by Nvidia yet. :D
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I'm bent on thinking that the AGEIA solution will gain the upper market, just because they have the stuff which is actually REAL and WORKING, whereas the others have just hot air marketing and half dreams into the future ;)
 
Orinthical said:
Actually no - because what I was referring to was the demo flash video from GRAW. They both looked very close - however the one with PhysX enabled had extra particles, debris, added particles to the explosion, etc. You may not be able to up the resolution or turn on extra FSAA with a physics card (not what I was saying) but the game itself could become more immersive IF it was written or updated to including code for PhysX at the same resolution/graphics options.
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True it did, but it also suffered a framerate hit. Someone on a 7900GTX or a 1900xt might not notice such a hit but someone on lesser hardware would and could have to lower resolution or options as a result.
 
Wasn't there something about Microsoft including physics within a future DirectX emplementation. Doesn't that seem likely to amalgamate any differences betwen competing methods of physics support? If not now, eventually?

All this stuff about visual effects using the physics processors just seems so unsatisfying. Sure, better visuals are nice, but this is just more imaginary stuff that cannot be interacted with. Isn't interaction with the environment the true satisfying eventual use for physics? How many games are really using it for that now?
 
Orinthical said:
I don't wish to debate it either... but I will point out that your poll reference is a bit flawed in that it was taken from a gaming magazine. That limits your demographic base rather severely. I can guarantee you that the average 'gamer' does not have an SLI setup - no where near the 75% you or the magazine quoted. :)

But I digress, we'll merely have to wait and see...
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true i was going to comment on the demographic but i thought that would fuel a debate :p ...dont forget not everyone responds but they get an average poll response of 50k...so that is quite a large market there and it is a gaming/hardware magazine with a lot of computer related stuff outside of gaming (sry i didnt mention that)...

but all i wanted to portray by the satistic was that currently enthusiasts (in the uk) are more likely to purchase the physix chip than 'average gamers'...and i do not believe that enthusiasts would sacrifice 30-100% of their performance to save buying a physix chip...if i was still an avid gamer id be happy to drop the extra money
 
I am happy that people need to make threads about why PhysX will fail, since it implies that it is common and natural to assume that they are going to succeed.
 
drizzt81 said:
I am happy that people need to make threads about why PhysX will fail, since it implies that it is common and natural to assume that they are going to succeed.
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theres always one ;) :p
 
Mayhs said:
true i was going to comment on the demographic but i thought that would fuel a debate :p ...dont forget not everyone responds but they get an average poll response of 50k...so that is quite a large market there and it is a gaming/hardware magazine with a lot of computer related stuff outside of gaming (sry i didnt mention that)...

but all i wanted to portray by the satistic was that currently enthusiasts (in the uk) are more likely to purchase the physix chip than 'average gamers'...and i do not believe that enthusiasts would sacrifice 30-100% of their performance to save buying a physix chip...if i was still an avid gamer id be happy to drop the extra money
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A little better... but still doesn't trump the fact that if they dropped the price they'd sell more. :) Example: Xbox gamers will buy Xbox games but if said xbox game also came out for the PC they'd sell in that market as well.

Same thing here: Right now Ageia has the enthusiast in mind and thus they have priced their product accordingly... $299. This price-point makes the product less adoptable by others outside of that one market segment. There are a lot more 'average gamers' out there than hardcore enthusiasts. If the card was priced lower it would be far more adoptable by others outside the one target segment and thus would have a higher likelihood of increasing sales.

But *sigh* this is all slowly spelling the death of PC gaming anyway... I hate consoles... but it's becoming rather hard for many people to justify $500 for high end video card, $300 for physics card, $200-300 for sound card... Hmmm versus $500 for a console that does it all without the need to troubleshoot things. I'll never join the console camp... but dang... prices need to be relaxed a bit if we're going to keep our overall segment (PC Gaming) alive.

I mean heck, a lot of people were offended by the mention that the PS3 might have cost $800'ish a while back before pricing came out. So what if it did - how much did you just spend on your SLI setup? And now we're adding PPU's for $300? Wow... Now there's talk of adding web browsers to multiple consoles? All that's needed is a word processor and a whole chunk of our market is gone...
 
Orinthical said:
A little better... but still doesn't trump the fact that if they dropped the price they'd sell more. :) Example: Xbox gamers will buy Xbox games but if said xbox game also came out for the PC they'd sell in that market as well.

Same thing here: Right now Ageia has the enthusiast in mind and thus they have priced their product accordingly... $299. This price-point makes the product less adoptable by others outside of that one market segment. There are a lot more 'average gamers' out there than hardcore enthusiasts. If the card was priced lower it would be far more adoptable by others outside the one target segment and thus would have a higher likelihood of increasing sales.

But *sigh* this is all slowly spelling the death of PC gaming anyway... I hate consoles... but it's becoming rather hard for many people to justify $500 for high end video card, $300 for physics card, $200-300 for sound card... Hmmm versus $500 for a console that does it all without the need to troubleshoot things. I'll never join the console camp... but dang... prices need to be relaxed a bit if we're going to keep our overall segment (PC Gaming) alive.
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your conclusive paragraph was the real meaning of my posts...however obscure they were :p ...if we manage to keep pc gaming alive, the physix chip will be qiute popular...if not then theyll have to put them in consoles...otherwise they will go bust
 
If the game they play supports the PhysX engine, please tell me how a separate Physics solution that isn’t capable of accelerating the game in any way is a “more viable option”?
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Apparently I was unclear about the post as you wheren't able to comprehend... When this technology becomes available how will Ageia compete?, games will support the nvidia solution, and thus making for anyone who bought a PPU to suffer.. and are you aware that the Ageia setup actually doesnt "accellerate" it actually reduces overall FPS. (granted you are getting more eyecandy, but if you spend 300 dollars why would you want to loose a substantial amount of FPS?) once again this thread isnt meant to flame ageia, but serve more as a warning to potential buyers who are thinking that this card will speed up gameplay and be a lasting solution.
 
The drop in FPS isnt due to latency its the fact that the GPU has to render more "stuff"

Also, even if Ageia fails, who cares. It's gotten the ball rolling for some pretty cool chit.
 
I haven't read the whole thread..but I would like to see Physics done on quad core CPUs when they are out
Then you can have two video cards dedicated to graphics (instead of using one of the slots for physics, leaving only 1 videocard for graphics). On a quad core CPU, why not dedicate 2 cores for the non physics stuff, 1 core for physics and 1 core to run all the windows/networking stuff... :confused:
 
Ageia's biggest worry should be devs like Crytek who are getting some amazing results from primarily CPU physics(some physics effects done on the GPU).

Here's another e3 video of Crysis. Along with an interview with the lead level designer, there's some really impressive gameplay.

Download clip here

Be sure to watch the last couple minutes where the guy playing enters the tree trimming business. VERY, VERY impressive! :eek:

Remember the minigun vs. jungle scene in Predator? :D
 
Ok stop with the "I can add some piece of shit card in my second pci-e slot to make it calculate the physics"

What's the point in that when someone buys a second card with the intention of having it help with graphics and NOT physics? What then? That completely destroys the point of SLI.
 
Indeed games like crysis show how awesome phyics can be without any extra hardware.
 
Faction said:
When this technology becomes available how will Ageia compete?, games will support the nvidia solution, and thus making for anyone who bought a PPU to suffer.
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Faction, HavokFX and PhysX are calculating diffent aspects of gameplay. One will make water look nice, the other will make it flow realisticly, err something like that. This tech is baby right now, and Agea already has loads of support in the tools that are used to make these games. But I would rather keep an SLI rig in SLI rather than use a cheaper gpu to render eye candy physics. I dont know of a single card that will play UT2K7 at 1920x1200 with all eyecandy on full, or smooth performance on a 100,000 unit RTS battle. :eek:
 
Ok stop with the "I can add some piece of shit card in my second pci-e slot to make it calculate the physics"

What's the point in that when someone buys a second card with the intention of having it help with graphics and NOT physics? What then? That completely destroys the point of SLI.
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what's the point you ask?

I have a 7900GTX having 2 wouldn't make much sense for me as that would be laying down 1k dollars... but by adding a 7600GT (which im so glad you think is a POS, im sure the thousands of people who use that as their primary GPU agree with you) this enables you to potentially do the same as a physX processor on the cheap.... this isn't "sli" its an adaptation to SLI.
 
sp1nfer said:
I'm bent on thinking that the AGEIA solution will gain the upper market, just because they have the stuff which is actually REAL and WORKING, whereas the others have just hot air marketing and half dreams into the future ;)
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Last I checked, Ageia just has marketing, dreams, and tech demos. I mean, there is such an expansive list of titles available utilizing the PPU, such as GRAW, GRAW, GRAW, GRAW, and that new GRAW game.

Ageia released their card way too early with too little support from developers. They should have focused on getting the PhysX engine into games and once they had a substantial library of games that could take advantage of the PPU they should have released it.
 
dotK said:
Last I checked, Ageia just has marketing, dreams, and tech demos. I mean, there is such an expansive list of titles available utilizing the PPU, such as GRAW, GRAW, GRAW, GRAW, and that new GRAW game.

Ageia released their card way too early with too little support from developers. They should have focused on getting the PhysX engine into games and once they had a substantial library of games that could take advantage of the PPU they should have released it.
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City of Villains is out with PPU support now, Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends is out now with PPU support also.

But really, the thing is that they did wait to release the PPU. They waited a damn long time. If you read the early articles about how it was supposed to have a 2005 release date, well, it wasn't because the cards weren't ready... They waited, and waited, and waited, until now, when there actually are a few games out that can use it. You’re basically criticizing them for doing exactly what you said.

But beyond that, these guys are giving their engine away for free rather than charging huge sums of money like it costs to use an engine such as HavokFX. It’s not like they are just sitting there raking in the $$$ and all driving Ferrari’s. When I drove down to Ageia headquarters in Mountain View, their offices there were extremely humble, a small section of a larger building, with everyone all the way up to and including the CEO racing around the cubicles working their butts off. I also had the opportunity to hear one of their engineers talking about how they really didn’t want to create animosity between those who had the cards and those who didn’t, and how they wanted to make PhysX enhance games for everyone, with added bonus to those who happen to have a card. Eh, bottom line really is that I walked away not just impressed with the tech but impressed with the people behind it. These people really did seem to care and want to make games better. Certainly nothing like what is being implied – that they are trying to rip people off or that they made some kind of mistake by releasing it.

Whether or not the card currently represents a good value is somewhat irrelevant, as early adopters will snatch them up regardless. Everyone else will buy them if/when it gives them something that makes them feel it’s worth their money. I don’t think that anyone, especially Ageia, thinks otherwise.
 
I also believe these cards will fade out quickly for the time being. First of all, I, nor any other person in a good state of mind, will pay upwards of a hundred dollars just to see a couple extra physics effects. I think that in the future, these types of cards will be built into video cards, but that is just wild speculation.
 
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