Geek news - ageia's PhysX processor vs. nvidia gpu?

[o_someoldguy]

In this article there is some news on using physics processors in gaming... interesting stuff... including this little tidbit:

Ageia has been working on PhysX for several years, and right now it's the only company with a dedicated processor for physics calculations. But that probably won't be the case for long.
At this year's Game Developers Conference, nVidia announced its own physics plans in conjunction with Havok, maker of the Havok physics engine, which adds CPU-processed physics to current games such as Half Life 2 and F.E.A.R.
As a result of the partnership, Havok's upcoming FX engine will use current-generation (7 series) nVidia GPUs to process physics calculations. The process can work on one GPU, but it will work better on a dual-GPU SLI system in which one chip would handle graphics and a second would handle physics.
ATI has also discussed running physics on its GPUs, and the company has shown some demos, but it hasn't announced any specific products or partnerships.

[o_nezumi]

HA! Physics cards! I predicted them and here they come. I'm awesome.

[o_jinx]

I'm hoping we will see this physics technology integrated into video cards. I really don't feel like shelling out for a damn physics card in addition to a video card. Maybe we'll see multi-core GPU's with one core dedicated to physics or something along those lines *crosses fingers*

And, to be blunt, how many games really use physics as part of the gameplay aside from HL2?

[o_paft]

Impressive! I feel so behind.

[Circuitous]

Oblivion does.

[Defrag]

From what I remember, the GPU solution is only half-baked because it can only simulate itself inside its own little world (a major speed issue with graphics cards is the uploading/offloading of data.. so if you're constantly transferring masses of data to be simulated, then pulling the results, it's going to slow things down afaik). To me it sounds like there's a lot of hot air and spin goin' on, but it will have its applications (like short lived or 'eye-candy' objects that don't interfere with gameplay).

I wonder how long it'll be before CPUs have enough cores that the physics cards become obsolete anyway.

[Jiggles]

The problem with CPUs doing physics simulations is that they don't tend to have enough floating point units to handle a whole scene interacting in a split second. But yeah, with enough cores they could do it; I wouldn't want to have to write the threaded physics code for that, though

[Defrag]

Both valid points I don't envy anyone who has to multi-thread stuff and keep it all running happily.. especially when you have the new console hardware (cell etc) that apparently makes it even tougher compared to traditional CPUs.

[o_luminous]

Nvidia is already trying "SLI physics"

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30434

interesting read if you're into that kinda thing

[o_|404|innoc-tpf-]

Reminds me of the days of the 80386 where you could add an external Math Coprocessor in some configurations. Hopefully some attention will be paid to nontechnical things that make games fun instead of eye candy showcases that some games end up being.

[Dospac]

The Ageia demo for Cell Factor was pretty impressive. Net bandwidth still a big issue for multiplayer though.