PlayStation 3 physics by AGEIA - bit-tech.net Forums

The_Pope · 21st Mar 2006, 16:46

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/03...s_ageia_physx/

Veles · 21st Mar 2006, 17:10

I was expecting a bit more from this PPU thingy, I've watched a few vids on thier site and it wasn't very impressive, but if it allows developers to put decent physics in thier game then I suppose it's good.

Any ideas on how much these things will cost?

lips · 21st Mar 2006, 17:17

350 to 400 as I understand?

Rich_13 · 21st Mar 2006, 17:26

thought it was $250 they were aiming to release it at...

Motivator · 21st Mar 2006, 17:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veles

I was expecting a bit more from this PPU thingy, I've watched a few vids on thier site and it wasn't very impressive, but if it allows developers to put decent physics in thier game then I suppose it's good.

I wouldnt have had much hope for such amazing graphics improvement in the early days of video cards, yet look where we are today.

FILTHY1337 · 21st Mar 2006, 18:50

how will they support the xbox 360? will later versions of the console have it along with the hd-dvd they are are also supose to impliment somehow.

Comrade Penguin · 22nd Mar 2006, 02:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by FILTHY1337

how will they support the xbox 360? will later versions of the console have it along with the hd-dvd they are are also supose to impliment somehow.

I believe HD DVD will be delivered through a external drive though I may be wrong.

As for inclusion with Xbox 360 I believe they use the multicore architecture and set aside one of the CPUs or GPUs to be used as a PPU. Not quite sure on that though.

The_Pope · 22nd Mar 2006, 04:34

The PhysX physics engine is just like Havok really - it's a sort of self-contained chunk of code that developers can use for in-game physics rather than having to write their own routines from scratch. It can run in software just like Havok did / does in stuff like Half-Life 2.

The PPU PC card accelerates this stuff in hardware. PlayStation 3 will use some of its Cell processor funkiness to make it run fast. As far as I am aware, Xbox 360 will pretty much just run it like a PC without the PPU: the game will still make the same calls to the various physics functions at the API level, and AGEIA's software team will make sure that their code then talks really fast to the Xbox 360 hardware.

What all that means is that for companies like EA who publish loads of games cross-platform, they can implement one set of physics and know that it will work across PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

EQC · 23rd Mar 2006, 04:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veles

I was expecting a bit more from this PPU thingy, I've watched a few vids on thier site and it wasn't very impressive, but if it allows developers to put decent physics in thier game then I suppose it's good.

There used to be an "Airtight" video demo on the Ageia site...now they only have a couple screenshots labeled "hanger of doom." In addition to things like shooting crates that would dynamically shatter and tumble, along with shooting an airplane engine and causing fire and explosions, it showed (at the very end) something pretty impressive: it was a plane crashing into the hanger...in one shot, it plowed into a tower of stacked barrels, and each barrel would tumble, fall, and collide with the others in a realistic way. In another shot, the plane crashed into a solid sphere and exploded, with fire and shattered pieces going off in all directions at different speeds, etc. While, from a video standpoint, it doesn't seem that impressive -- you may have seen things like this PRE-RENDERED in games before...the fact that it was calculated real-time (and they may have included, say, Finite Element Analysis on a simplified level to calculate how the plane should break apart), etc. is pretty impressive.

With the other demos on the site -- like the falling boulders, or the fluid models -- keep in mind that while the artistry/graphics may not be all that impressive, the point is to show off that the physics is actually being calculated in real time -- if there's 1000 boulders, they're all being tracked in at least x,y,z coordinates, but possibly also in a couple rotational coordinates, as well as detecting collisions with each other and the ground and bouncing/breaking accordingly. Not really complex physics...but definitely lots of it to do in-game real-time without any pre-rendering (so it can happen differently every time).

Anybody who's ever run physics simulations/calculations on their own knows how time consuming they generally are on a CPU, and how impressive this new era of real time calculations will become in the near future.

21st Mar 2006, 16:46	#1
The_Pope Geoff Richards Moderator Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: UK Posts: 2,089	PlayStation 3 physics by AGEIA http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/03...s_ageia_physx/

21st Mar 2006, 17:26	#4
Rich_13 Hypermodder Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: London /Essex Uni Posts: 716	thought it was $250 they were aiming to release it at... __________________ [Gaming laptop:][Intel Cour Duo2 T7200 ] [Nvidia7900GS GO] [1920x1200 display] [2GB DDR][Creative 6.1's ] My blog

21st Mar 2006, 18:50	#6
FILTHY1337 Senior Overclocker Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: NY, to small to know Posts: 819	how will they support the xbox 360? will later versions of the console have it along with the hd-dvd they are are also supose to impliment somehow. __________________ -=Abandon Hope All YE Who Enter =-(my mod station) Formerly ocedAMD@3000+

21st Mar 2006, 17:17	#3
lips What's a Dremel? Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Canada Posts: 3	350 to 400 as I understand?

22nd Mar 2006, 04:34	#8
The_Pope Geoff Richards Moderator Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: UK Posts: 2,089	The PhysX physics engine is just like Havok really - it's a sort of self-contained chunk of code that developers can use for in-game physics rather than having to write their own routines from scratch. It can run in software just like Havok did / does in stuff like Half-Life 2. The PPU PC card accelerates this stuff in hardware. PlayStation 3 will use some of its Cell processor funkiness to make it run fast. As far as I am aware, Xbox 360 will pretty much just run it like a PC without the PPU: the game will still make the same calls to the various physics functions at the API level, and AGEIA's software team will make sure that their code then talks really fast to the Xbox 360 hardware. What all that means is that for companies like EA who publish loads of games cross-platform, they can implement one set of physics and know that it will work across PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.