News ATI touts physics on GPU

[WilHarris]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/06...hysics_on_GPU/

[Sea Shadow]

As if things weren't expensive enough. I do like the idea of being able to use an old video card to handle the physics side of things, but I still dont see how a GPU could beat something specifically designed to be a PPU. Also I would like to keep my various slots for devices such as a soundcard, Ageis PPU, maybe a nice RAID card, and then don't forget the old PCI card that gives us back our parallel ports (I love parallel LCDs).

[specofdust]

This is intresting, but I still don't even see why I need the power of an Aegia phsics chip, let alone 9x that power. From what I understand of it all, the ammount of stuff that goes flying around is so far more limited by the graphics of it then the physics(well, CPU) side of it. It's a good step, but I can't help like feeling it's a garnish for a main course that hasn't yet arrived.

[Morpheon]

Oh come on!!! Geezz next it will be Quad SLI AND Dual sli physics processors for a grand total of 6 gfx cards!!! While were at it lets just run an array of 12 cards, all needing watercooling, 4 1000w powersupplies, 4 4-core Intel Core 4 Quadro Extremo Edition XXX CPUs, 20 GBs Ram!!!!

We'd still wouldnt break 200fps in gameplay in FEAR

I getting sick of all these gfx solutions...sli was pushing it, this is just over the top..

[mattthegamer463]

If I was rich, I would be all over this stuff. But since I'm not, it angers me to see all this. I stare loathingly at my 9600SE, wishing it was better.

[Irvine]

I like this idea of a physics processor better than the Ageia, simply because it uses the already-established Havok instead of a totally new system. It might actually work...if we didn't have to buy a whole 'nother GPU. Why couldn't Ageia just use Havok, or at least improve it to a new standard?

[EQC]

...9X the physics processing of the Ageia PhysX using an X1900XT...but the HardOCP article says it's just "effects physics" -- meaning that whatever the "physics" is, it's just for looks in ATI's solution....not ACTUALLY interactive -- so when you blow up a building, it'll fall and crumble and look neat, but when the graphics card calculates the tumbling rocks, it can't talk back to a CPU efficiently and tell it that an enemy should have been injured or whatever...

that's Ageia's whole point: the physics doesn't just look pretty, it can actually be an important part of the game (like in the Cell Factor demo)...of course this also creates problems in multiplayer games if some of the players don't have the physics card....

Also: just like to add -- the first few games out for Ageia's card (excluding that Cell Factor demo) are still just using it for a few effects physics situations. And, at least from what I've read, the performance hit that's been reported is mainly because the games only use the Ageia card for a few situations...so every time the game wants to do some better physics effects, it first has to initialize all the objects/environment, etc. on the physics card across the slow PCI bus. Things, supposedly, should be better if (a) all the phyics was done on the ageia card so large quantities of objects didn't have to be initialized all at once, and (b) a faster bus (pci express) was used.

To be honest: I don't have all the background some people here might...I'm not a gamer at all...I just like technology and read a lot. I am, however, interested in developments in Physics calculations, as in the field of Engineering and various types of simulations (plasma, fluids, structures), traditional CPUs are way too slow and we need a boost.

[Glider]

Lets elongate the e-penis yet a couple of mm by adding yet an other utterly expensive, and totally unneeded piece of PCB in our pc...

[DXR_13KE]

ATI and NVIDIA can go suck my ...... sorry......., i am not buying something that consumes more power than all of my house combined most of the time and cost me 50 dollars of power only for the PC each month, PLEASE try to folow intel's lead and make realy fast and power eficient GPU's, or even inovate the market and make some kind of modular graphic cards were you buy a card and then exchange the core or something like that, like a soket on the motherbord were you can insert the GPU into it or something like that.

anyday we will need a BIG array of of graphic cards

[stereophonie]

Not to sure if any of you guys know this already but the flagship game cellfactor that has a min requirement of one Agia PhsyX card can be run without it! i have seen it run on an x1900xt no problem and it even runs on my x800xt, with the Ageia PPU enabled in the game you get a boost of around 2 - 3 fps

[DXR_13KE]

with or without the ppu card?

[Veles]

This is just getting stupid.

So...we're gonna need a nVidia SLI system or ATI crossfire + extra card to power havok physics, and an Ageia PhysX card to run PhysX stuff. Ok so ignoring the question about why we need this stuff, where can we get a motherboard that can fit all of this stuff plus the usual sound card (plus extras like RAID controllers, etc. if you have them too).

This is getting rediculous, and so far, I can't really see any need for it.

[DeX]

I like the idea of being able to relagate my old graphics card to a physics processor whenever I upgrade the graphics card. That way you're getting something for nothing, or at least if you want a separate physics processor you needn't buy a seperate PPU, just get a new GPU and let your old graphics card do the physics.

By the way most GPUs are a lot more powerful at number crunching than most modern CPUs (well they have lots more transistors on them anyway) so they should be more than capable of handling physics. Also remember that nVidia and ATI have been making high performance chips for years. People like Ageia have not.

The Inquirer have an article that describes a bit more about nVidia's plans down this road:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32228

[Da Dego]

Originally Posted by DeX

By the way most GPUs are a lot more powerful at number crunching than most modern CPUs (well they have lots more transistors on them anyway) so they should be more than capable of handling physics. Also remember that nVidia and ATI have been making high performance chips for years. People like Ageia have not.

Aaaah, but it's all about efficiency. The reason graphics cards are so good at their job is that the chip layout is meant to cover only graphics, not all the other things a CPU is doing as well. It's all about the internal architecture of the chip, and what the microprocessor was designed to do.

With that in mind, I can't see a GPU being more effective in the long term than a card that is solely devoted to the concept of *interactive* physics. It's a great idea that ATI have, I think one that should not be ignored...but I don't believe it's where the future of this industry lies. To be honest, I'm more with EQC in the belief that all this pretty show is one thing, but it isn't useful til it can talk back and forth to the CPU and somehow be interactive in the environment.

Oh, and ++ to the idea of a motherboard that just has sockets for multiple chips...add the one you need. Of course, it won't be good when that motherboard fails...

[EQC]

Originally Posted by stereophonie

Not to sure if any of you guys know this already but the flagship game cellfactor that has a min requirement of one Agia PhsyX card can be run without it! i have seen it run on an x1900xt no problem and it even runs on my x800xt, with the Ageia PPU enabled in the game you get a boost of around 2 - 3 fps

I read some guy's discussion about that in a forum...but wasn't sure if it was legit. Can you tell where the physics gets calculated if theres no PPU in the system? Is there a noticable difference in CPU or GPU usage that you can tell?

Aside from the 2-3 fps, can you tell if having the PPU would create any other benefit (ie: more objects flying around, or more detail in those objects)?

Originally Posted by Da Dego

Oh, and ++ to the idea of a motherboard that just has sockets for multiple chips...add the one you need. Of course, it won't be good when that motherboard fails...

isn't AMD planning this sort of thing soon?

[DoR]

Originally Posted by Da Dego

Aaaah, but it's all about efficiency. The reason graphics cards are so good at their job is that the chip layout is meant to cover only graphics, not all the other things a CPU is doing as well. It's all about the internal architecture of the chip, and what the microprocessor was designed to do.

With that in mind, I can't see a GPU being more effective in the long term than a card that is solely devoted to the concept of *interactive* physics. It's a great idea that ATI have, I think one that should not be ignored...but I don't believe it's where the future of this industry lies. To be honest, I'm more with EQC in the belief that all this pretty show is one thing, but it isn't useful til it can talk back and forth to the CPU and somehow be interactive in the environment.

Oh, and ++ to the idea of a motherboard that just has sockets for multiple chips...add the one you need. Of course, it won't be good when that motherboard fails...

With ATI's upcoming architecture I believe ATI will have a good physics processor. No matter how its actually layed out, the fact it has a unified shader architecture should translate to a well rounded core that can be applied to anything.

[Tulatin]

Isn't an x1600 cheapear than a PhysX card, though?

[otispunkmeyer]

well heres just more reason for me to sell up and jus grab a console

pc gaming is seemingly spiralling out of control, i just cant afford to keep buying the newests processors just to play me games how i want to play them (ie max everything with AA and AF) yes i have demands, but when theyre asking up to £500 for a graphics card i expect nothing less.

very very very tempted now to sell up, grab a laptop with a large USB HDD, a xbox 360 and some kind of decent widescreen and just leaving it there.

[Solidus]

how about a physics processor built into the graphics card?

[EQC]

Originally Posted by Solidus

how about a physics processor built into the graphics card?

I've thought about that -- and I think there's a few downsides:

1) Limited bandwidth. As I understand it, the PCI-Express x16 slots aren't too close to being maxxed out...but as new games develop we get closer and closer to that limit. I don't think there would be a lot of sense in taking something else with the potential to be bandwidth hungry (a physics processor dealing with lots of objects) and making it share the same slot...

2) Cooling. If you add another chip to the same card, perhaps with its own ram, you've got twice as much that needs to be cooled down. That means that its more likely to require a noisy fan. I'd rather have two quiet fans than one big noisy one.

3) Reduced options and more difficult to upgrade. What if somebody's more interested in physics than graphics? Or the other way around? Should each graphics card then be available with different options for they caliber of physics card attached? Also: what if the physics card still holds up, but you need more graphics to power your new game -- you might have to upgrade the whole card (both chips) to satisfy your need. Personally, the physics option is more interesting to me...so I'd rather have a separate card so I don't have to buy $500 worth of graphics just so I can process the physics I want to deal with.

on the other hand...there could be some positives:
1) the PPU could talk directly to the GPU for faster rendering of moving objects...but the downside is that it might be tougher for the PPU to talk to the CPU to make the physics truly interactive with the game.

2) simpler to buy one item than it is to buy two. and really, most people interested in physics processing would probably be interested in having both high-end physics and graphics, so the problem i mentioned above wouldn't affect anybody except niche users.

3) it would take up fewer slots on the motherboard, leaving more room for other expansion...but on the other hand, if graphics cards could keep to taking up only a single slot each (not likely on the bleeding edge), then the typical motherboard with 5-6 slots shouldn't have much problem there (physics + SLI/crossfire + audio is only 5 slots, leaving one or two for something else) --but for smaller form factors, combining two things onto one card would definitely be a plus.