News PPU Powered Alienware arrives

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/03/22/alienware_ppu_ageia/

 

I don't like the fact that they state that you need SLi, I thought that the original premise of this was to take the Physics load off the GPU so it could concentrate on drawing - would have been a great upgrade to those running older / single card systems... I think that they have missed a trick here as there are far more people running one card rather than SLi.

 

are you sure it doesn't mean "you just haveee to have sli" (for the ultimate experience).

 

I totally agree with the above. I was hoping to maybe drop one into my aging Athlon 2800 rig to try and squeeze the last few drops of gaming performance out of it before I need to upgrade (hopefully saving me till the end of the year maybe into next)

 

i hope amd integrates that math co-processor and eliminates the need for such a rediculous product

 

thats an intresting thought sad(6xf)

 

It does seem like something which should be built into top end graphics cards without the need for an add on card. It harks back to the days of 486 SX processors with a socket on the motherboard for a math coprocessor. Ah! 25MHz CPUs... those were the days.

I guess we'll have to wait till games are making full use of it before seeing if it's worth the money. At the moment, with nothing out there to use it you're basically paying for an expensive extra fan in your case.

 

Exactly my tought...

 

Can't agree more. As with all new implementations, its seems a good idea to sit and wait for accurate benchmarks and decent results, before throwing away more money into what could be a one off idea.

 

I see this AGEIAIAIIEIAIAEEE thing as more of an interim device that is pushing the envelope for physics in games. I don't think these physx cards will be the big thing but I think they will lead to the big thing. As a result of these cards we will see Nvidia et al incorporate a physics coprocessor onto their video cards and that will be what really takes off. I see the AGEIA as more of a proof of technology test for the industry as a whole.

The real move towards physics processing will be much later once this thing has shown what it can do.

 

Apparently ATI will be implementing PPU technology into their GPU's at the end of the year, with Nvidia following suit - Cant remember where I read this though?

It is the next big thing, opening up a whole new world of possibilities. Game developers have had the capabilities of programming PPU technology for roughly two years. The support is there and growing by the week so by the end of the year it should be fully integrated.

Saying that this is not the next big thing is mad. It finally lets the GPU do what it does best. A dedicated physics processor is the way forward. Saying that its not the next big thing is like saying that integrated graphics is fine for gaming.

About time this arrived though...if they are to make the original deadline they better get moving, they have next saturday to get this on the shelves.

 

My 2p

A "bleeding edge thingy" for the whine-o's to bemoan and belittle those of us that dont have it (or even currently need it).....

So what if its the current "big thing" .... If I buy one tomorrow I can't go and buy a game that makes use of it. This is a wait for the market to catch up until it becomes the "norm"

 

Actually, you can buy a game that makes use of it.

 

I think he meant that separate add-on cards aren't going to take off, but they will pave the way for PPU integration onto graphics cards, which is sure to be massive. I agree with this totally, I'm definitely not going to be getting another add-on card as there aren't enough PCI slots on PCI-E motherboards as it is.

 

"When you have a PhysX processor in your system, you've gotta have that SLI. You've gotta have both graphics cards to handle the amount of data that we send out. We keep those guys really busy."

I read this as "your fps will drop!"

 

It has to be the way forward. Im sure we heard all these arguments with 3D accerelator cards.. "they will just incorporate it into the motherboard" blah blah.

It doesn't make sense to put it on a graphics card,motherboard or anywhere else, R&D into graphics,mobo's etc. DOESNT go hand in hand with what AGEIA are doing! This is exactly why they have sprung up as a seperate company. Sure NVIDIA could create a "physics department" but this is kinda like making it state owned. It would not be truly market driven, because the merits of gfx card would affect its purchase. AGEIA can dynamically react to market and provide a product taylored exactly to that, because that is what they are doing.

We are a community of modders/system builders, I find it hard to understand why you guys are against modularisation!?

If you believe Physics orientated gaming will be the "next big thing", then I can see little doubt as to the success of seperate physics cards.

 

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=1276

the amd math co-processor thingy. i was hoping that, if these were integrated into their next processors, the system's main cpu could easily handle the physics calculations, eliminating everyones need for an expensive add in physics board

 

It wouldnt be a "math co-processor", it would be a physics processor, which would honestly be out of place today. X86 processors by their own nature arent designed for extreme parallel physics processing. They are single order execution units, which is what makes them "slow" at things. Its not technically feasible to incorporate a PPU into a CPU - but it is possible to put it into a graphics card. After all, complex geometry and thousands of polygons is the name of the game.

 

I may have gotten this wrong. But I thought the entire idea with this card was to increase the detail level of the games. So if you stick one of these cards into your system you will have more/better details. Probably the calculations that this cards performs can't be done with the current video cards and hence even if your game is able to run PPU enhanced content you can't get it without the PPU card (simply because you won't be able to perform the calculations needed). This means that the only difference for the video card is that it has to draw more (detailed) content to the monitor and therefore naturally will slow down.

 

No, the point is that the PPU will process and tell the graphics cards where to render objects - a task normally handled by the CPU. Now that so many more objects can be processed, new games which have tons of objects will be creating that much more strain on your graphics cards because there are tons of new objects to render. Thats what is going on.