Ageia PhysX?

**Acreo Aeneas** · 06-16-2007, 12:49 AM

Okay, I'm just wondering about the Ageia PhysX. Does it act like a video accelerator card? I don't know if anyone here remembers cards like the Voodoo line from 3DFX. Is the PhysX the same or will it only do the work if a game is built to use it?

**aeroripper** · 06-16-2007, 01:19 AM

It's a physics accelerator card. Essentially its a dedicated chip JUST for physics, so yea, kind of like a video card.

Not sure how practical they are though, seeing as how the newest video cards really pack enough horsepower to handle some physics offloaded to the GPU.

**Magnum50** · 06-16-2007, 01:22 AM

See my comment on the subject in the front page news forum, JMO of course.

**Acreo Aeneas** · 06-16-2007, 01:57 AM

JMO?

Oh well, in that case, I'd like to say, I miss the days of Graphic Accelerator Cards like the Voodoo/2/3/4/5/6/7 from 3DFX. There went a great idea of keeping pace with newer hardware without spending a fortune and leaving your old card lying around to gather dust.

**Anospa** · 06-16-2007, 02:25 AM

Aye, the old school "SLI" was cool too.

But the PhysX cards, not really worth it. In theory, an awesome idea, but its on the PCI bus, and that created a choke point for the data, so a lot of people bought these and then experienced a hit in performance. Like aero said, lots of this type of stuff is being processed by the GPU now, so these cards probably won't succeed unless they change somehow.

Something interesting/similiar I heard about and haven't heard anything about in awhile: ATI was doing 3x Crossfire with 2 cards for graphics and a third one to process the physics and other effects.

**Apophis** · 06-16-2007, 09:05 AM

Originally Posted by Anospa

Aye, the old school "SLI" was cool too.

But the PhysX cards, not really worth it. In theory, an awesome idea, but its on the PCI bus, and that created a choke point for the data, so a lot of people bought these and then experienced a hit in performance. Like aero said, lots of this type of stuff is being processed by the GPU now, so these cards probably won't succeed unless they change somehow.

Something interesting/similiar I heard about and haven't heard anything about in awhile: ATI was doing 3x Crossfire with 2 cards for graphics and a third one to process the physics and other effects.

Do you have a reference for this? I'd like to read up on someone's first hand issues. I've read other sources that don't seem to have performance loss issues.

It just seems fishy because physics are NOT graphics. The purpose of the PhysX card isn't to "draw this prettier" but to calculate the actual physics of an event and then send that data for rendering to the graphics card.

**Dick Blonov** · 06-16-2007, 10:54 AM

Here's a review.

DB

**VegaBond** · 06-16-2007, 12:19 PM

And plus only 1-2 games currently right now actually use it, and its exclusively to a few Developers too

**=Sarc=** · 06-16-2007, 03:15 PM

Originally Posted by VegaBond

And plus only 1-2 games currently right now actually use it, and its exclusively to a few Developers too

Yeah, that's spot on.

It's like buying a console to play 3 games. And one of those games requires the PhysX card so you'll get to play with the 10 others that bought a card.

I've heard rumours that ATI and nVidia will be coming out with their own physics processing solutions. Most likely some kind of multiple graphics card setup where one processes physics and the other renders graphics.

**Dick Blonov** · 06-16-2007, 03:36 PM

Originally Posted by =Sarc=

Yeah, that's spot on.

It's like buying a console to play 3 games. And one of those games requires the PhysX card so you'll get to play with the 10 others that bought a card.

I've heard rumours that ATI and nVidia will be coming out with their own physics processing solutions. Most likely some kind of multiple graphics card setup where one processes physics and the other renders graphics.

This is where the GPU guys are going.

DB

**deathknight** · 06-16-2007, 03:36 PM

Well with some of the newer mobos, you can have an 8x PCI-E slot for a physics card or even use an SLI PCI-E slot if I remember correctly. The big issue right now is support from games for it.

I remember seeing videos of GRAW with the card and it did look better with the card but mainly it was just prettier explosions and stuff so it's sort of a luxury if you can afford it or not. I don't really see it affect gameplay much if at all but it does make it look slightly prettier.

**Relmar** · 06-16-2007, 03:37 PM

With the move on the processor front to dual, quad, and, in the near future, probably 6 and then 8 cores, this PhysX card isn't worth it. Like it's been said, this thing can't render prettier graphics. It merely serves to take the load off of CPU and GPU, but if the CPU and GPU can handle it on their own then what's the point? It seemed like a good idea at the time, but no one's adopting this thing. Software has to be specifically written for it, and why spend the money developing for it if only a very very small part of the market will be able to use it? It'd be like writing software that only runs on some obscure linux client.

Also, if they claim you NEED a PhysX card to play something, they're lieing and only want you to buy the card. The software might even be written to detect it and bomb out if you don't have it. That's supposed to be their incentive for you to buy it.
CLICK HERE

**Anospa** · 06-16-2007, 03:48 PM

Originally Posted by Apophis

Do you have a reference for this? I'd like to read up on someone's first hand issues. I've read other sources that don't seem to have performance loss issues.

It just seems fishy because physics are NOT graphics. The purpose of the PhysX card isn't to "draw this prettier" but to calculate the actual physics of an event and then send that data for rendering to the graphics card.

Sure, I was feeling lazy when I posted and didn't want to search back like half a year ago lol, but here's some stuff:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2751&p=4
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=5492&page=4

Basically, its causing more things to be displayed when you create an explosion/physical reaction, so your GPU needs to process these interactions that normally wouldn't show such detail, causing a hit in FPS, usually a very noticable one. Another thing to consider is the fact that a CPU will be able to do these calculations much faster and not need to worry about the latency you'd find having such a device on your PCI bus, it'd transfer information just as fast as your CPU does everything else. With dual cores being pretty much mainstream nowadays, I really don't see this type of tech. lasting long, and we're now starting to see multi-core systems as well.

Most of my info came from various posts over at www.diy-street.com They're almost a year old or more, and the fact that you barely ever hear anything about the PhysX card furthers the belief that its not worth it, at least in my eyes.

EDIT: Guess Relmar got to some of the stuff before I could finish posting this.

**Relmar** · 06-16-2007, 04:09 PM

More Evidence

**Acreo Aeneas** · 06-17-2007, 02:57 AM

I take back what I said. They are reusing the idea of having a seperate add-on card to give graphics a "boost". Although the boost comes with a catch 22.

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