Plug it in and Get Physical

A second soundcard? Yes… but then again I write a lot of music so having decent ASIO drivers are important to me - especially if there’s the notion of live playing at somepoint (you need some grunt in your sound to get a really low latency from whatever input device > pc > outgoing sound).
Though it will be interesting to see whether the two cards (PPU and GPU) merge, or stay separate. What price point will these PPU’s be aimed at? And will power of that sort become a necessity the way new ragdoll physics are becoming?
Personally, I’m not too worried. We’ve now got 64 bit, pci-ex, and SLI. Who needs a physics card when you’re running 2 gig of ram on two 6800GT’s on an overclocked 4ghz machine? Because our best gaming hardware is easily getting massive framerates, we’ll need a hell of a steep upramp in game physics before a card like this would even be worth considering.

Well, news of the PPU has largely gone hand-in-hand with news on the Unreal 3 physics engine. In a GameSpot interview, Epic (the guys behind Unreal) say how they’ve been working with Ageia to make sure their engine can take full advantage of the new card. It’s definately a good starting block for Ageia, as the physics in the Unreal 3 engine is second only to the graphics (and only just) in terms of what Epic is raving on about it.

They seem to see it as a big step forward.

That said, what I’ve been reading about Age of Empires 3 shows that complex physics will also make it’s way into strategy games - where precise physics will be needed for each of the hundred or so units, buildings, and trees which can be shown on the screen at once.

This is interesting, then.
I’ve never herad of Ageia… were they big before this or did they manage an almost divine wrangle with getting to work so closely with epic?

The technology will most likely be merged on a video card. Cant see them actually making a seperate card. The reason for this is that a dedicated unit can be much faster. A GPU ‘cpu’ is much faster than a normal CPU, but thats because its designed to only be able to do a few specific things, and do them fast.

Tho it will be a while before it becomes mainstream, I hope it pulls through. This will take away time from our CPUs which can in term be used for AI and other nifty things.

SLI (graphics only) and dual core processors are irrellevant. Not only would dual core CPUs require much more complicated programming to deal with the physics effectively in a different thread, they also are not designed purely for physics, and will therefore never be as fast as a PPU.

I’ve never herad of Ageia… were they big before this or did they manage an almost divine wrangle with getting to work so closely with epic?

Their website says they were only formed in 2002, so they haven’t been around too long. There are several game companies listed as Ageia’s partners, but Epic is so far the only name that stands out. I can only imagine Epic was so impressed with the technology that they thought it right to partner up with it.

Man…PC stuff confuses me so much. I have no idea what any of you are on about. That is why I stick to consoles, they seem so much easier to me. You buy one, and then you do not have to do anything to it really. No updates at all!

Oddly, not the first time that I have heard of this, although I can’t remember if it is the same outfit that was touting PPUs. To be honest, I have my doubts on this one since Physics is not an integral aspect of modern computing in the same way that Audio and Video is, i.e. it is a niche market where mostly only games would be interested. Taking this further, I am not in favour of such a system unless else you are looking at dedicated processors for other aspects of games (for example, how about an AI Processing Unit for) as it makes both the computer itself and the applications/operating system much more complex.

To a degree, this almost begins to look like the old argument of RISC vs CISC processors - general purpose instructions that can be combined to do complex stuff, or specialist instructions. CISC is definitely more dominant at the moment but the jury is still out on this one since RISC appears to be making a comeback, particularly in relation to the IBM POWER series of processors. For example, it is interesting to note that both Sony and Microsoft have both elected to use IBM POWER processors in their next consoles, although Sony is combining them with additional dedicated DSPs in the Cell processor.

I’m voting for simplicity in computing designs on this one. I don’t see physics being a core aspect of computing so I would prefer to see this sort of thing being taken care of by the processor itself. Besides, with dual-core processors coming soon, you could replicate the same functionality (albeit without the dedicated instructions in hardware) by using one of the cores for physics-related processing. In terms of design, it is cleaner, can be implemented using existing single-processor systems, and does not rely on the customer having purchased an add-in card.

So, that’s a “no” from me in case you missed it in the rabid dribble…

If there was a PCI version right now I would go buy it. I can’t see it being as expensive as a full GPU. If I could drop say $99 to take the physics load off HL2 off my CPU I would. In the map making I’ve dabbled with for source the amount of physics objects in any map is limited only by the computer that runs it. There are recommended amounts of physics and dynamic objects for todays hardware. I assume with the PPU the numbers would rise dramatically. Mods like Source Forts would run much better and hopefully more accurate. Although I am not entirely sure how much the tech benefits, it would be nice to see some sort of benchmarking.

It would be really interesting if Unreal 3 shipped a special edition with a PCI PPU card. Again it all depends on how much this tech would cost though.

Perhaps the next next jump of video cards will consolidate the PPU onto the same card. Since physics seems to be the next frontier for games I am guessing something will be done. Its crazy how games are moving from “tricks” to represent real world environments to actually creating those environments and all the laws that go with them. If Origin was still around their “We Create Worlds” slogan would be all the more appropriate.

Current CPUs are only powerful enough to support 30 to 40 physical objects that you can interact with onscreen, but systems with a PPU add-in card will be able to support more than 30,000 objects on screen.

Hot damn, I would defintily pick one of these up. You could build a building, brick by brick beam by beam, then blow it up accurately. That would be incredible to see.

If there was a PCI version right now I would go buy it.

I dunno if that would be a good move - each game needs to be coded so that it supports the PPU, just like every game needs to be made to properly support most modern GPUs and stuff. If you bought it, you’d probably have to wait until Unreal 3 before it’d be of any real use to you at all.

But if this thing does end up hooked on to the back of a graphics card, it’d be interesting. We could end up with “Gaming Cards” or something which take care of the graphics, physics, and maybe AI all in one. And hey, maybe you could get two and hook them up with SLI. Heh.

Anandtech has a 3-page article on the PhysX PPU. Some of their thoughts mirror those here, but they also say why dual core CPUs aren’t up to the same job as a PPU (bandwidth issues, etc…). Worthwhile read.

It will take off. You look at Unreal2 and how much faster the game runs when ragdoll is turned down/turned off compared to when it’s on higher settings.
Simulators will benefit from this big time and I can see Microsoft will want in on this.
I hope it means games with truely fully destructable environments, not just a couple of windows and a few lights.

To be honest, I have my doubts on this one since Physics is not an integral aspect of modern computing in the same way that Audio and Video is, i.e. it is a niche market where mostly only games would be interested.

And video isnt a niche market? Seriously, who needs a GeForce 6800 Ultra Awesome, other than the die hard gamers (and possibly 3D artists). Physics are getting more and more important in games, just like video did years ago. Who knows, perhaps one day we’ll have a processing unit specifically for AI operations.

If there was a PCI version right now I would go buy it.

PCI doesnt have the proper amount of bandwidth. There’ll be plenty PCI-X editions tho.

I dunno if that would be a good move - each game needs to be coded so that it supports the PPU, just like every game needs to be made to properly support most modern GPUs and stuff.

No. Simply, no. Games need to be coded to work with the Graphics Abstraction Layer, such as OpenGL or DirectX. They dont need to tailor the games to indivual cards or chipsets. If this PPU thing gets big fast, I’m 100% certain it will be supported in the next DirectX.

If you check Ageia’s site theres a few paragraphs about how Xbox will be using this technology in their next system. So PPU for Xbox 2? How come the gaming sites report nothing of a PPU?

And video isnt a niche market? Seriously, who needs a GeForce 6800 Ultra Awesome, other than the die hard gamers (and possibly 3D artists). Physics are getting more and more important in games, just like video did years ago. Who knows, perhaps one day we’ll have a processing unit specifically for AI operations.

Ah, you misunderstand me somewhat (although I did wonder whether I’d phrased it correctly). I agree and disagree with your statement. Is a GeForce 6800 Ultra a necessary component for a modern computer? No, and in that respect I do agree with you and accept that this form of graphics card is a niche market. However, with both Windows (I think) and Apple integrating the use of a GPU into the operating system itself (in Apple’s case, through Core Video), a suitable GPU is going to be necessary in order for various applications to run correctly if they use Core Video. In this respect I see GPUs being mainstream but I’m not seeing an all-singing, all-dancing one as being necessary.

Anyway, I’m actually beginning to feel more strongly that the PPU is a bad idea. This is mostly due to my feelings that it is a waste of computing resources and that I’d rather see more CPUs (physical or virtual) that can be used for parallel computing but which can be used by any application rather than just those that want to do physics. Graphics are core to a modern computer and have been ever since the original Mac turned up in the mid 80’s. However, I just do not see physics being that important to computing. I’d rather see more general purpose processors that can be used to run all my applications rather than a more specialist processors that will spend most of their time being idle.

If you check Ageia’s site theres a few paragraphs about how Xbox will be using this technology in their next system. So PPU for Xbox 2? How come the gaming sites report nothing of a PPU?

Where? All I see is that they added support for the Xbox in their SDK.

IRT Kelmon

Ofcourse it’d be nice if there was just another general purpose CPU, but these are more complicated and expensive than a PPU, and do physics calculation slower too.

This PPU is purely for gamers (and perhaps people who run simulations or something), just as a video card is. Only now are operating systems beginning to use it as you say, but they will also leave an option to the user where he can chose not to use his video card for his GUI (I suspect I’ll do this).

And a dedicated processing unit may be more versatile than you think. I’ve read about a sound editing program that used a video card by comverting waveforms into textures, and applying sound effects as shaders and such. Its not as straightforward as a general purpose PU, but this shows dedicated PU’s can be used for other tasks too.

Besides, this is made for the group of gamers who really liked the physics they saw in HL2 and want more of it. The most efficient way to do this is a PPU, not yet another CPU which will be less efficient at calculating the physics. Nobody is forcing you to buy it, and I think that the whole parallel computing you mention is just as much a niche market as games.

Parallel computing is the future, far more so than an add-on card, in my opinion. With Intel, AMD and IBM all producing dual-core processors with the ability to process multiple threads simultaneously per core (effectively adding additional “virtual” cores), the hardware situation is looking pretty rosy and simply requires that the OS supports this sort of processing. Not sure what the Windows side of this fence looks like, but OS X is built on the Mach 3 microkernel that will quite happily run threads on as many CPUs as you have available. A quick check in the Activity Manager shows that approximately 50% of the processes running on my laptop have 2 or more threads running up to a maximum (at the moment) of 36 threads. If the OS is able to support the scheduling of threads to processors (rather than process to processors), then any application can take advantage of parallel computing as simply as it can with a single processor. From the context of this discussion, physics needs only to be a separate thread in order to take advantage of additional processors (real or virtual). I do agree that it is unlikely to be as quick as a dedicated physics processor (this point I do concede), but I do not see it has being something that is of great benefit to computing. The GPU is making great contributions to the overall computing experience by not only providing some pretty flash graphics in games, but also in supporting the OS as a whole by taking over the job of drawing the screen. This, as far as I am concerned, is a general enough task that it benefits everyone (assuming you use a GUI) and makes efficient use of the hardware that you bought.

We of course state that nobody is forcing anyone to use such PPU cards, but then the same could be said of graphic accelerator cards a few years ago and look how that one turned out. However, what it does mean is that while your PC will continue to function as a computer without such a card, I would see it likely that one would be necessary to continue playing games on them. Unless the cost of such hardware is negligible or included on existing components, then I can’t see this benefiting the expansion of PC games as it’ll be something else that needs upgrading and another expense that makes console gaming more appealing. Seriously, it’s bad enough that you have to keep upgrading your processor and graphics card without introducing something else that will no doubt change.