PhysX Dedicated Physics Processor Explored 142
Ned_Network writes "Yahoo! News & Reuters has a story about a start-up who have created a dedicated physics processor for gamers' PCs. The processor undertakes physics calculations for the CPU and is said to make gaming more realistic - examples such as falling rocks, exploding debris and the way that opponents collapse when you shoot them are cited as advantages of the chip. Only 6 current titles take advantage of the chip but the FAQ claims that another 100 are in production."
Is that what I think it is. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Is that what I think it is. (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything the programmers can do to examine more moves into the future is a good thing for them. Even Deep Blue couldn't look more than 30 moves into the future. Dunno about the 'son of' Deep Blue.
Animations, etc consume trivial amounts of CPU/graphics power compared to examining the next XY possible moves in a chess game.
Re:Is that what I think it is. (Score:1)
Chess isn't governed by physics (Score:1)
Yeah, but as the OP asked -- what in the world would a physics coprocessor have to do with a chess game?
Purpose specific devices, such as sound processing DSPs, video card GPUs, or in this case a physics processor, beat out general purpose chips (like the AMDs and Intels that we know and love) because they've been designed for a very specific task. Where a general purpose device might require 1000 operations for a FFT, a DSP might require thre
Re:Chess isn't governed by physics (Score:1, Interesting)
This type of CPU would be vastly superior to a standard cpu for calculating possible moves.
Though, while it helps with chess move logic, it wouldn't help with Go logic.
Go logic is still vastly inferior and more difficult. Why I brought up go, I have no idea.
Re:Chess isn't governed by physics (Score:4, Interesting)
You are probably thinking of it since Go is pseudo-famous (among engineers who have attempting thusly and in Japan) as a game that cannot be easily made into a computer simulation properly. While chess has 16 opening moves, Go has...well 12 decent ones, but statistically 361. Finding the variations in a game of Go would just...be impossible currently. It is commonly said that no game has ever been played twice. This may be true: On a 19×19 board, there are about 3361×0.012 = 2.1×10^170 possible positions, most of which are the end result of about (120!)^2 = 4.5×10^397 different (no-capture) games, for a total of about 9.3×10^567 games. Allowing captures gives as many as 10^7.49x10^48
There's more go games then theorized protons in the visable universe!
Re:Chess isn't governed by physics (Score:2)
Re:Chess isn't governed by physics (Score:2)
Chess has eighteen opening moves due to the knights.
That would be 20 opening moves then. 2 for each prawn and 2 for each knights, (2x8)+(2x2) = 20 ;-)
Re:Chess isn't governed by physics (Score:2)
Re:Chess isn't governed by physics (Score:2)
>> what in the world would a physics coprocessor have to do with a chess game?
Think in terms of metaphores. Real world physics are mainly a matter of particles, gravity and kinetics, which are functions of space, time and mass.
Now think Chess.
It's also a function of particles (pieces), space (position), time (playing turn) and you could encode its rules as physics too (the way pieces move). If you
Re:Chess isn't governed by physics (Score:2)
Unfortunately, no. The difference is that in the Real World, physics will run just fine without anyone intervening with the system. There's a single state that results "
Re:Is that what I think it is. (Score:2)
Re:Is that what I think it is. (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, Deep Blue was "Fast and Dumb" - it could indeed search fast and thus foresee many moves ahead ("into the future"), but it didn't have a good sense of which moves are worth checking out. If there are 10 moves available in the position, DB would generally check all of them out. Which meant that:
Re:Is that what I think it is. (Score:2)
Sorry, I miss-clicked the Submit instead of Preview button. Here are some format corrections and clarifications of parent post:
Actually, Deep Blue was "Fast and Dumb" - it could indeed search fast and thus foresee many moves ahead ("into the future"), but it didn't have a good sense of which moves are worth checking out. If there were 10 moves available in the position, DB would generally check all of them out. Which meant that:
Physics Good, Fire Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Physics Good, Fire Bad (Score:1, Insightful)
At this point, there's only one game that takes any advantage of dual-core CPUs. Most games are still targetted towards lowend 2Ghz/GeForceMX systems. Seems kind of ridiclous to run headlong into specalized PHYZICKS processors when high-end games already fail to take better advantage of existing hardware.
Re:Physics Good, Fire Bad (Score:2)
Re:Physics Good, Fire Bad (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Is it going to come down in price? Considering that "mid-range" GPUs are going for around $300, this card at $300 (okay, $299) represents a doubling of the cost to bring a gaming system "up to speed." Right now, with only one option, it's a one-time thing but we all know that if it's successful there will be upgrades.
2) Is this really going to make a huge difference in a world where dual-core CPUs are becoming mainstream, and more core
Re:Physics Good, Fire Bad (Score:2)
Yes. In general, purpose built hardware can do its job orders of magnitude faster than a general purpose CPU. For example, the 3D performance of an old low end video card will still smoke the software renderer on a high end CPU.
The traditional PC players seem to be set on multiple copies of the same core. CPUs like the Cell, or KiloCore, are taking a midd
Re:Physics Good, Fire Bad (Score:2)
I think you hit on something potentially big, though, in your second paragraph. Many have talked
Re:Physics Good, Fire Bad (Score:2)
Re:Physics Good, Fire Bad (Score:2)
Re:Physics Good, Fire Bad (Score:2)
Read elsewhere: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=184496&cid=15
Re:Physics Good, Fire Bad (Score:2)
That is because of the IO bottleneck moreso than because the purpose built processor is more powerful for the particular task. That's why 2D acceleration is still important, even though modern CPUs can render 2D scenes in signifigantly faster than real time. IO intesive tasks, of which graphics display is one, are well suited to specialized hardware.
Physics is not an IO intensive process, an
Re:Physics Good, Fire Bad (Score:2)
Even though you didn't really address the matter you quoted, I'll point out that even though texturing is a I/O intensive task, the bottleneck in graphics har
Re:Physics Good, Fire Bad (Score:2)
Neither... The CPUs have to be more parallelized, and until they are the developers have to be more conservative with the number of discrete objects they track... With quad core CPUs on the horizon, we're on our way there. In the long term, the only way we have a 'physics processing unit' in every machine is if some IO component, probably the video c
And here's the real sticking point (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And here's the real sticking point (Score:2)
I've often wondered why they didn't make a game like a F
Re:And here's the real sticking point (Score:3, Interesting)
There are several things wrong with the Ageia business model:
1) they mandate that you use THEIR physics engine in order to access the physics hardware - there is no low-level hardware API that any engine can access - so by supporting their ha
Re:And here's the real sticking point (Score:2)
It should be noted that Dell/Alienware is (and has been for at least a month or more) offering the PhysX card as a build-to-order option.
Re:And here's the real sticking point (Score:2)
No. 3dfx went out of business because the Voodoo4 shipped way behind schedule and wasn't optimized for 32-bit rendering. It did 16-bit rendering fast, but only about on par with nVidia's chip, which could do 32-bit and make everything look m
Re:And here's the real sticking point (Score:2)
Goes double when games start using dual core proces
I don't see the problem. (Score:2)
Make some multiplayer maps require a PPU by havin
Re:Physics Good, Fire Bad (Score:2)
Not to mention, you point out that a good graphics card will cost you $300... and for another $300, I'd rather have another identical card and rock some SLI.
~Will
Re:Physics Good, Fire Bad (Score:2)
Game Play Processing Unit (Score:4, Funny)
Already exists. Kinda (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Already exists. Kinda (Score:2)
Re:Game Play Processing Unit (Score:2)
Assuming its technically possible to improve the gameplay of "vids" (videos?) I'm all with you
phys processor makes more sense on the gfx card (Score:1)
admittedly, im not addressing whether this chip is useful.
Re:phys processor makes more sense on the gfx card (Score:2)
I wonder..... (Score:1)
Re:I wonder..... (Score:2)
Cellfactor video looks pretty cool... (Score:5, Informative)
Go to the section that says "I'm old enough" with the Cellfactor video and take a look at the flash movie. Although Cellfactors almost could be a poster child game of mother of all physics engines. It looks like it puts Half Life 2 to shame. (Although I wonder if you character has that much physic power to fly through the air and throw jeeps at people then why bother with having a gun?)
I really dig the blood particle effets as someone is gibbed while standing on the ledge and the blood just splashes down the side of the platform.
And you can really tell the difference in particle debris in the comparison videos at the top. However, I wonder if the same effect can be acheived with cranking up your settings on a high end gaming rig without the card. I'd wait til some 3rd party hardware review site gives the final verdict.
Re:Cellfactor video looks pretty cool... (Score:3, Insightful)
TFA points out that even a high end gaming rig can't handle all the objects the chip allows the game to generate:
Basically, the tech i
Or make a low-powered version of the card (Score:2)
Right now, nvidia's plan to partner with havok is looking far more appealing because I can buy a geforce 6600 for $100 and dedicate it to physics.
Re:Cellfactor video looks pretty cool... (Score:2)
Cellfactor seems to really take advantage of the idea of using physics as
The ghost recon videos could easily be replicated by using non-colliding particle systems which simply transpose through geometry before wearing out. Heck, add a dirt-cheap ground level collision plane, and you're all set. In the heat of an explosion, it would look just about as realistic, and without the additional hundred dollars in hardware to upgrade every year. As is they di
Re:Cellfactor video looks pretty cool... (Score:2)
Rise of Legends (RTS) is supported, as is City of Villains (MMO). I guess they figure the FPS visuals are probably a better showcase for the demos. Blammo! Crap flies everywhere.
There was one tech demo that showed a game where throwing objects around was an inherent part of the gameplay. Kind of like Half Life 2 deathmatch on steroids. Interesting.
Re:Cellfactor video looks pretty cool... (Score:2)
Watching that video, it does look cool. But the first thing that comes to mind is "tech demo". That's what that game looks like. I can't think of any reason that's cool other than showing off a bunch of physics; and I also can't imagine that the commercially standard hardware that will be available at the release of that game won't be sufficient to run it just fine.
It does look cool. But, c'mon. Essentially, they're trying to sell you a $350 game. And that blood? I haven't seen blood that fake since
Slots? (Score:2)
Re:Slots? (Score:1)
Re:Slots? (Score:2)
is 4.5% APR supported by Ageia? (Score:3, Interesting)
But in the same article, they mention that the extra particles the processor generates swamps the DUAL gpu setup he's got in a demo system. How many of you want to wager the demo system is a hoss in it's own right?
Apparently this card isn't going to help those of us holding out with our Athlon XP AGP systems that perform fine on current gen games, if a current bleeding edge rig can't cut it.
SO now I have to plan for a quad AM2 CPU, quad dual-sli chip GPU w/ 32 Gigs of memory? Damnit all to hell...
*/me researches mortgage rates to subsidize next box-build*
Re:is 4.5% APR supported by Ageia? (Score:1)
Massively destructible & collateral damage. (Score:5, Informative)
The price of $300 seems a bit steep right now to a casual player like me, but this bit from the site's FAQ I find very appealing:
The PPU seems to be available as a PCI card [ageia.com] but is also available in off-the-shelf machines [ageia.com] from Dell & Alienware.There's a comparison video [ageia.com] showing the difference between Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighterwith & without the PhysX installed and a couple of hi-res [ageia.com] videos [ageia.com] that are available by FTP, so can't be cached by Coral, I don't think.
What I really have to wonder, if this thing is as good as they reckon, is why I haven't heard of it before?
Re:Massively destructible & collateral damage. (Score:2)
You must not read Slashdot a lot. =)
There's been a number of stories about dedicated physics processors recently, many of them dupes
dupes.
Here's the problem with this (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, graphics cards make sense for consumers because there are only two graphics APIs, OpenGL and DirectX, and they offer very similar functionality under the hood (but significantly different high-level APIs). So a graphics card can accelerate games written with either OpenGL or DirectX, but that's not the case with the emerging PPU field. In graphics, the APIs developed and converged on common functionality long before hardware acceleration was available at the consumer level, but I don't think the physics API situation is stable or mature enough to warrant dedicated hardware add-in cards at this time.
However, I think there are two possible scenarios that could change this.
1) Havok and Ageia could create open or closed physics API specifications and make them available to chip manufacturers, e.g. ATI and NVIDIA, which have the market penetration and manufacturing capability to make PPUs widely available. I could imagine a high-end PCIe card that had both a GPU and a PPU on-board.
2) Microsoft. Think what you will about them, but DirectX has greatly influenced the game industry and is the de-facto standard low-level API (although there are notable exceptions, such as id [idsoftware.com]). Microsoft could introduce a new component of DirectX which specifies a physics API that could then be implemented in hardware.
But unless one of those things happens, I don't think proprietary PPUs are going to make a lot of sense for consumers.
Nitpick (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nitpick (Score:3)
Yeah sure (Score:2)
No common interface and the game makers just had to make sure to include code for the cards they thought of as important enough.
This lasted quite a long time until things settled down. Oh but wait NO!
Check Tomb Raider Legends. It has a special option, "Next gen content" wich is claimed to be optomized for the N
Re:Yeah sure (Score:2)
Re:Yeah sure (Score:2)
With 3D video cards, there's 2 major players - ATI and nVidia. Both support Direct3D and OpenGL. The only real differences are what extras are thrown in the mix for each new revision of their respective chips.
With sound cards (for gaming purposes, anyway), it's pretty much all Creative Labs. There's really only multiple variations of EAX for accelerated sound in games.
Re:Here's the problem with this (Score:2)
Imagine defining (for example) a feather. You create a simple model and a nice texture with an alpha map. You define a few OpenGL parameters and that'll render nicely on any GPU.
Then you assign it some physics parameters - mass, air resistance, shape, density - and that feather can then be instantiated with all the parameters needed to control it.
Now think of a chicken panicking and running away. A bunch of feathers fall ou
Indeed we do need an open physics API.... (Score:2)
Re:Indeed we do need an open physics API.... (Score:2)
I'll look at this when I come to writing the physics for my (eternally in development) game.
Thanks!
Re:Indeed we do need an open physics API.... (Score:2)
Re:Here's the problem with this (Score:1)
If I were a game developer, I'd be confused which API to pick. I'm sure Novod
Re:Here's the problem with this (Score:2)
Take a look at the GPU based samples [nvidia.com] (unfortunately, most require Windows) - many are incorporating physics (water, cloth, etc). Another good source is http [gpgpu.org]
Re:Here's the problem with this (Score:2)
And this is exactly what's wrong.
If you go to their site, and you watch the video clips, you think "Wow, what have I been missing". But, what's happened in reality is this:
That's all. Proprietary API and exclusive deals with game manufacturers mean that people who have the card see extra shit, even if their normal graphics card setup could have handled it without. I'd like to see the exact same code run on a $300 graphics car
I guess I need to get my eyes checked... (Score:2, Funny)
Viable? (Score:1)
They seem to think so [ageia.com], but then again they have an interest in selling fixed-purpose processors.
Multiplayer (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Multiplayer (Score:2)
Eventually, when physics co-processors are commonplace, they might have to act like a distributed parallel computer for multiplayer games. Instead of each machine individually simulating the same world redundantly, the networked machines would co-operatively simulate the game world together.
Somewhat true, but not entirely. (Score:2)
Of course, the other side is that if the game is merged with an API, then you would have the same result using either the hardware or a software emulation, but the processing of such would be last CPU intensive or generally
Probably OpenSource underneath (Score:2)
Has anybody seen this card in person?
This is something that OpenSource could be doing are http://www.ode.org/ [ode.org] responding to this?
My guess is that this engine is OpenSource and running on some sort of FPGA. Would help if a standard such as OpenGL could be drafted.
Forget games, there's a large market for physics models in design houses.
Probably shouldn't talk out of your ass. (Score:1)
Sounds great, but too expensive. (Score:2)
I'm guessing that Ageia is hoping on a buyout by Nvidia or ATI. Getting this technology built into GPUs would be a great selling point, and be a great way to
Re:Sounds great, but too expensive. (Score:2)
Depends on what they do with it. The biggest drawback to modern FPS's is that the environment isn't destructable. Supposedly, this type of card will help deal with that. Honestly, I was hoping that the PS3 and the 360 would usher in this new era, but so far it's looking like we're still another generation away from that.
In any event, if a few games capit
Scientific Research (Score:2, Interesting)
so low (Score:1)
physics is a vital part of games yes it yes
this makes me think they are only aiming for the easy money
i do think if the specs were open hence call it gpl'ed if you want
not only would the game market benefit from this tech but also
research centra, universities,
I'm curious about scientific applications.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Great for single player, bad for multiplayer? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Great for single player, bad for multiplayer? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can offer an uninformed theory. If an event is passed to the other players such as "barrel at explodes", then the processing is done at the client end for all of the players. If the event is done properly, they should all reach the same conclusion.
Unfortunately, as I'm writing this, I can start to see the problem. Okay, I apologize, but I'm going to do a 180 here. Imagine a car crashes through a brick wall and a hundred bricks go flying away. That alone should work fine. But if another player runs into the path of one of the bricks and it bounces off of him, suddenly it's no longer as predictable. His latency along with everybody else's latency means ONE of the computers has to make the decision of where everything goes. That, in and of itself, is probably okay, but then you have to pass a great deal more data along to let the other clients know what's happening.
So... yeah, I see your point.
Re:Great for single player, bad for multiplayer? (Score:2)
Even worse, consensus in a distributed system with any packet loss is not guaranteed (famous FLP paper in the 80s). The only guarantees are probabilistic... (And the world seems to run okay on that.) Which means no matter what algoritim, if x players start shooting at each other, their computers will not always a
This is a good idea but... (Score:2)
Really, it would have been a lot better to introduce this technology on a console than on the PC. If the ps3, for instance were to come with this, developers would get a chance to play around with it in earnest and prove its usefullness, if any, to the consum
History repeats itself (Score:4, Insightful)
My best guess is that this is going to repeat. AGEIA have now done what 3Dfx did, introducing a dedicated hardware chip for something that until now has been done in software. They even have their own proprietary physics API. Soon ATI and nVidia will incorporate similar features into their GPUs, and Microsoft will create a brand new DirectX subsystem called DirectPhysics. And AGEIA will slowly fade away (if they don't learn from 3Dfx's mistakes).
GPU physics (Score:2)
"Incidental" physics, like dust spray or blood spatter that don't affect the game at all except as eyecandy, can be done as a last step by the GPU with no feedback to the game whatsoever. Obstructions
Re:History repeats itself (Score:2)
general purpose CPUs (Score:2)
weird explosion (Score:2)
weird explosions (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's something I'd like to know... (Score:2)
I am a computational physicist
Re:another flash website... (Score:2)
Re:another flash website... (Score:1, Offtopic)
People like that were probably hypercard junkies in the 80s and are getting their fix today.
Tom
Re:another flash website... (Score:2)
Re:another flash website... (Score:3, Insightful)
If they can't do animated vector graphics the right way, they shouldn't do them at all!
Re:Just in time for... (Score:3, Funny)
Thank you for your suggestion. We at 3D Realms pride ourselves on taking into account suggestions made by fans.
Unfortunately, we regret to inform you that Duke Nukem Forever will not be shipping with support for the referenced PhysX Dedicated Processor, because Infinium Labs' "Phantom" Console, our primary release platform, will not include such a card.
It is possible that a future port to Windows x128 will include support for the card. Please expect 15-20 year delays while we add support for t
Re:no way in hell (Score:1, Insightful)
Improved physics matter only to "hardcore techies?" I challenge you to explain Half-Life2's success without including the use of physics in your answer.
Physics is an emerging area in gaming and huge quantities of resources are being poured into its improvement. A card that not only offloads the physics calculations to a separate chip, but as a result gives us th
Re:no way in hell (Score:1)
Re:Basically A Poor Man's Cell Type Co-Processor (Score:1, Interesting)
Funny you should say that, one of my friends who is a very senior engineer at NVidia has been talking about the same thing for the past year or so. He has been saying how NVidia views the x86 chips that drive pc gaming systems as a worthless relic that they would like to make irrelevant and have pc game developers to essentially start writing their entire game engines on their GPU.
He seems to be just gushing with excitement over