NVIDIA to Unveil "SLI Physics"

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Well, nubius, I don't know if this is going to burn your toast or not, but the lastest issue of MAXIMUM PC, has an article about motherboards that are current in production to support "GPU" sockets. They will be positioned next to the "CPU" socket and they will use conventional methods of cooling.

You might have seen it, what do you think?
Haven't seen it, but it looks like they've stolen my idea for swappable GPU's with actual sockets like CPU's..........jerks! Where's my royalties!

I don't see why you'd think that Ageia would have less transistor count compared to a GPU......it's know that CPU's are far less complex and have way less transistors than GPU's anyway, so I wouldn't be surprised if a PPU were somewhat close to a normal CPU.
 
I don't see why you'd think that Ageia would have less transistor count compared to a GPU......it's know that CPU's are far less complex and have way less transistors than GPU's anyway, so I wouldn't be surprised if a PPU were somewhat close to a normal CPU.
That's what I'm saying...the PhysX card that Ageia is producing has about 125 million transistors compared to the 270 million on a 7900GTX...so you can see a GPU would be overkill acting as a PPU or at least based on what Ageia has proposed it looks overkill anyways
 
The Article that I linked talks about a Demo Called, "BoulderMark" that has a simulation of 15,000 boulders rolling down a hill with hundreds of thousands of collisions. The 7900GTX was capable of rendering and calculating the physics at 64.5 FPS. While the CPU calculation only PC was only capable of 6.2 FPS. I can only image what type of slide show that must have been without some component calculating physics. Like I said before, "Garry's Mod would be a really great mod if there was hardware to support it." You can do so many things with the HL2 source engine, but the physics are just too much for current systems. That's why game devs have steered clear of adding more physics to games and focusing on eye candy.

BTW, I read another article tonight that havok.com is working closely with NVIDIA on "SLI Physics"
bouldermark.jpg
 
your picture isn't loading for me...........but who cares......I want to know where you got your new lady friend that's in your sig.
 
well, how much is the PhysX card going to cost? i assume much less than a 7900GTX.

surely the physx card will be better, as it has been developed from the ground up as a purely physics card, where as gpus are optomised for rendering graphics.
 
The physics card's aren't going to be a bargain. I bet over $200 for initial release. Are they putting these things in traditional PCI slots? I think I'd feel cooler if I could make use of a PCIe x1 slot.

Ryan
 
The physics card's aren't going to be a bargain. I bet over $200 for initial release. Are they putting these things in traditional PCI slots? I think I'd feel cooler if I could make use of a PCIe x1 slot.
Actuall $200-$300 for a physics card doesn't seem that bad IMO.

That's assuming that they won't be obsolete as quickly as it seems like graphics cards are getting these days. If by the next game released 6 months later you need a new PPU, then yeah that'd be ridiculous, but honestly I don't think that's gonna happen.....perhaps that's simply wishful thinking though :)

FghtinIrshNvrDi - as far as I've heard, they were going to use the PCI-E 4x slot......or at the very minimum PXI-E 1x slot like you're thinking.

HOWEVER.......looking at the position of those two slots I'd be kind of screwed. Theres no room in the slow below my graphics card (hell not sure if that's the 1x or 4x, probably1x though) because of my water block and whatnot, and there's no room in the slot ABOVE the card because of the pins that go through the card to hold the water block on. If it were to fit in the top slot I could remedy the situation by putting my graphics card in the bottom slot, but if it goes in the bottom slot, it looks like I'm screwed =/

Seems a lot of people hated the idea of a physics card, but IMO I'm really looking forward to it. Yes it's another component you gotta buy, but technically, if physics is taken off the CPU and the GPU, then your current hardware would be almost be like getting a 'boost' and made to be less obsolete. Of course then developers would counter by making graphics more intense, but basically a 6800Ultra or something would be able to handle far more demanding graphics with physics duties taken off.

Perhaps they can somehow even make patches for somewhat earlier games like Oblivion (by the time a PPU comes out, it'll be out for a while) that'll enable a PPU to work with the game......thus before hand say you could only run 1024x768 with 2xAA, maybe now you can do 1280x1024 with 4x AA........just an example obviously.
 
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