PhysX add-on cards? Gimmick or something good?

[Darren S]

Been about for a bit now and it looks like Asus do one, circa £150 notes. Clearly, the PC game has to support PhysX first, but potentially, I can see the benefit of one.

Something that Roy will be buying at some stage, no doubt!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhysX#Available_in_Spring_of_2006

http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=19&l2=102&l3=0&model=1137&modelmenu=1

D.

 

[Rasclart]

Me and Roy talked about this

I came to the conclusion at the moment its pointless IMO. I would wait and see how it develops. I remember reading about Ati working on something that allows you to use a Ati graphics card as a physics processor.

 

[Lee]

I've got one in my PC here. I've had it for a while and so far nothing has used it. I've got 3 more in the cupboard, no one wants one. lol

I ran the CellFactor demo with the card disabled and it barely moved at times and that's running on an Athlon X2 4800 with Crossfired Radeon X1900XTXs. With the card on the amount of physical objects it could handle was pretty massive, cloth effects were good but no better than our guys can code. All in all, currently a total waste of money.

What they do is impressive but the current uses I've seen it put to don't add anything to the gameplay or fun element of any game.

Havoc does a dam good job without the need for a fancy card too.

 

[Darren S]

I think it's a good indicator of what to expect in the future though. Imagine a core component of say DX12 or something being true, native physics support? Maybe there would be future adaptations of the dual-GPU cards - one purely for gfx and the other for physics? If the game didn't support native physics, it simply reverted to a single GPU function?

It may have some merit. Remember the joke that were the Voodoo Banshee cards that would co-op with each other? Total turd at the time, but look at us now with SLi and Crossfire support? Something to keep an eye on, at least.

D.

 

[wozzaa]

When UT2007 comes out it will make use of the cards so we will have to see then if its worth an upgrade. Ghostrecon also uses them but it just adds a few more effects more particles thats abut it.

 

[Munson]

They will definitely be common place inside top gaming PCs within 2 years I think. Certainly not worth it at the moment though IMO.

 

[rich[182]]

Id wait til next year and see how the new DX10 cards go, along with Vista and also how the Unreal 3 and Crysis engines go to, see what direction things take imho

 

[Lee]

They will definitely be common place inside top gaming PCs within 2 years I think. Certainly not worth it at the moment though IMO.

I'm not so sure. Unless designers find a way to make us of the extra power in a fun way then it's going to be dead in the water.

We're developing on the Unreal 3 engine and still no one here wants one of the cards!! I only put one in as I was currious. It made virtually no difference in GRAW, and Cell Factor is just a tech demo to show the card off.

 

[Saner]

I'm with Lee, don't think they will be mainstream for quite a while

 

[Darren S]

Imagine if they did pull their finger out with these cards though? Imagine the likes of GTR3 or GTR4 having all the suspension travel, inertia, acceleration forces and braking accurately calculated by the card - freeing up the CPU for running the game more efficiently?

I think its a great idea. Just a bit ahead of its time, imo.

D.

 

[Saner]

I think by that time, heat will become an issue, you'll have the CPU, GPU and PPU, although tech might come up with a way of tackling that.

Currently the hardware is ahead of the software, we still havent seen what the current GPU's can produce