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Wonder where this will lead...

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070222-8906.html

IMO this is good competition is always good for us consumers. But this article is not biased the guy that made it is not neutral is visible that he tells GPU´s are best for physics them PPU´s but don´t show any info to sustain is opinion.

This is what i know about physics on GPU´s.

Effect physics capable: yes saw some Havok FX demos but on all the demos the maximum particle count was 100.000 this using an entire GPU power in a very simple scene.

Gameplay physics capable: Yes they say, never saw any prof of it, not if using Havok FX it only does effect physics.


On the PPU.

Effect Physics capable: yes we already have games using them, maximum particle count on the hardware 500.000+ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhysX look here if you think i´m lying), much more them any GPU demo that i ever saw from havok.

Gameplay capable: yes, do i need to say more?

Just want to put some more info for the ones who are interested and to underline the infos of Argoon. It is my favorite site for AGEIA-PhysX-Infos (Hardware-Specs, Software-Titles useing the AGEIA-SDK etc.):

http://personal.inet.fi/atk/kjh2348fs/ageia_physx.html


Hoozer

Have you not seen the conferences that havoc gave about their GPU physics engine? the one where a character walks around a map kicking objects around and making tornadoes with all the props?



500? or 500,000 ? because I doubt any game would use 500,000 particles, even with the PPU, did you ever try that in DBP? as I don't think you can get to 1000 without getting a crash, and not to mention particle count isn't everything as that many objects will cause alot of slowdown.

Another advantage of having GPU physics is that you don't have to send data to all the hardware, because the GPU would already store all of the physics data and the graphics data so it can update objects physics and render them at the same time, a PPU cannot do this, and the PPU runs on a PCI x1 slot compared to the PCI-E x16 slot of a GPU and the bandwidth difference is no comparrison.

Also every PC has a GPU these days whereas almost no one has a PPU so the integration would be a lot easier for users as they would just have to upgrade one part.

Yes i saw that video but that is not gameplay physics they are effect physics, gameplay physics are physics that have some impact on the game play like they are capable of killing the game character or the npc´s or even ones that change the flow of a map warmonger will be the example of this.

500.000 see the link that i gave, yes you don´t have any game now that use 500.000 particles (but it will come the time) as you don´t have any GPUPhysics game using 100.000 or 0 for that matter, yes i tryed that on the free version back then and it din´t worked very well but from what i see DP don´t work very well with the PPU anyway.



That is not a advantage that is the reason i think GPU´s can´t do Gameplay physics FYI gameplay physics only work if the CPU have some knowledge about what they are doing.

A PPU can´t render them it is not its job after all but why do you think the PPU have 128MB of memory, is not only to take space or to make the card more expensive it is to store physics data and the position of the physic objects so it don´t need to recalculate them again.



PCI x1 ? The PPU´s work on the old PCI slot not on the PCI-e x1 for now. And the PPU don´t need the bandwidth that a GPU needs as it only sends coordinates for the CPU and the GPU to know were the objects are and what they are doing. Unlike the GPU that needs to render textures that are the reason for the high bandwidth need of the GPU.

You don´t need to upgrade a PPU like a GPU so is always a better investment, also only SLI setup´s will have some impact on the physics because if you try to play them with only one card you will lose more them you gain and nvidia from what i know as only giving support for it on the G80 family of cards and the majority of PC players don´t have a high end GPU.

Peace