OK, now they officially think that we´re all rich.

[WhiteX]

ATI has used the Computex show in Taiwan to debut its physics solution for gaming. The Canadian graphics company aims to challenge Ageia, the only PPU manufacturer currently offering a product for desktop PCs and any future offering from team Green. The solution, apparently, is to add another graphics card to the mix. This means that if you desire top-notch performance you will have to use 3 ATI graphics cards in one high-end gaming PC setup, sounds noisy and expensive.

Traditional PC games face two principal constraints: they're sometimes CPU-bound, limited by how much the processor can handle; or they're sometimes GPU-bound, limited by the amount of information the graphics cards can process. The same processing limitations also impact how well games can imitate reality. Recently, the PC industry has witnessed a steady building of interest in configuring PCs with more than one graphics processing unit. More and more motherboards are now shipping with multiple high-bandwidth PCI Express slots. This trend has addressed some of the limitations of CPU and GPU functioning and has improved the imitation of reality.

However, as GPUs have become more flexible and powerful, their potential for handling a wider range of processing tasks beyond just 3D rendering is starting to be realized. It can no longer be assumed that the GPUs in a system will necessarily be processing a single task at any given time. Asymmetric processing technology is a new feature of CrossFire that addresses this new environment, by allowing two or more GPUs with differing capabilities and feature sets to simultaneously handle different data parallel computing tasks, such as rendering and game physics, in a single system.

At Computex ATI showcased the CrossFire X1900 multi-GPU solution in combination with Intel Core 2 Duo processors and how the setup effectively addresses both the CPU and GPU-bound scenarios producing impressive image quality and performance in games, while a single ATI GPU works to deliver realistic physics. ATI named the result boundless gaming. It is expected that AMD based setups will also surface very soon.

See, they do think we´re loaded.

 

[Doomulation]

You know what? When you buy a new gfx card, you simply keep your old one as the physics processor. Or, you can buy a cheap new card to act as it. Sound like a cheap way for physics to me.

 

[WhiteX]

I don´t think they mean that you get to keep your old mainstream card and have phisycs, i believe you will have to buy three cards instead of one when upgrading.

 

[Doomulation]

Nay. One and keep your old one. Pcstats demonstreated the idea.
Btw, nvidia is doing the same thing.

 

[TerraPhantm]

So this means I can use say... an X1600 as a physics card? That's actually pretty good... hell of a lot cheaper then an actual physx card.

 

[Doomulation]

Aye, that's the idea. The drivers uses the second card for the physics processing. The faster the card, the better the physics of course, but... It should do.

 

[t0rek]

Three are needed for "Triple Play", two can do physics but are not good enought. Read the facts:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2772

 

[WhiteX]

This feud over Physics may be the end of PC gaming, or at least a huge setback.

They are not thinking it through, Video cards are very expensive, the amount of RAM to play current games is astronomic and they are forcing one (or two) more card on us, no one with a sane mind will buy 2 top of the line cards and a mainstream one for physics, and the Ageia solution is kinda expensive too, in face of that one can understand the huge price tag on PS3, i mean, if ppl are willing to toss all that money only to play, they can afford a PS3.

 

[Doomulation]

Things will get cheaper in the end...
And who wouldn't want physics? It will all give us much better effects in the end since the processor just isn't built for physics.

 

[TerraPhantm]

I'm guessing eventually there'll be a physics co-processor built into the CPU or GPU. While I never liked any of this SLI/Crossfire crap, it was never really necessary. With my single X1900 I can play virtually any game out there.

 

[Miretank]

The idea of physics, for me, is not cool. Ok, more realism. But that's what I am not interested. Will they try to break the real/virtual barrier? I am already bothered with new gen graphics, with that physic card then, Oh well, I'll definitely lose my passion for new gen games.

 

[Agozer]

Games don't even have to be all next-gen for it to have physics. If you ask me, I like seeing stuff move in a natural way, and objects interacting with eachother the way they should be.

Hey, what can I say, the Source engine is just great.

But yeah, a game can be awesome even without realistic physics modeling.

 

[Doomulation]

The idea of physics, for me, is not cool. Ok, more realism. But that's what I am not interested. Will they try to break the real/virtual barrier? I am already bothered with new gen graphics, with that physic card then, Oh well, I'll definitely lose my passion for new gen games.

I think you're missing the point. Sure, we can use physics now, but what if there's like 100 things moving around at the same time? Perhaps you haven't seen the "magical" effect because today's games can't do it. Better explosions... more things can fly to all sorts of different places... Every hair on a persons head can sway different ways with the wind.
Those are just examples that require physics. And too much of those effects boogle down the CPU. If and when we use physics cards, we'll probably see a lot more "cool" effects.

 

[t0rek]

Eye candy is always welcome but the point is that things are getting expensive. Just think about the cost of buying two good video cards for SLI (the SLI motherboards are expensive BTW) and adding a third Ageia PhysX card. That would be fucking expensive. And just think about the insane power consumption plus more cards need a more powerful CPU, so even more power needed.

The idea of a co processing makes more sense. Let's take a look for now for the interesting AMD future plans:

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2768&p=2

 

[TerraPhantm]

Well, you already have a form of multi-procesing when you take dual cores into account. Having multiple physical processors has been available on the server end for ages, AMD is just trying to bring it to the consumers. However juding by the way things are looking, a dual woodcrest(basically the Xeon version of Conroe) system will be cheaper to build while still performing better.

I'm hoping that some day they'll integrate a seperate physics processor onto the processor package (think of it as a second core). The physx is just too expensive for something that causes a performance loss (the graphics card has to render more things since there will be more things flying around).

 

[Doomulation]

Eye candy is always welcome but the point is that things are getting expensive. Just think about the cost of buying two good video cards for SLI (the SLI motherboards are expensive BTW) and adding a third Ageia PhysX card. That would be fucking expensive. And just think about the insane power consumption plus more cards need a more powerful CPU, so even more power needed.

The idea of a co processing makes more sense. Let's take a look for now for the interesting AMD future plans:

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2768&p=2

But if people lack the money, the companies won't get anything. Therefore, they need the budget solutions which would still appeal to us. And if the game creators only target the high-end, what do they get? There will still be budget versions of everything out there, and mostly, I don't think much will change besides the fact that we'll have more cards. And draw a tad more power.

I'm hoping that some day they'll integrate a seperate physics processor onto the processor package (think of it as a second core). The physx is just too expensive for something that causes a performance loss (the graphics card has to render more things since there will be more things flying around).

Of course the gpu will need to render more things, but game creators still has to make it reasonable. I don't think the gpu will be so much more stressed than before. About integrated... all I can say is that I don't think that is a good idea. That's like thinking built-in graphics in the motherboard. The cpu wasn't designed for physics and is never going to be. A physics card is specifically designed for it, however, and will perform much better.

Aye, the card may be expensive now, but just remember that it is new. Physics cards haven't taken off yet. As time passes, they will be cheaper to manufacture and more people want them so they need budget cards. All will all work out in the end...

 

[t0rek]

You are not worried about power, just check this out:

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2770

 

[TerraPhantm]

About integrated... all I can say is that I don't think that is a good idea. That's like thinking built-in graphics in the motherboard. The cpu wasn't designed for physics and is never going to be. A physics card is specifically designed for it, however, and will perform much better.

Aye, the card may be expensive now, but just remember that it is new. Physics cards haven't taken off yet. As time passes, they will be cheaper to manufacture and more people want them so they need budget cards. All will all work out in the end...

You're not understanding what I'm saying. I'm saying have a seperate co-processor on the CPU (or GPU I guess) dedicated to physics. Performance wise, it'd be as if you had a seperate card, but it's just integrated into the package. Kind of like how older CPUs had math co-processors.

 

[WhiteX]

On the GPU it may be, the CPU must have other usage to it out of the gaming world.

 

[Doomulation]

You're not understanding what I'm saying. I'm saying have a seperate co-processor on the CPU (or GPU I guess) dedicated to physics. Performance wise, it'd be as if you had a seperate card, but it's just integrated into the package. Kind of like how older CPUs had math co-processors.

Aye, I know what you're thinking, but it still probably won't be as efficient. I mean, the place where the cpu resides is not meant for physics processors. With an ideal design, the processing will be much better. I am pretty sure that any card-based physics card will beat any co-processor. Especially these times.

And about the gpus... shame on both ATI and nVidia. They need to learn to save power instead of drawing like crazy. I shall definetly not be buying any new card anytime soon. Not until they reduce the power usage, anyway. AMD and Intel has succeeded to do so, so why not ATI and nVidia?