I Want My Ppu!!!!!!

PSI-KILLER

It looks like gaming will be going to the new level of uber coolness. body parts flying in all directions in Doom VII and stuff like that!!! Starfuries with show like effects in a mod one day.

[url]http://usa.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=2651[/url]

Random Chaos

You might find it interesting that both ATI and nVidia are saying that you can use their cards for PPU processing too. ATI both in and out of crossfire mode, it will use the 2nd card as a PPU if enabled (drivers forthcoming). nVidia in SLI mode will use the 2nd card as a PPU if enabled (drivers forthcoming). I wouldn't be surprised if both ATI and nVidia begin rolling out dedicated PPU processors on their graphics cards before too long.

Data Crystal

Yes, there are no limits to the future of gaming with these gadgets. Physics are sooooo much fun in games. :D

Akrovah

Yes, I heard about this PhysX board a while ago and have been hoping ever since that it would catch on. With Ati and Nivida joining in that may be a reality someday. Sweet.

PJH

This is all so nice and stuff, but this is yet one more expensive part to pay for to put in your PC to stay up to date in the gaming world.

Sorry for not being very enthusiastic about this, but I'm not very excited about this unless the prices of GFX cards will come down drastically and this new thing will be cheap enough, but I bet those cards will cost at least a few hundred euros/dollars too making the PC gaming yet more expensive than ever before.

- PJH

RubberEagle

I'm extremely enthusiastic about those PPUs, but not about the price... 300$ for a Physics board, with 128 MB Ram is a bit pricey.

I think the best way to bring those to as broad a consumerbase as possible would be to make on-board versions for mainboards, like sound-chips.
I'd rather pay 30$ more for a motherboard with this chip, than 300$ for an additional card...

Akrovah

While you have a point about on-board being better to get them to a wier audience, on-board chips can cause performance issues in other areas, as well as being lacking in themselves.

Your typical on-board audio chip for instance can increase cpu usage for sound 2-3 times over that of a dedicated sound card.

I do agree, howver, thaat they should not cost $300. I'm no hardware designer, but I don't think it should be that complex a board.

C_Mon

Cool thing, but way too expansive.

Data Crystal

My take on this is, is that the PPU chip will be embedded on the display adapters later on, because that's where the fight is now and according to my 0.02 will also stay for the next couple of years at least. So we'll probably see what happened with the 3d-accelerator cards a few years back: First we have additional cards to whack in alongside display adapters, next we have a couple of the not-so-good-quality jackofalltrades and then we get the first truly well functioning hybrid.

It also makes sense: There will always be games that don't do jack shit with the PPU, so why have it there for nothing? If you have the PPU on the graphics board, it can be used for basic graphics crunching in case it's not needed for the physics.

The choice is between that scenario or having double processor mainboards storming the market, to use which you only need one processor and the second for either as the PPU or added performance.

Interesting to see which way it goes. :) But to have a system where the PPU's will stay as an additional with all the rest? Highly unlikely in my opinion. In the first steps of the technology it's mandatory, but it's going to be succesfully integrated at one point or the other.

My take is on the dual-task graphics cards.

PSI-KILLER

Having the items intergrated would be nice, less power and cooling needed. I am curious that would a PCIe slot have enough bandwidth to handle everything through one slot. I know less resources would be used by a one slot solution but the bandwith, even though dual channel, would be tight for both a GPU and PPU. You would need a new slot design like a Pcie II or something in the future for the hybrid boards which i guess is a guarantee will happen. I just look forward to a more realistic flow of gaming and hope the reviews reflect this. If the reviews kabosh it I will not get one ether.

Data Crystal

Dual PCI-E -slot display adapter? ;)

Defiant

There's a really [b]big[/b] overlap between what you send to a graphics card and what you send to a physics card. It could greatly benefit from shared memory for geometry and integration with the materials system. Right now you have to send that information over the system bus twice (albeit not as much to the PPU). The big kicker I'm looking forward to is fast & accurate collision detection in hardware.

From what I heard from Ageia at IGC, integrated solutions are the end goal, but not until maybe second or third generation solutions. As I recall, the main reasons cited were cost and size/amount of components. Eventually these will both go down.

PSI-KILLER

It is going to suck to be one of the first generation users but I might just do it if the submersion level in games blows my socks off.

E.T

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Data Crystal [/i]
[B]The choice is between that scenario or having double processor mainboards storming the market, to use which you only need one processor and the second for either as the PPU or added performance.[/B][/QUOTE]Unlike GPUs current CPUs are way slower in calculations required for physics modelling so even that second core wouldn't help so much, unless for example one of those four cores would be designed for handling required calculations.


[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by PSI-KILLER [/i]
[B]Having the items intergrated would be nice, less power and cooling needed.[/B][/QUOTE]Those are only because they're very underpowered versions.
Remember how slow all integrated graphic decelerators are compared to external cards.