GPU = Geometric Physics Unit?

[brightblack]

Excuse the title, but I thought I'd ask here. Since Havok etc., and 'physics engines' are starting to get the kind of limelight graphics engines started getting a while back, a few magazines and sites say specialist cards to handle physics, and free up the CPU (once more) are coming soon. Has anyone actually seen one of these cards, and more importantly, know when they'll be mass market and how much they'll cost?

(Gags about 80287s and other co-pro's appreciated)

[Mike]

There are a lot of interesting things going on with physics processing right now. The company that's currently developing a standalone physics processing card is ageia. Check them out here: http://www.ageia.com/products/physx.html

The cards are up and running, they've secured deals with lots of card makers including BFG I believe. They have demos on their site you should probably check out to see just what kinds of things the cards can do. I think the cards are going to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $100-$149, but I'm not sure.

Also, ATi recently stated that their cards can do physics as well and I've seen similar rumors about nvidia.

Personally, I think physics processing will be the next big thing with video games as it adds a huge amount of realism. However, I'm thinking that before ageia can secure their place in the market, nvidia and ati will leverage their significant resources to build something better and faster, and put it on a videocard, so you only end up buying one card.

Another thought, nvidia and ati may position their videocards as entry-level physics processors, so just about anyone can use hardware accelerated physics, and then the dedicated cards from ageia would be the more expensive high-end solution.

All I know is their demos look amazing and I'm looking forward to seeing this used in a game.

[phranq]

Yup, games are in need of good physics. I think game developers are going to head into the physics department to get more realism from games as they've been focusing almost entirely graphics for the past few years.

[brightblack]

Further to the mini debate on physics in games; certainly good games like FarCry and Half-Life 2 have very impressive physics engines, demonstrated by moving objects, gravity guns, and rag doll NPCs, but just as game engines have glossed up some pretty mediocre games, are physics in danger of abuse? As much as I like HL2, some of the gravity gun levels, such as the beach with the 'move the detritus to make a bridge' almost had me reaching for the quit option, (that, and the 'Loading...' messages).

That said, which is more likely, a seperate card, or inbuilt to the mobo or gpu?