Exclusive: ASUS Debuts AGEIA PhysX Hardware
by Derek Wilson on May 5, 2006 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
Ideally, we would have a few more games to test in order to get a better understanding of what developers are doing with the hardware. We'd also love a little more flexibility in how the software we test handles hardware usage and physics detail. For example, what sort of performance can be had using multithreaded physics calculations on dual-core or multi-core systems? Can a high-end CPU even handle the same level of physics detail as with the PhysX card, or has GRAW downgraded the complexity of the software calculations for a reason? It would also be very helpful if we could dig up some low level technical detail on the hardware. Unfortunately, you can't always get what you want.For now, the tests we've run here are quite impressive in terms of visuals, but we can't say for certain whether or not the PPU contributes substantially to the quality. From what GRAW has shown us, and from the list of titles on the horizon, it is clear that developers are taking an interest in this new PPU phenomenon. We are quite happy to see more interactivity and higher levels of realism make their way into games, and we commend AGEIA for their role in speeding up this process.
The added realism and immersion of playing Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter with hardware physics is a huge success in this gamer's opinion. Granted, the improved visuals aren't the holy grail of game physics, but this is an excellent first step. In a fast fire fight with bullets streaming by, helicopters raining destruction from the heavens, and grenades tearing up the streets, the experience is just that much more hair raising with a PPU plugged in.
If every game out right now supported some type of physics enhancement with a PPU under the hood, it would be easy to recommend it to anyone who wants higher image quality than the most expensive CPU and GPU can currently offer. For now, one or two games aren't going get a recommendation for spending the requisite $300, especially when we don't know the extent of what other developers are doing. For those with money to burn, it's certainly a great part to play with. Whether it actually becomes worth the price of admission will remain to be seen. We are hopefully optimistic having seen these first fruits, especially considering how much more can be done.
Obviously, there's going to be some question of whether or not the PPU will catch on and stay around for the long haul. Luckily, software developers need not worry. AGEIA has worked very hard to do everything right, and we think they're on the right track. Their PhysX SDK is an excellent software physics solution its own right - Sony is shipping it with every PS3 development console, and there are XBox 360 games around with the PhysX SDK powering them as well. Even if the hardware totally fails to gain acceptance, games can still fall back to a software solution. Unfortunately, it's still up to developers to provide the option for modifying physics quality under software as well as hardware, as GRAW demonstrates.
As of now, the PhysX SDK has been adopted by engines such as: UnrealEngine3 (Unreal Tournament 2007), Reality Engine (Cell Factor), and Gamebryo (recently used for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, though Havok is implimented in lieu of PhysX support). This type of developer penetration is good to see, and it will hopefully provide a compelling upgrade argument to consumers in the next 6-12 months.
We are still an incredibly long way off from seeing games that require the PhysX PPU, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. With such easy access to the PhysX SDK for developers, there has got to be some pressure now for those one to two year timeframe products to get in as many beyond-the-cutting-edge features as possible. Personally, I'm hoping the AGEIA PhysX hardware support will make it onto the list. If AGEIA is able to prove their worth on the console middleware side, we may end up seeing a PPU in XBox3 and PS4 down the line as well. There were plenty of skeptics that doubted the PhysX PPU would ever make it out the door, but having passed that milestone, who knows how far they'll go?
We're still a little skeptical about how much the PhysX card is actually doing that couldn't be done on a CPU -- especially a dual core CPU. Hopefully this isn't the first "physics decellerator", rather like the first S3 Virge 3D chip was more of a step sideways for 3D than a true enhancement. The promise of high quality physics acceleration is still there, but we can't say for certain at this point how much faster a PhysX card really makes things - after all, we've only seen one shipping title, and it may simply be a matter of making better optimizations to the PhysX code. With E3 on the horizon and more games coming out "real soon now", rest assured that we will have continuing coverage of AGEIA and the PhysX PPU.
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Walter Williams - Friday, May 5, 2006 - link
Too bad not even quadcores will be able to outperfrom the PPU when it comes to physics calculations.You all need to wait for another game that uses the PPU to be reviewed before jumping to any conclusions.
The developers of GRAW did a very poor job compared to the developers of CellFactor. This will come to light soon.
saratoga - Friday, May 5, 2006 - link
Haha.
DerekWilson - Friday, May 5, 2006 - link
just because something is true about the hardware doesn't mean it will every come to fruition in the software. it isn't jumping to a conclusion to say that the PPU is *capable* of outperforming a quadcore cpu when it comes to physics calculations -- that is a fact, not an opinion due to the architecture.had the first quote said something about games that use physics performing better on one rather than the other, that would have been jumping to conclusions.
the key here is the developers and how the problem of video game physics maps to hardware that is good at doing physics calculations. there are a lot of factors.
saratoga - Saturday, May 6, 2006 - link
Its clearly an opinion. For it to be a fact, it would have to be verifiable. However, no one has made a quad core x86 processor, and no game engine has been written to use one.
The poster simply stated his opinion and then blasted other people for having their own opinions, all without realizing how stupid it sounded which is why it was such a funny post.
Walter Williams - Saturday, May 6, 2006 - link
I did not blast anybody...It is a simple fact that a dedicated processor for X will always outperfrom a general purpose processor when doing X from a hardware perspective.
Whether or not the software yields the same results is another question. Assuming that the PCI bus is not holding back performance of the PPU, it is incredibly unlikely that quad core CPUs will be able to outperform the PPU.
saratoga - Saturday, May 6, 2006 - link
Clearly false. General purpose processors sometimes beat specialized units. It depends on resources available to each device, and the specifics of the problem. Specialization is a trade off. If your calculation has some very specific and predictable quality, you might design a custom processor that exploits some property of your problem effectively enough to overcome the billions Intel and AMD poured into developing a general purpose core. But you may also end up with an expensive processor thats left behind by off the shelf components :)
Furthermore, this statement is hopelessly general. What if X is running Linux? Or any other application that x86 CPUs are already specialized for. Can you really concieve of an even specialized processor for this task that didn't resemble a general purpose CPU? Doubtful.
You're backpeddleing. You said:
"Too bad not even quadcores will be able to outperfrom the PPU when it comes to physics calculations."
Now you're saying they might be able to do it. So much for jumping to conclusions?
JarredWalton - Friday, May 5, 2006 - link
People keep mentioning Cell Factor. Well and good that it uses more physics calculations as well as the PhysX card. Unfortunately, right now it requires the PhysX card and it's looking like 18 MONTHS (!) before the game ships - if it ever gets done. We might as well discuss how much better Havok FX is going to be in The Elder Scrolls V. :pFor the first generation, we're far more likely to see a lot of the "tacked on" approach as companies add rudimentary support to existing designs. We also don't have a way to even compare Cell Factor with and without PhysX. Are they hiding something? I mean, 15% faster under the AGEIA test demo using a high-end CPU isn't looking like much. If they allow CellFactor to run on software (CPU) PhysX calculations, get that to support SMP systems for the calculations, and we get 2 FPS in Cell Factor, that's great. It shows the PhysX card does soemthing. If they allow all that and the dual core chips end up coming very close to the same performance, we've got a problem.
Basically, right now we're missing real world (i.e. gaming) apples-to-apples comparisons. It's like comparing X800 to 6800 cards under games that only supported SM3.0 or SM1.1 - better shaders or faster performance, but X800 could have come *much* closer with proper SM2.0 support.
NastyPope - Friday, May 5, 2006 - link
AMD & Intel could license the PhysX technology and include a dedicated PhysX (or generic multi-API) core on their processors and market them as game processors. Although some science and technology applications could make use of it as well. Being on-die would reduce latency and provide a huge amount of bandwidth between cores. Accessing system memory could slow things down but still be much faster than data transfers across a PCI bus.Woodchuck2000 - Friday, May 5, 2006 - link
The reason that framerates drop with the PhysX card installed is simply that the graphics card is given more complex effects to render.At some point in the future, games will be coded with a physics API in mind. Interactions between the player and the game environment will be through this API, regardless of whether there is dedicated hardware available.
It's a truth universally acknowledged that graphics are better left to the graphics card - I don't hear anyone suggesting that the second core in a duallie system should perform all the graphics calculations. I think that in time, this will be true of physics too.
Once the first generation of games built from the ground up with a physics API in mind come out, this will sell like hot cakes.
Calin - Friday, May 5, 2006 - link
The reasons frame rates drop is the fact that with the physics engine, the video card have more to render - in the grenade explosion images, the "with physics" image has tens of dumpster bits flying, while in the "non physics" there are hardly a couple.If there would have been the same complexity of scenes, I wonder how much faster the ageia would be