[ShaidarHaran]

Originally Posted by zealotonous

Wasn't it Walt who wrote the same kind of "prose" when SLI first was introduced by Nvidia?

I agree though. Why would we be against another possible enhancement to the gaming experience? The correct answer is noone in their right mind would look at this negatively.

I don't think anyone here is against enhanced and accelerated physics - what people are against are lack-luster physics implementations coughPhysXcough that add little to nothing to overall immersion and detract significantly from framerates.

[Florin]

Originally Posted by zealotonous

Wasn't it Walt who wrote the same kind of "prose" when SLI first was introduced by Nvidia?

I agree though. Why would we be against another possible enhancement to the gaming experience? The correct answer is noone in their right mind would look at this negatively.

Because it's 'gratuitous' and because of some absurd conjecture about the possible negative effect of some thick sheets of hail in some as of yet undefined future game. Obviously.

I wish people would just be honest and say they don't like it because it's Nvidia pushing it. What if ATI doesn't have the manpower to put a team of coders on it, it's still cool.

Similarly, all this gameplay over graphics stuff is just hogwash too. We wouldn't be on this forum if we weren't interested in cutting edge virtual reality, and physics is just a part of that. Just face it, the future is gonna be full of gratuitous and downright gaudy over the top physics, and we're gonna love it.

[pjbliverpool]

Originally Posted by ShaidarHaran

I don't think anyone here is against enhanced and accelerated physics - what people are against are lack-luster physics implementations coughPhysXcough that add little to nothing to overall immersion and detract significantly from framerates.

I agree that what we have seen make use of hardware accelerated physics so far has been pretty poor. But to translate that into PhysX on a GPU being rubbish is no different than saying the GTX280 and 4870X2 are rubbish because what we are seeing from them graphics wise is crap compared to what they are capable of producing.

PhysX on a GPU simply adds tons more raw processing power to your PC and it does so for free (if your on an upgrade path like myself). That can only be a good thing. Whether the devs use it properly is almost a seperate issue. Fact is, if its not there in the first place they definatly can't use it. At least now they have the option.

[Scali]

Just the usual story: we're waiting for that 'killer-app' that makes PhysX something that no gamer wants to be without.

[Davros]

I was just wondering, not too long ago there was a poll "what is your next gfx card upgrade"
for those people who voted ati has physx changed your mind at all considering its not really known if it can be done on ati cards

[Scali]

Here is another PhysX benchmark/test thingie:
http://ozone3d.net/benchmarks/physx-fluidmark/

[Davros]

From ozone :
" If you do not have a GeForce graphics card, you have to install the PhysX System Software 8.08.01. You might also need the CUDA DLL (this DLL has to be copied in the benchmark folder if your Forceware drivers are < 177.79 or if you don't have a GeForce"

does this mean it can be done on radeons ? anyone tried ?
more importantly to me does this mean i can get physx running on a 7600gt as a second card dedicated to physx ?

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by pjbliverpool

I agree that what we have seen make use of hardware accelerated physics so far has been pretty poor. But to translate that into PhysX on a GPU being rubbish is no different than saying the GTX280 and 4870X2 are rubbish because what we are seeing from them graphics wise is crap compared to what they are capable of producing.

Yep, I have seen nothing that indicates PhysX is inherently rubbish. That's like saying DirectX or OpenGL is inherently rubbish.

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by Scali

Here is another PhysX benchmark/test thingie:
http://ozone3d.net/benchmarks/physx-fluidmark/

Cool.

1680x1050 16xMSAA

(Software) Wolfdale 3.6Ghz: 17 FPS
(Hardware) 8800GTS (G80) - 600/1600/900: 60 FPS

Looks pretty shitty though....probably needs a lot more particles than that to make it look like a real fluid.

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

Now the second demo was Nurien. Wow, the PhysX in this demo was awesome. This demo actually made me think that PhysX would be awesome in games like GTA. The demo is about models walking on the ramp, which might not be impressive in itself, but the dresses and hair used PhysX.

Just tried Nurien. We're not quite there yet but I don't care what anybody says. The fact that my two year old video card can now effectively process both 3D and physics workloads with a driver update is friggin impressive. Whether or not PhysX catches on it definitely has brought physics into the limelight and people will start paying attention. I wonder how the folks at Valve feel about it....HL2 was big on physics.

[Scali]

Originally Posted by Davros

does this mean it can be done on radeons ? anyone tried ?

In theory it could work on Radeon, but not in practice (yet?).
You can only run it on a Radeon with CPU physics, which still requires you to install the PhysX runtime, obviously.
There are rumours that someone ported the Cuda code for PhysX to Radeons, but other than a screenshot of a modified PhysX control panel and a 3DMark Vantage result screen, nobody has actually seen it in action, and there's nothing to download for anyone to try out.
Smells like a hoax to me, bit like the Alky DX10-on-XP stuff. Lots of people on forums seemed to be convinced that it actually worked, even though it didn't. All you need is some fake screenshots and some hype, people WANT to believe

Originally Posted by Davros

more importantly to me does this mean i can get physx running on a 7600gt as a second card dedicated to physx ?

No, you must have at least an 8-series card. The 7-series and lower don't have an architecture that supports Cuda, and as such cannot be used for PhysX acceleration. Not now, not ever.

[Davros]

bah

regarding radeons ozone seem to think physx is working on them or they wouldnt be printing instructions for radeon users

[Scali]

Originally Posted by Davros

regarding radeons ozone seem to think physx is working on them or they wouldnt be printing instructions for radeon users

No, they say that you might need to put the Cuda dll in the directory manually, because Radeon drivers don't have Cuda.
They don't make any claims that Radeons would accelerate PhysX, they just say that it might not run without the Cuda dll (but that's just a dependency, the Cuda dll won't be able to do anything on a Radeon card). Even if it runs, it will use CPU physics.

[Florin]

Originally Posted by Davros

does this mean it can be done on radeons ? anyone tried ?
more importantly to me does this mean i can get physx running on a 7600gt as a second card dedicated to physx ?

Unfortunately CUDA means 8xxx series and up. I don't think this is going to change.

[trinibwoy]

Gamebryo adopts PhysX - http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...grated-leading.

The next release of Emergent's Gamebryo, is scheduled for this Autumn and thus will ship with the Nvidia Physx engine directly integrated into the platform.

It was most recently selected as the development platform for the console titles Civilization Revolution by Firaxis and Splatterhouse by BottleRocket.

Gamebryo is also being used by EA-Mythic for its upcoming game, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning as well as Divinity 2: Ego Draconis from Larian Studios.

[Sxotty]

PhysX on GPU is one of the most exciting things in ages for me when it comes to games.

Nothing I have actually seen yet lives up the potential, but the potential from my perspective is huge and I will be more than willing to get a SLi setup especially considering you can use a low end card to take advantage of it. Using two high end cards also gives you flexibility.

I hope that AMD actually gets on the band wagon, but it seems doubtful at the moment they will.

[trinibwoy]

Yeah I dont know exactly how these games will take advantage of PhysX but this kind of support can't hurt Nvidia's case. I wonder if AMD is looking at all this and seriously considering some sort of CUDA/PhysX implementation for their architecture.

[Davros]

I hope they are looking at it seriously. To answer the question I asked earlier on
regarding the poll on your next graphics card, i didnt take part because im not buying one for a while but if i was I certainly would of answered amd (4870 or 4850) the gt200 range being too expensive but now with the price reductions and support for physx (and not knowing if amd will ever support it) I would do a 100% percent u-turn and buy nv and I guess many others would do the same. This could be another example of amd snatching defeat from the jaws of victory again...

[ShaidarHaran]

Originally Posted by Davros

I hope they are looking at it seriously. To answer the question I asked earlier on
regarding the poll on your next graphics card, i didnt take part because im not buying one for a while but if i was I certainly would of answered amd (4870 or 4850) the gt200 range being too expensive but now with the price reductions and support for physx (and not knowing if amd will ever support it) I would do a 100% percent u-turn and buy nv and I guess many others would do the same. This could be another example of amd snatching defeat from the jaws of victory again...

What PhysX-enabled games do you want to play?

I can't think of any, even after d/ling the power pack.

IOW: PhysX is not (yet) as big a factor in gaming as NV would have you believe.

Don't buy graphics cards on hype, buy them on performance and *usable* features.

[Davros]

well all of them, if it takes off it might not but if i was buying a card now (considering i generally wait 2 generations to replace a card) I wouldnt take the chance of being without it
if nv can make the previous ppu enabled games run on a gpu ive got quite a few games installed allready that would use it
graw 1 + 2
alpha prime
gothic 3
infernal
mass effect
rainbow 6 vegas
ut 3
*if nv are to be beleived

[Scali]

I think it's theoretically possible to run all PPU games on GPU (or CPU for that matter).
I'm not sure why some games/demos don't work on GPU currently. It could be that some titles test too literally for a PPU. For example, they might query the driver for the device name and see if it actually says something like Ageia PhysX, which it no longer does on a GPU.

This could be solved by either patching the game to accept other types of PhysX devices, or by using driver profiles that make the driver return a fake string for certain titles.

Making GPU-accelerated titles run on the PPU is probably similar, but there could be an extra catch there: nVidia updates the PhysX software to higher version numbers from time to time. If they don't add PPU support to these new versions, then titles requiring these versions of PhysX won't work on a PPU anymore.

I can only hope that nVidia strives to make as many titles compatible with both PPU and GPU physics as possible. But I wouldn't be surprised if the PPU ends up as an orphan.

[ShaidarHaran]

Originally Posted by Davros

well all of them, if it takes off it might not but if i was buying a card now (considering i generally wait 2 generations to replace a card) I wouldnt take the chance of being without it
if nv can make the previous ppu enabled games run on a gpu ive got quite a few games installed allready that would use it

You'd rather take a chance on a technology that hasn't proven its merit yet?

Originally Posted by Davros

graw 1 + 2
alpha prime
gothic 3
infernal
mass effect
rainbow 6 vegas
ut 3
*if nv are to be beleived

Not a one of those games you mentioned is significantly enhanced by the addition of PhysX. Surely you've seen the videos. It's only been the specially developed games that truly make use of it, but then we get wonderfully unplayable messes due to low FPS.

I'm not saying GPU-accelerated and enhanced physics is a bad thing, nor even that PhysX is lacking, just that the current lineup of games that use it don't entice me.

[Davros]

I dont see it as taking a chance, if physx amounts to nothing im not loosing anything (except the £35 a 260 costs over a 4870, but I also gain as faster card as well)

[BRiT]

Most of the benchmarks I've seen show the HD 4870 as the faster of the two. So wouldn't that mean you lost £35 for a slower card, the GTX 260?

[pjbliverpool]

Originally Posted by ShaidarHaran

You'd rather take a chance on a technology that hasn't proven its merit yet?

Well thats what people would be doing if they chose ATI for DX10.1 or the tesselator and those are definatly features that are marketed by ATI.

Not a one of those games you mentioned is significantly enhanced by the addition of PhysX. Surely you've seen the videos.

But it doesn't really matter if the're not significantly enhanced, they are noticably enhanced and completely for free (as long as you have the spare performance). Any enhancement for free is something to celebrate. Certainly if DX10.1 had enabled the same enhancements you could expect ATI to be shouting it from the roof tops.