View Full Version : GeForce 8 graphics processors to gain PhysX support
keninishna
02-15-08, 11:58 AM
Found this on Digg if anyone hasn't already read this.
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14147
Wow man, you think it will hurt when they squeeze you into a core?
Shiggity
02-15-08, 12:31 PM
From what I understand the physics processing on the GPU will enable them to take some of the load off of the CPU and will improve systems that are currently CPU bottlenecked.
I love the fact that they are integrating this technology into every single 8xxx series GPU, but who knows how much of a performance increase it will actually give.
The response from their Nvidia PR rep made it sound like it was just another marketing tool to sell more GPUs for SLI though.
Hehe the people on that post kind of don't know what they are talking about, they want to get a cheap GPU to run physics to compliment their main GPU, too bad that doesn't work in the current SLI implementation.
Mr.Guvernment
02-15-08, 01:15 PM
how much of a decrease it will give is more my thought cause now people already pushing out their GPU to max, will now have this..
interesting how they can just enable it, how they integrated this tech already in a 2 yearold video card....
Godfather1138
02-15-08, 01:21 PM
My question is will this software upgrade convert the card into a physx processor? Why would they say "have one GPU for graphics and one for physx" if it is just something that will add onto the current card?
How is that possible? I would have thought the physx card technology would at least need to be implemented into the new video cards. How can just a software patch enable this function?
Its like nvidia is saying they had the ability to do physics all along, but just needed to buy the engine to remove any kind of patent disputes.. Is that possible?
Mr.Guvernment
02-15-08, 01:43 PM
it is being emulated via software it isnt like they have a pyshic chip on the card, via software it makes the gpu do it, so no diff then havol really in the end, all software base, not hardware.
it is possible as when physics came out both ati and nvidia, or at least ATi had info that you could use a 2nd card to do the physics.
how much of a decrease it will give is more my thought cause now people already pushing out their GPU to max, will now have this..
interesting how they can just enable it, how they integrated this tech already in a 2 yearold video card....
its optional
jason4207
02-15-08, 02:32 PM
I'd much rather off-load the physics stuff to one of my 4 CPU cores. I only have 1 GPU core.
Is the CPU not designed to run physics well? I know Intel doesn't have the license, but would it be possible for the GPU to send the physics calculations to the CPU? I mean the GPU is already sending data to be processed in the CPU, so why not?
havok
gpu physx and add on card phsyx sucks
if they would implement it on a cpu core which is the most obvious and best route to go i would have a quad in a heartbeat.
funny how they never seem to go the most logical route with things...
if it was the obvious route to go you better patent it or something before someone thinks its a good idea and uses it....
Roofles
02-15-08, 03:09 PM
How is that possible? I would have thought the physx card technology would at least need to be implemented into the new video cards. How can just a software patch enable this function?
Its like nvidia is saying they had the ability to do physics all along, but just needed to buy the engine to remove any kind of patent disputes.. Is that possible?
Nvidia has a programming language called CUDA which allows you to make general purpose programs that run on a GPU. To my knowledge this is most often implemented in science/research type things where a parallel processing unit is more beneficial than a general purpose processor.
So basically what they are doing is just porting the Ageia stuff into this language and then downloading it to your graphics card. They have had the ability to do this all along, its just that they still would have had to write all the programs to do physics simulations which I'm sure they didn't want to spend the money to do (just like how they don't write Directx9/10 code either). So now all they do is purchase another specialized company that does it, use their physics specific knowledge and port it directly onto cards that already have the ability to do the processing.
if they would implement it on a cpu core which is the most obvious and best route to go i would have a quad in a heartbeat.
funny how they never seem to go the most logical route with things...
Physics is a highly parallel operation which doesn't run as effectively on general purpose processors. Specialized processors with good programming will always triumph over a general processor running the same calculations. And since once you start doing physics simulations in games, the processing overhead is just going to get worse and worse. So its more effective to build a dedicated processor to do them.
I'm wondering if it will hurt or improve game performance. Plus I wonder what games will immediately benefit from this kind of processing.
pejsaboy
02-15-08, 03:09 PM
I don't really see the point myself. If you already have an SLI setup, I guess you might be willing to to use the 2nd card for physics. On the other hand, if you've dropped the coin on the SLI setup and you want physics processing, why wouldn't you just spend ~$100 for the dedicated PhysX card? Personally, I wouldn't use my 2nd card for physics processing if I were running SLI. I [theoretically] shelled out for a 2nd VIDEO card, I'm gonna use it for VIDEO processing. Maybe I'm missing the point, but I'm fully convinced this is just a gimmick to sell more video cards and nothing else. I guess if the card could process video at full power and physics was just icing on the cake it would be ok... but without a dedicated processor for physics that obviously can't happen. If they put a dedicated physics processor on the video card for cheaper than buying a separate PhysX card, that might be worth the extra cost.
if they could harness some of the lost power in sli(like how two sli cards give you extra 50% instead of 100%) and keep fps simillar it could be cool
RedSkull
02-16-08, 07:55 PM
havok
gpu physx and add on card phsyx sucks
if they would implement it on a cpu core which is the most obvious and best route to go i would have a quad in a heartbeat.
funny how they never seem to go the most logical route with things...
of course its the most obvious just not the most profitable...
i am in no way shape or form cpu limited in any game, unless you count perhaps games that use only 1 of 4 cores...
its completely brainless to use a single core gpu which still struggles on games like ut3 & crysis with everything maxed...
smells like someone is trying to push SLI really hard now, especially with no news of a new top end single card solution in sight
vBulletin® v3.8.7, Copyright ©2000-2012, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.