physx cards yes or no

[frisky]

hey all i was just wondering why all these new physx cards keep coming out when we now have dual core cpus and quad core cpus .. wont most new games be designing the games to dedicate one core for game physx ... i just dont see the need for physx cards

[moonsond]

Well ageia physx is a piece of hardware somehow especially designed for advanced physics simulation, and it's much more useful for physics simulation than any current CPU... at least Ageia tells us that. But in reality, personally i don't see any reasons to buy their physics accelerator. There are a few games with PhysX support, but... whether you run them with PhysX card installed or not - there seems to be a very little difference in performance and physics quality...
So i'd tell that if you've got a few hundred $ for ageia - if you spend them for CPU or GFx upgrade, it's gonna be a lot more useful.
P.S. About the future, i don't see that game developers really tend to use something more than extra cpu cores power for physics simulation...

[Drager2]

moonsond You can see difference in effects, not quality of image.

+1 It`s a piece of expensive crap

[VoGonPT]

Yup,

Big flop those physics cards are... LOL

Behave!

[disruptfam]

no....

[Budwise]

yea, useless imo

[strange|ife]

no

dont waste your money

[Obscured]

physx cards yes or no

no

They are useless. We all now have duals and quads.
Havok FX have been bought by Intel so expect a hard pressure on Ageia from Intel and nVidia.
PhysX even now costs too much... hell, PhysX is dead.

[VoGonPT]

no

They are useless. We all now have duals and quads.
Havok FX have been bought by Intel so expect a hard pressure on Ageia from Intel and nVidia.
PhysX even now costs too much... hell, PhysX is dead.

Yup, I was expecting a price drop as soon as they saw that market didn't like it and the news on Intel came out but looks like they are too dumb to see it... if they would drop price then I guess ppl would at least think about it...

Behave!

[tiro_uspsss]

in terms of ageias future, imho, its bleak..

in terms of getting one? well my mentality is diff. I have a wanted ad out in the FS/T section here for an ageia. Thats cause over in the USA the cards are only USD$130 new. So by the time i get one over here second hand (from an answer to that ad), I'm hoping to spend approx. AUD$150... Since I *looooove* GRAW(x) atm, my mentality is this:

I work = thus = I spend.

I'm happy to work to get the money for the extra visual effects in long hours I spend playing GRAW - its 'only' AUD$150, so meh...

other ppl are obviously diff. obviously if ur 16 or something & dont have a job &/or it was hard enough convincing ur parents to fork out the $$ for ur PC, then ur chances of getting a card even if u did want one are slim..

[cadaveca]

Hmmm...as an Ageia Phys-X owner, i must say...biggest waste of $350 ever!


Now, looking at how many titles support it...


If it came with GRAW 1 and 2, and a few of the other titles that supported it, it would be a worthy buy, as a package deal, for what they retail for now.

I mean really now...alot of complaining by people that don't have one, here. Sadly tho, they are correct.

Some people forget about peopel that spend $200 on external gaming devices like wheels and flight sticks...so to me it's nothing.

Like really...there are NO reasons to buy this card unless you want to say you got one. You need a good video subsystem to support it properly(read that as 8800GTX/2900XT singles and up), it adds a bit in the power side, and has crappy noisy fans(watercooling on BFG, really, only, unless you want to remove some caps and mount them elsewhere...)....

But again, like i said, some people like that sort of thing. I do, but I'm a bit sore that the next one is looking like almost 5x the card that this is...and 5x the power really is not quite enough for what i tihnk would be needed for really "impressive" use of the card.

Now, when we think game physics...well...the only thing to be done, really, is entire world physics. Not partial, like this bit here, and this bit there...

I got to admit, at this point, cloth effects at high res....fluids...look OK...but only OK. they are far too...stiff. Stiff water....yeah... ...



Image of a hand reaching out and crumpling a piece of paper.... would look like arse on this card with what i've seen so far.

[Sparky]

I think the idea behind it is good, really good. Doesn't seem to have caught on though but I think it is due to all the extra coding required to make it capable of running with or without the card. It would be much easier to wait until dual and/or quad cores are mostly mainstream then have one or two cores of the CPU deal with physics stuff.

[Obscured]

Someone here needs extra physical effects in games, but AGEIA's PhysX is not the only way to acquire them. Modern CPUs (including duals, quads, triples) can manage modern physics well too. Look at TES:Oblivion - physical effects there are computing by CPU. If you need a fresher example then look at Crysis that uses only CPUs power for physics. Now remember that you can waist those 150-350$ on CPU instead of PhysX card and get perfomance gain in other applications also, not only additional physical effects.

[karateo]

no from me!
apart from the reasons already mentioned, don't let companies invent new ways to earn money

[Dark-Master]

NO , pay your budget for other better parts

[IanY]

I got mine at full price right upon release because I absolutely love GRAW, and its even better with GRAW2.

Except now I have a problem because I have access to only one PCI slot on my silly 680i. Its between Physx and my beloved X-Fi... and onboard sound and Physx can kiss my a$$ lol

Don't waste money on it unless you've maxed out your machine and just want extra silly toys.

Soon, it'll be Triple Head SLI... I wonder where they expect one to put a Physx card lol

[The_Beast]

no.......

[Dark Prodigy]

I have a empty and very lonely PCI slot left on my PC... I was considering a PhysX card simply because I can't think of any other add-on PCI card I would benefit from. But... G.R.A.W. 1 & 2? Is that it? No other mainstream games?

[tiro_uspsss]

I have a empty and very lonely PCI slot left on my PC... I was considering a PhysX card simply because I can't think of any other add-on PCI card I would benefit from. But... G.R.A.W. 1 & 2? Is that it? No other mainstream games?

& GRAW 3

[Obscured]

The full list of supported games you can find on official AGEIA site here: http://ageia.com/physx/titles.html

& GRAW 3

There is no GRAW 3 yet.

[IanY]

Unless you like GRAW, GRAW2 or RR Vegas (or Unreal Tourament 3), don't buy a Physx card. I am a GRAW addict, which makes it 100% worth it for me.

[tiro_uspsss]

The full list of supported games you can find on official AGEIA site here: http://ageia.com/physx/titles.html

There is no GRAW 3 yet.

whats this here then:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...761&CatId=2535

[Obscured]

tiro_uspsss, there isn't GRAW 3 yet.
GR3 is just another name of GRAW
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Clancy's_Ghost_Recon_Advanced_Warfighter

[Jiu-jitsuGOD]

first that is not a complete list.. even at Ageia we don't have a full list of games because the SDK is free unlike other solution that have to be purchased..anyone can use the physx engine and so many developer do already so its impossible to keep track..
2nd at the current place in time it is not worth getting a gen 1 physx card. the new line of gen 2 physx card are going to be allot more powerful than anything you've seen. and also be more cost friendly than before.. the reason there were not allot of games out because the current sdk caused developers to code twice .. once for hardware and once for software.. this has been addressed and fixed. every developer using the sdk to code for games will only have to do so once and everything will be hooked to HW if the ppu is present..Thus making game developing extremely easy because no extra coding will need to be done. and also add that performance boost when the ppu is present. At current present time not one CPU can out work a ppu when it comes to Physics. even the fastest quad core become crippled with high level physics involved.. because im under NDA I cannot disclose everything but have had the opportunity to test games running with full physics on a quad core and its a slide show.. The next GEN physx card is incredibly fast and will be very user friendly to developers.. for example.. a game like gears of war 2 (just an example Only) that uses the new Ageia SDK will automatically be using hardware if its present. thus bringing
a great performance boost while plying any game physx coded.. Ageia has made some mistakes but they are a hardworking crew and all big time gamers that really love pc gaming over anything else...I think there new PPU is going to do very well.. especially with UT3 and some other great titles i cant yet speak of.

hope this info helps....

[IanY]

Will the next generation of PPU cards be based on the PCI-E 1x or 4x format? We are having a big problem with PCI slot shortages, especially with multiple double-wide video cards. I speak for myself only. SLI/Crossfire is a necessity for me, even with the best video card, or the system looks like a jerky slideshow.