The Ppus Are Here

[Paradoxxx]

Kinda pricey though

Chairman and chief executive of AGEIA, a startup that develops processors for processing physics in games and other application, said in an interview that the company’s physics processing units (PPUs) are capable of operating in parallel, which potentially allows to get increased performance of physics not only in machines used by gamers, but also in certain professional or scientific applications.

Answering a question of OverClocker.cl web-site whether it was possible to use two PPUs in parallel, Mr. Manju Hegde said that AGEIA PhysX processor was a highly parallelized architecture and it could be possible to use a number of them in parallel in order to increase performance of physics by a single computer.

Mr. Hegde declined to reveal any details about the potential capability. For instance, he did not reveal how several physics processors are going to share the load and get synchronized with the rest of the system, for instance, with graphics cards and central processing units.

Mr. Hegde also said that there were many possible uses for the PhysX technology, such as digital content creation, film, scientific research. However, the company, he claimed, planned “to crawl” first and focus on the gaming market.

AGEIA’s PhysX is the world’s first Physics Processing Unit (PPU), which offloads software physics processing from central processing units and graphics processing units to it. The architecture of the PhysX PPU is tailored for multi-threaded processing of vertexes, which allows game creators to develop detailed, soft and precise animation and simulation of movements, hair, clothing, liquids, fluids and other. Currently AGEIA PhysX is the world’s first and only dedicated physics processing unit, but the company expects more startups to offer similar technology.

The cards based on the new AGEIA PhysX processor will start sampling in Q3 2005, and when they appear in retail in Q4 their price is supposed to be between $249 and $299, it was revealed earlier this year.

[Pweffy]

That has to increase performance exponentially to be asking that kind of money. I mean a gfx card costing $100 and one costing $200 (USD) is a big difference in performance - and thats only a $100 differential (Cuz I mean - you NEED a gfx card). To pay $300 EXTRA (because you don't NEED a PPU) had better not be to see just a few more things moving around in the background over someone without the PPU.

[CHUNKULUNKS]

I gotta see this thing in action and a drop in price to believe it.If you get a preview vid of some sort that will be nice.

I may be wrong here but I dont see the point of having this thing.Dont games come with their own personal physics and other details built into them and the card brings it out?Like how HL2 physics is better than most physics i've ever seen,using this PPUS would make the doom engine godlike? :blink:

[G_Pinkie]

Firstly makes no sense to get one now as most games right now wont take much advantage of it if any at all right now. Maybe in a year or 2 it might make sense but for now, hard luck.

Secondly the price is too much for just physics processing. Maybe a 100us price tag but 250-300us is just wrong. Is like the x-fi sound cards, real expensive but a not needed item.

[CRaZYMoFo]

new tech
not needed for a while to come :)

[Itachi]

Pinkie, A Year or two hoss ? u seein plenty physics based games comin out ? i'd say when i'm about para age (50somethin) i wud get a PPU (j/k para, lol)

[Paradoxxx]

ATi also mentioned support for Physics engines in its Videocards.

As AGEIA startup approaches actual introduction of its physics processors, graphics firm ATI Technologies says that its chips are already capable of processing physics and it is only a matter of time for the graphics giant to enable the capability on commercially shipped units.

Raja Kodouri, a senior architect at ATI Technologies told X-bit labs that the company’s graphics processors, including the RADEON 9700, which is the world’s first DirectX 9.0 graphics processing unit (GPU), are capable of processing arrays of vertexes, similar type of operation that AGEIA’s physics processing units (PPUs) can perform. The arrays of data should be processed using pixel shader processors within a chip, the architect said.

Current generation of graphics processors has 16 pixel pipelines, which may not be that many. Nevertheless, in future graphics chips will have more pipes, which will also be unified to process both pixel and vertex shaders. For instance, the Xenos graphics chip used in the Xbox 360 game console from Microsoft has an array of 48 arithmetic logic units (ALUs).

In addition to cost advantage over dedicated physics processors, GPUs also have higher bandwidth to send vertex data to itself after physics is processed.

According to ATI, in case mainstream physics engines, such as Havoc, support physics calculations, the company will not need any special application programming interface in order to allow game developers to take advantage of capabilities.

Even though Mr. Kodouri implied about possibilities for physics processing on graphics chips, he did not reveal any performance benefits estimations concerning the matter. In fact, AGEIA, the developer of the world’s first PPU, also does not talk about performance of its product.

In case ATI and NVIDIA Corp. manage to implement physics processing capabilities into their graphics chips, companies like AGEIA may find it difficult to push their physics processing units to the mainstream market. Nevertheless, in the high-end dedcated chips may still outperform graphics and central processors when it comes to physics.

[G_Pinkie]

ATI stakes claims on physics, GPGPU ground

http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/8887

Seems like ATI cards are starting to become more than just graphic cards.

[w1ntry]

Actually the Unreal 3 engine supports it and UT2006 or was it 2007 will be out next year. Hasn't anyone seen the video of the Unreal 3 engine running? dread... its like graphics better than HL2 with shading better than Doom 3 and hte physics... well lets say the PPU will REALLY shine using that engine.

[cereal_killer]

bet on soldier which is gonna be released soon is said to support the ppu, will have to see the benchmarks/performance increase with it to see if it justifies the high price tag

[Paradoxxx]

I'm sure ppl would buy this card just to up their 3dmark score.

Futuremark Corp., the developer of industry leading 3DMark and PCMark benchmarks, recently announced it had licensed AGEIA PhysX software development kit (SDK) in order to add physics benchmarking capability into its performance measurement tools.

“Physics performance is becoming an increasingly important factor in games, and the AGEIA PhysX SDK will enable us to create reliable standards for measuring not only software, but also hardware accelerated physics,” said Tero Sarkkinen, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Futuremark.

Currently it is unknown whether there is a separate software suit to measure physics performance, e.g., PhysicsMark, or Futuremark is going to integrate physics measuring tool into its popular 3DMark and PCMark product series.

“Our testing methodology used to create Futuremark benchmarks is developed in close cooperation with PC technology industry leaders, and we look forward to working with AGEIA to enable extensive physics in our future products with the high levels of accuracy and usability that people expect from Futuremark,” Mr. Sarkkinen added.

AGEIA’s PhysX is the world’s first Physics Processing Unit (PPU), which offloads software physics processing from central processing units and graphics processing units to it. The architecture of the PhysX PPU is tailored for multi-threaded processing of vertexes, which allows game creators to develop detailed, soft and precise animation and simulation of movements, hair, clothing, liquids, fluids and other. Currently AGEIA PhysX is the world’s first and only dedicated physics processing unit, but the company expects more startups to offer similar technology.

In conjunction with its PPU, AGEIA also supplies NovodeX software, which helps game designers to utilise the power of multi-threaded PPU, or central processing units.