gForce 8000 series with physX

C

czepluch

New Member
Hey guys,

Suppose all of you've heard of ageia bought of nvidia, and now all 8000 series will have physX.

I do not really understand how much and/what it is going to do to your PC. Can anyone explain?
 
I don't think the 8 series will have it, maybe the later 9 series. They just made the purchase, and they've probably already manufactured the first 9 series cards the 9800 and the 9600. We might even have to wait till the 10 series cards are around to see support.

Anyways, they represent Physics processors, in hardware form. Like sound cards, dedicated and onboard, the difference mainly lies in the ability to take the load of crunching physics off the CPU or GPUs plate, creating a situation where the CPU has more leeway, resulting in better frames. The difference in quality between software physics processor, like the one in Crysis, and hardware processors, Physx, is arguable. Of course the guys at Physx will claim they do it better, whatever. The guys who created the software physics of Crysis claimed it was better than if they'd had used Physx's proprietary system. Either way, hardware Physics processors are somewhat uneeded, in my opinion, and as of right now. It would be kinda cool to get support on a GPGPU, general purpose GPU, which is to say a graphics card that is capable of acting as a surrogate CPU, able to make use of it's mighty FPU count and stream processors for all other processes, rather than just games. It would expand the repertoire of the thing, and in a good way
 
Hermes, it would probably help if you knew what you were talking about. Actually using one probably wouldn't hurt you either.

All the PhysX does is add effects, like more particles, etc, to games that are PhysX enabled. It also makes everything in the game destructable, which can be a lot of fun. Ghost Recon is a blast for that reason. In games that aren't, even benchmarks, it is possible for the PhysX to impede, rather than enhance, performance. If the game isn't coded for the PhysX, it actually does absolutely nothing to improve the performance of the game.

I have the Asus PhysX and the 8800 GTX running in this machine. As much as I like it, it's capabilities are limited to games that are actually coded to make use of it, which aren't very many.
 
I was thinking in the terms of a sound card. Yeah, they only operate in games that use the Physx software, so my point on them being used to alleviate physics processing on the CPU is poop. The other points are sound though. A good software Physics processor can rival Ageia's expensive hardware one.

Hey, have you gotten Cellfactor: Revolution? It's developed by ageia, and it's free to all who have their card. I dunno if it's any good though.

http://www.cellfactorrevolution.com/

Edit: I was also thinking in the terms of software vs. hardware. A software engine will pull resources from either the CPU or the GPU, the Physx card will simply use it's own muscle, so if a game was capable of using either, the card would offer better performance. I was of course confused. :D
 
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Ooh, pretty cool. I thought it was going to have to be built in. Looks like they're just using Ageia's proprietary software, and none of hardware associated. Not that they need it. This will give the developers a chance to use physics acceleration without having to spend a ton of cash developing their own engine.
 
[-0MEGA-];898716 said:
The 8 series has been out since November of 2006, well before nVidia acquired Ageia.
Click to expand...

really? i didnt know it had been out for so long, i think its about time for the 9 series release
 
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