Question about Ageia PhysX

W

Wireframe

New Member
I am writing an essay for school about PhysX. And i don't really understand the whole thing, so here is my question;

Is PPU (physics processing unit) a standalone card that you put into a slot. Or is it a chip on a graphics card? Because i saw some videos on youtube, when players play a game with "Ageia PhysX" ON, but they have just newer video card for example 9800GX2. So is the chip (PPU) on the video card?
 
Well PhysX is owned by nvidia now, but the principal is the same. PhysX is GPU (not CPU) accelerated physics. as in, ragdoll effects, cloth (like flags) water, explosions and other little things you might not see. It's also taxing on the graphics card and many people argue that PhysX could be done better on a CPU rather than GPU.

There are 2 competitors with PhysX: HavoK and Bullet (Bullet is Ati's version, AFAIK it hasn't been released or used yet)
 
Originally, they were standalone cards, known as PPU's. Now, PhysX processing is usually built into the GPU.
 
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