Is it possible to use this, or any other physiks, card with lfs?
ASUS PhysX P1
(19 posts, started )
ASUS PhysX P1
Not at the moment.
LFS doesnt support this card or any other.Almost none of the games support it.
To be honest its a waste of money buying something like that.
I concur with this statement, the physX card is a load of crap and it only supported by a few RAM and VRAM hogging games like Quake 4 and Doom 3...
ASUS tried to create a need for something that while might have been needed years ago when first announced but is now just a pointless curiosity without need or purpose..
All this time has passed and there are multi core CPUs and multi card GPUs that can offload all that the card does. Hardly any game made today even makes use of all the CPU cores available today and this is a far better bet for the developer than the Physicss card as more people have Dual core/cpu systems than physics cards.
They really needed Microsoft to support the card with DirectX as this would have abstracted the card so developers could target it but that never happened, that was the final death blow for the card.
All this time has passed and there are multi core CPUs and multi card GPUs that can offload all that the card does. Hardly any game made today even makes use of all the CPU cores available today and this is a far better bet for the developer than the Physicss card as more people have Dual core/cpu systems than physics cards.
They really needed Microsoft to support the card with DirectX as this would have abstracted the card so developers could target it but that never happened, that was the final death blow for the card.
It's useless. Transfering data to the card via the PCI bus and then waiting for the results to return takes a lot longer than using the CPU.
Nice objectivity you guys have. No it is not supported by either Doom 3 or Quake 4 (nor are they 'ram and vram hogs').
Now that DX10 is out we should see support for PPU (Physics Processing Units) increase as DX10 supports physics shaders that can be run on GPUs or PPUs. The 'big' game that supports the PhysX is Unreal 3. It will be interesting to see if it can generate enough
interest to gain a foothold in the market. There are previous threads about the possability of LFS supporting either a dedicated PPU or the DX10 shader physics but it was considered unlikley until the majority of users have them installed. Which means that LFS will not be supporting them anytime soon unless we all go out and buy one.
Now that DX10 is out we should see support for PPU (Physics Processing Units) increase as DX10 supports physics shaders that can be run on GPUs or PPUs. The 'big' game that supports the PhysX is Unreal 3. It will be interesting to see if it can generate enough
interest to gain a foothold in the market. There are previous threads about the possability of LFS supporting either a dedicated PPU or the DX10 shader physics but it was considered unlikley until the majority of users have them installed. Which means that LFS will not be supporting them anytime soon unless we all go out and buy one.
its just another way to make some more cash out of people if you ask me!
About to say, yega is right, we probably don't see much comming from PPUs yet, but with the release of DX10 and the upcomming GF8 cards we should see a vast improvement of physics and gaming in general. The only game I can think of right now that actually uses a PPU is the DX10 version of Far Cry.
Just give it time boys, it'll come around.
Just give it time boys, it'll come around.
Say what now? That is utterly and completely wrong.
DX10 adds geometry shaders. They have absolutely nothing to do with physics. Yes, you can use GPUs (through DX10/9) to do physics calculations (Havok among others does this), but that does not mean PPUs are automatically supported by DX10, nor does it mean DX10 has specialized "physics shaders". Currently the only way to support PPUs is through Ageia's PhysiX API, which is what the next UT does. There is no DX10 driver for Ageia's PPU.
God.. Why do everyone think DX10 is some kind of magic API that automatically renders prettier graphics, processes physics and cures cancer? It's an API. It lets programmers access hardware. Nothing more, nothing less. What to do with the hardware is entirely up to the programmers and nothing will look better/run faster unless they make it so.
Wien, you're missing the point, DX10 allows all of that stuff yes, but juts think how much games will change, people want real (to an extent of course), but it takes physics for things to look/act realistic.
We aren't taking it from a graphics standpoint, but what the next generation of games will hold, and there will be much more than just graphics upgrades, a whole lot more will be possible with a physics card.
We aren't taking it from a graphics standpoint, but what the next generation of games will hold, and there will be much more than just graphics upgrades, a whole lot more will be possible with a physics card.
GPUs support non-interactive Physics.
Exemple :
- A particle emitters with particles subjects to a physical environment. They are subject to gravity, they bounces, the follow the wind, ... The GPU know the properties of the particles, it compute the physic then render them directly.
- Or : you blew up something, it throw lil' polygon all over the screen, thoses lil' polygon are subjects to physics, but they have ABSOLUTLY nothing to do with the gameplay and they will not interact with other object, players, or npc, ...
In fact, the cpu never know the result of the physical computation made by the GPU. Because it don't need it. It's physics computing for direct rendering.
In LFS, as you all know, there is a lot of physic computation. Steering, acceleration, aerodynamic, ...A lot of computation of little things interacting eachothers to make our car running... The GPU is 100% useless for that. The CPU need to know the result of all the physic computation ... that's something a GPU can't do (or if it can, it's very ineficient).
The physX can do that, it's made for that. The CPU send something to compute to the PPU (joints, motors, vectors, gravity, collision, ...), it does something else while waiting for the result, the PPU send the result to the CPU and it can act accordingly.
The bad news with the PhysX is that it's not an open standard.
To use the PhysX you have to use a specific physic engine, won't work with any other engine. So LFS should be rewritten to use the physX.
Imagine a GFX card that ONLY work with the CryTech Engine (used in Crysis), or only the unreal engine... that's the problem of the physX.
Anyone remember 3Dfx ?
Exemple :
- A particle emitters with particles subjects to a physical environment. They are subject to gravity, they bounces, the follow the wind, ... The GPU know the properties of the particles, it compute the physic then render them directly.
- Or : you blew up something, it throw lil' polygon all over the screen, thoses lil' polygon are subjects to physics, but they have ABSOLUTLY nothing to do with the gameplay and they will not interact with other object, players, or npc, ...
In fact, the cpu never know the result of the physical computation made by the GPU. Because it don't need it. It's physics computing for direct rendering.
In LFS, as you all know, there is a lot of physic computation. Steering, acceleration, aerodynamic, ...A lot of computation of little things interacting eachothers to make our car running... The GPU is 100% useless for that. The CPU need to know the result of all the physic computation ... that's something a GPU can't do (or if it can, it's very ineficient).
The physX can do that, it's made for that. The CPU send something to compute to the PPU (joints, motors, vectors, gravity, collision, ...), it does something else while waiting for the result, the PPU send the result to the CPU and it can act accordingly.
The bad news with the PhysX is that it's not an open standard.
To use the PhysX you have to use a specific physic engine, won't work with any other engine. So LFS should be rewritten to use the physX.
Imagine a GFX card that ONLY work with the CryTech Engine (used in Crysis), or only the unreal engine... that's the problem of the physX.
Anyone remember 3Dfx ?
It can though. The problem is if the bandwidth and latency cost of reading back the computed data is worth it compared to doing the calculation directly on the CPU. Havok is already running their engine off of GPUs so it's certainly possible. The GPU is better suited for non-interactive simulation though. That's correct.
Oh, and XCNuse. I'm not sure what you though I was saying, but I simply wanted to point out a glaring misunderstanding of the workings of DX10 and PPUs in the guy's post. There is are no "physics shaders" in DX10, and it does NOT support PPUs. That's just plain, ol'fashioned wrong.
this is completely and utterly wrong
first of all the gpu is much better suited than a cpu for these type of calcs since much like the ageia its a parallel core which is whats needed for pyhsics calcs
secondly a gpu is connected to the cpu via a 16x pcie link wich has several gigs of bidirectional data rate available unlike the ageia which is currently linked to the cpu via a 133 _m_b pci _bus_
so the gpu is much better suited for physics calucations than the cpu _and_ the ageia
guys.We went a lot offtopic and I would like to see continue discussion about this pretty interesting topic but it should be moved to Hardware thread.
what I have already read somewhere(sorry didnt saved link:shrug.That latest 8800 series and 2900XT series has much more calculation power for physic calculation then that Agea Physic card.
Both NVIDIA and ATI working really harčd to support physic calculation thru GPU and I am bloody sure they are looking at this part of market.the problem is that there is still not right time for that.If it would come and Agea would be come to really do something and supported I think it would be their quick end as ATI and NVIDIA would start using part of the GPU for physic calculation.Its in my eyes better and faster way as physic and graphic can be linked at the same time in GPU so there are virtually none latencies and PCI-E bus is much better for that.Upcoming PCI-E 2.0 with double bandwitch in both way even more.
I am afraid Agea will die pretty soon unless it will be more supported.they dont have the money for that thought unless like NVIDIA or ATI(AMD).
Also dont forget we getting more and more cores on the modern CPUs and they become pretty unused.I gues with 4,8 cores some will be used as dedicated CPU just for physic.I have really doubt about dedicated PPU in future PCs.I see people are already pissed they have to spent another money for something like that.The game would have to be huge revolutionary with physic things to be card like from AGEA really needed.When you look at todays game market when more is better then quality then I see no way.
Just my short view on this topic now
what I have already read somewhere(sorry didnt saved link:shrug
.That latest 8800 series and 2900XT series has much more calculation power for physic calculation then that Agea Physic card.Both NVIDIA and ATI working really harčd to support physic calculation thru GPU and I am bloody sure they are looking at this part of market.the problem is that there is still not right time for that.If it would come and Agea would be come to really do something and supported I think it would be their quick end as ATI and NVIDIA would start using part of the GPU for physic calculation.Its in my eyes better and faster way as physic and graphic can be linked at the same time in GPU so there are virtually none latencies and PCI-E bus is much better for that.Upcoming PCI-E 2.0 with double bandwitch in both way even more.
I am afraid Agea will die pretty soon unless it will be more supported.they dont have the money for that thought unless like NVIDIA or ATI(AMD).
Also dont forget we getting more and more cores on the modern CPUs and they become pretty unused.I gues with 4,8 cores some will be used as dedicated CPU just for physic.I have really doubt about dedicated PPU in future PCs.I see people are already pissed they have to spent another money for something like that.The game would have to be huge revolutionary with physic things to be card like from AGEA really needed.When you look at todays game market when more is better then quality then I see no way.
Just my short view on this topic now
amds plans seem to be to include just that in their upcomming cpu generations
the real problem with the ageia is that it doesnt give you any register access rendering it useless for anything else than their propietary physics engine ... if they opened up to direct programming they would have had a chance at being on the forefront of the parallel coprocessor movement thats slowly gaining pace
Well, maybe i'm a little outdated
My informations come from a time when havok released "havok FX".
It's fun to see how something can become "completely and utterly wrong" in just a few years
well by the sounds of it these were the agp times when yes the gpu was unsuited for anything else then graphics due to the incredibly slow uplink of agp
also youre french so youre wrong by default
Hands up, still have one! :ices_rofl
ASUS PhysX P1
(19 posts, started )
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