GeForce 8 Series cards to get PhysX support via FREE software update

2008-02-15 10:08:48

#1

HurricaИe: Banned; +877|6240|Washington DC

"Nvidia completed its acquisition of Ageia yesterday, and it has revealed that it will soon introduce PhysX physics processing support into all of its GeForce 8-series graphics cards through a simple software download. PhysX support will allow the cards to accelerate physics effects in games."

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14147

Basically, instead of paying $200 for a PhysX card, any owner of an 8 series card will be able to use advanced physics in games that support it... and hopefully more developers will implement PhysX since it will be in every 8 series card

2008-02-15 10:10:17

#2

Microwave: _; +515|6933|Loughborough Uni / Leeds, UK

Excellent!

2008-02-15 10:11:05

#3

unnamednewbie13: Moderator; +2,054|7050|PNW

I wonder what the performance hit will be like. Looking forward to benchies.

2008-02-15 10:11:21

#4

max: Vela Incident; +1,652|6846|NYC / Hamburg

wow, great!

_{once upon a midnight dreary, while i pron surfed, weak and weary, over many a strange and spurious site of ' hot xxx galore'. While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning, and my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour, " 'Tis not possible!", i muttered, " give me back my free hardcore!"..... quoth the server, 404.}

2008-02-15 10:11:35

#5

signa: ~~~~~; +50|7007|Michigan, USA

sweeeeet.

2008-02-15 10:12:04

#6

eEyOrE: LINKS 2 3 4; +14|6275|Berlin, Germany

nice, thats what we love to hear! better performance for free!

2008-02-15 10:13:39

#7

02fxnmaurer: Member; +75|6761|Birmingham UK

does tht mean my 8800gt will get even better ?

02

2008-02-15 10:14:38

#8

GC_PaNzerFIN: Work and study @ Technical Uni; +528|6693|Finland

w00t! My 8800GTX just learned a new trick!

3930K | H100i | RIVF | 16GB DDR3 | GTX 480 | AX750 | 800D | 512GB SSD | 3TB HDD | Xonar DX | W8

2008-02-15 10:15:28

#9

Gawwad: My way or Haddaway!; +212|6963|Espoo, Finland

Sounds pretty sweet!

2008-02-15 10:16:27

#10

stef10: Member; +173|6761|Denmark

I don´t have anything and I won´t get anything

2008-02-15 10:19:32

#11

Mekstizzle: WALKER; +3,611|6899|London, England

That'll mean the 9/10 Series will probably have its own dedicated PPU somewhere next to the GPU or someshit. Not bad.

What next?

They already do HDMI.

Soon enough we'll be calling them multimedia-cards. Sound + Video + Physics all in one.

2008-02-15 10:26:13

#12

Agent_Dung_Bomb: Member; +302|7014|Salt Lake City

I see two problems with this.

1. The performance hit could be substantial. Any time you use resources for something besides video, you take away from video processing. This could be mitigated to some degree by SLI.

2. The game still has to be programmed to take advantage of this functionality, so don't think you are instantly going to get physics capabilities because of this free download.

2008-02-15 10:27:57

#13

elbekko: Your lord and master; +36|6680|Leuven, Belgium

unnamednewbie13 wrote:
I wonder what the performance hit will be like. Looking forward to benchies.

Not very much of a hit I'd think. GPUs are quite well suited to do physics calculations, as alot can run simultaneously. Or atleast is supposed to.
So you'd get a better performance than without a PhysX card, but slightly less than with one.

2008-02-15 10:39:43

#14

Microwave: _; +515|6933|Loughborough Uni / Leeds, UK

I never thought physics cards would really catch on anyway so I think this is a move for the best.

2008-02-15 11:32:55

#15

Poseidon: Fudgepack DeQueef; +3,253|6816|Long Island, New York

<3 my 8800 GTX. How does it work though?

2008-02-15 11:52:31

#16

HurricaИe: Banned; +877|6240|Washington DC

Poseidon wrote:
<3 my 8800 GTX. How does it work though?

I imagine that the next driver release (or whenever they release it) will install these instructions on how to execute PhysX code. Then it'll just use the GPU's processing power to process the physics.

As for performance hits, I hope it's not substantial. Maybe it'll be split between the GPU and CPU?

2008-02-15 11:53:49

#17

kylef: Gone; +1,352|6772|N. Ireland

That's...stunning! Well done, nV

2008-02-15 11:54:29

#18

RDMC: Enemy Wheelbarrow Spotted..!!; +736|6843|Area 51

Unfairs, I ordered an HD3870

2008-02-15 11:55:44

#19

topal63: . . .; +533|6997

Agent_Dung_Bomb wrote:
I see two problems with this.

1. The performance hit could be substantial. Any time you use resources for something besides video, you take away from video processing. This could be mitigated to some degree by SLI.

2. The game still has to be programmed to take advantage of this functionality, so don't think you are instantly going to get physics capabilities because of this free download.

Yep...

+ It's just a gimmick. Hardware acceleration (separate pipeline) is the way to go. Physx cards cost about $100-125 US. Why have an expensive $500-600 GTX or Ultra GFX-card geared for graphics... wasting GPU cycles on physics, when it needs to render a Crysis frame!

I have no idea where the technology will go? Until someone sets a standard there is nothing to adopt as a standard for game development. Physics on a chip? Physics in software on a Multi-core platform? Physics in GPU? This last idea seems like the worst one of the three (because if you do it as a separate pipeline, as a reason to add a 2nd or 3rd GPU-GFX-card, it could be the most expensive; thus a sales gimmick).

Last edited by topal63 (2008-02-15 12:04:08)

2008-02-15 12:00:52

#20

']['error: Banned; +630|6922|The Netherlands

yayz! I've just ordered an 8800GT yesterday

2008-02-15 12:09:35

#21

xGj: Official lame Crysis fanboy.; +84|6650|Netherlands tbh

AwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesomeAwesome

2008-02-15 13:56:53

#22

SpIk3y: Minister of Silly Walks; +67|6418|New Jersey

When is this going to be put into effect?

2008-02-15 14:03:06

#23

.Sup: be nice; +2,646|6732|The Twilight Zone

Will the next generation cards (9series) have this implemented or will we have to wait longer?

https://www.shrani.si/f/3H/7h/45GTw71U/untitled-1.png

2008-02-15 14:23:32

#24

S.Lythberg: Mastermind; +429|6725|Chicago, IL

good thing I decided not to get that physics card

2008-02-15 15:19:59

#25

The#1Spot: Member; +105|6818|byah

Mek-Izzle wrote:
That'll mean the 9/10 Series will probably have its own dedicated PPU somewhere next to the GPU or someshit. Not bad.

What next?

They already do HDMI.

Soon enough we'll be calling them multimedia-cards. Sound + Video + Physics all in one.

That would actually be nice

BF2S Forums GeForce 8 Series cards to get PhysX support via FREE software update

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Poseidon wrote:

Agent_Dung_Bomb wrote:

Mek-Izzle wrote:

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