For hardcore gamers: ready for PPUs?

[angkuy]

---

WARNING! Geeky stuff below...

As the subject states i'm sure most hardcore gamers (and by hardcore i don't just mean you play most, if not all, of the recently released games but also try to keep up with it's hardware requirements by constantly upgrading just to squeeze out every bit of detail while retaining a high frame rate...well, of course i'm kinda exaggerating but you know what i mean!) and enthusiasts must have heard of PPU's by now!

For those who haven't (hardcore gamers and enthusiast geeks can skip this paragraph hehe), a PPU or Physics Processing Unit handles the physics calculations involved in a game much like a GPU handles the graphics calculations. The advantage of having one of course is not only to improve the performance of your machine but also the visuals as well. Now that a dedicated processor handles these specific calculations the CPU is free of them therefore can take care of all the other processes ergo better performance and visuals! (Links below can explain this better plus they have actual examples.)

Anyway, my question is: are you guys willing to shell out extra money for it? And if you are, are you going for AGEIA's PhysX PPU or Nvidia & ATI's solution - HAVOK?

I know right now we can only speculate on its performance and impact in gaming and on which of the 2 solutions can do better. The best thing to do is wait for actual benchmarks but it's just interesting to know everyones view on the matter.

AGEIA PhysX links:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=225&type=expert
http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx

HAVOK & Nvidia (& ATI):
Nvidia - http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/9610
ATI - http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_physics/

Discuss.

[StyM]

to make the most of ppu you need to have a sli or crossfire configuration....

[wendellmb]

so.. dili gyud d i pwedi ma "Hardcore gamer" ang walay kwarta...faet....

[Creed-X]

Mga hardcore workers ra ang makapalit ana, dili ang mga hardcore gamers...LOL

[yob]

whats the use of dual-core and multicores CPUs

since dual cores are becoming a trend now

optimizing the game engine for multicores should really improve game physics without any additional new hardware

c'mon anybody can use a second CPU for physics calculations... while the other one for the AI or other algebra calculations
this is a straitforward approach

while PPU's are really innovative... but not yet practical for now

[angkuy]

whats the use of dual-core and multicores CPUs

since dual cores are becoming a trend now

optimizing the game engine for multicores should really improve game physics without any additional new hardware

c'mon anybody can use a second CPU for physics calculations... while the other one for the AI or other algebra calculations
this is a straitforward approach

while PPU's are really innovative... but not yet practical for now

while you have a very good point here, after all according to statistics even multi-GPU rigs only share about 8% (maybe even less) of the total US PC market so even SLI and Crossfire setups aren't that practical either...so PPUs might be kinda far fetched for now...

but about the CPUs handling game physics, well i'm not so sure if they can even match a GPU in that area much less a PPU?!
anyway here's an example of how a CPU would scale up to a GPU in game physics perofrmance...

Nvidia -> http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=222&type=expert
ATI -> http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid...e=expert&pid=3

take note that's CPU vs GPU...i wonder how much further PPUs would go!

its just like back then when GPUs didn't exist yet and CPUs handled everything, games were played in software mode and visuals were just terrible...well at least if compared to the games of today. But when GPUs came out (starting with 3Dfx), it totally changed the look and feel of games. I guess this is what they're trying to do with the PPUs...

Btw, anyone here purchased a 3Dfx voodoo card back then?
I used to have an 8MB Monster 3D II...talk about old school 3D hehe