Spending over $200 for a video card was enough. Spending over $500 for a high end video card was stupid. Now spending over $1000 for 2 video cards plus a physic card is just ridiculous. Having this kind of setup would make the person want to spend at least another $500 on a new dual core cpu setup....sheesh I got far better ways to be spending my $$$ on.

'Play it the way its meant to be played' is beginning to look better on a console than it does spending the amount of $$$ on these high end pc setup.

Many people are throwing rocks at Ageia's PPU, and I thought that we could get along (and get a quicker/wider adoption) with GPU doing Physics, but if it can only do "effects physics" it's very limited.. :-/

Don't really see the point of the 3 cards scheme either, I mean if I have to buy another card to do physics only (not even mentioning *real* physics compared to effects only) why would I buy a Radeon X1600 and not a dedicated PPU card ?!

Meat stack?
Looks more like a cash stack....

There should be a better platform than this for Phsy... in games ... and for god sake a common platform so that NVidia ATI dont make this kind of crap

I think I'm just going to stop reading TR comments all together.

Cannot even justify buying 2 cards. there is no point. pay 100 bucks for a medium card like gf 7600 that will get you full eye candy for a year and then upgrade. this is a complete waste of money as its technology will be obsolete quicker than you can pull all your hair out for paying so much. save you money for shwweeet hardware, like a decent sound card instead of onboard garbage, and for god sakes, upgrade those slow 7200rpm drives!

Wow that's some serious graphics horsepower there.
With Nvidia showing 7950 card(s) as well ,are we soon to be referring to our computer's "video array " when showing the system specs?

This is better than Agea IMO. Got two systems at home? Wanna do a quick gaming session? Shut one down, grab the x1600 out of it and get some physics accel. Put card back when done, let wife have her machine back.

This is far more attractive than a physics only card. This takes dual 16x pcie slots farther from gimmick IMO.

I'm digging this idea. Imagine if a game developer combined Havok FX and the second core of a CPU to get the number crunching power needed to do effects AND gameplay physics...

The thing I'm not going for is the 3 card solution. While I'm sure there are some that will go for it, SLI and crossfire are gimmics to sell more cards. I feel that for 2x the cash, you should get 2x the performance (or damn close) ALL the time. Not just when a driver has a profile in it for specific titles or not.

The 1+1 solution is much more simple, affordable and an added bonus to anyone that already owns a X1k series card. Just pick up a X1600 or buy the next series graphics card and your done. Especially for those of us that already have 2 16x PCIe slots.

Ageia's PhysX PPU has no such limitation... as long as developers are willing to release a title like Cell Factor that requires PhysX, and then sell hundreds and hundreds of copies. This video card stuff gets past the chicken and egg problem that PhysX has. And, allowing you to use your old last-gen card is a great idea, assuming you wanted that new 3-slot mobo.

The big benefit of physics acceleration is for collision detection (collision response is easy.) So, I picture very little downside to a physics api that can mark the many small pebble debris as 'effects only' and the few bigger chunks as 'affects gameplay' - and then calculate those on the cpu.

resolving physics (collisions, gravity, particle,etc) is just resolving math equations. I dont see why all the hype about software calculations of physics done by the video card when one of the cores of a cpu can do the same job (after all its software based...cough... havoc fx...)

This is great for all those people that currently have X1xxx series graphics cards. It is also great for ATI.

Next year you're thinking of upgrading your graphics card.

1) You can use your old one for physics, instead of the hassle of moving it to a lesser machine you never use for gaming anyway, or selling it. You will mentally assess this as 'free physics card'. This will encourage you to upgrade and get a new graphics card.

2) The new graphics card will be from ATI, so you can to the Havok physics effects on your old card. ATI has lock in on its old customers because who in their right mind is going to skip to the competition and lose out on free physics?

This would explain why ATI has not said that the whole physics thing could be possible on a single GPU. Imagine an X1900 level card, 2/3rds of the pipes doing graphics, 1/3rd doing physics. It should be possible, surely? But if that was the case, then you lose out on the lock in on the old card. It isn't in ATI's interest to allow this.

This is still the best approach IMO. Only thing they need to do is come up with one that allows you to effect the game play as well.

I would much rather throw in a graphics card costing the same as a PPU since they would be much easier to resell. Not to mention you can rip it out and put it in another system for the main graphics card whenever you feel like it.

This will be so AWESOME on my three PCIe x16-slot mainboard.

Umm....wait.
(sarcasm off)

I'm an ATI Fan, but three cards that take two slots each (due to the card plus a second-slot cooling solution) is just stupidity. Not to mention the 1-1.2 kilowatt power supply one would need to run the rig. A single Radeon X1900XTX for example consumes over 250 watts of power during active gaming. Imagine three of them (ouch).

Until physics can be done by either a physics coprocessor on the graphics card, an integrated physics coprocessor on the GPU, or as a PCIe x1 card (mainly to ensure I can move the card forward with new mainboards) that takes up only one slot, I won't be interested. Oh, and I'm probably being picky, but I'd like it to be reasonably priced and actually have games who have a dedicated path of support for the product too.

ATI has a website on this stuff.

http://www.aticrossfire.com

can this work with out crossfire

Translation:

ATI and its partners have a load of X1600/X1300's and need a gimmick to sell them (and force everyone to buy ATI chipsets).

why not letting the cpu do its job instead of pushing the physics to the video card? im sure a good dual core cpu can do the same job.

The inquirer posts some interesting news.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32208

"ATI showed off numbers where the a lowly RV530 absolutely spanked a G70 and G71 for physics. When you look at the performance relative to a R520 or R580, it gets even more abusive. The numbers ranged from a worst case where RV530 was 'only' 4x faster than G70 to a best where R580 spanked the G70 by 15x. They also went on to show the X1600XT as 2x faster than Ageia, and the X1900XTX being 9x faster."

Ageia makes no sense.

This whole "more is better" attitude really irks me. I can't justify buying 2 video cards right now, so why in the hell would I get 3 or "4"? I don't even want to think of how much juice that system would draw, especially with the rumored 130-300W DX10 GPUs around the corner.

I'm really hoping Ageia gets that killer app so this whole mess can just end. Give me a system with a CPU, GPU, and PPU that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and actually provides additional interactivity and I'll be happy. Otherwise, leave the physics to the CPU, something that should be more than capable with dual-core processors finally entering the mainstream.

OMFG OMFG OMFG, I want it lol... But my soundcard? Where to fit that? But this is really some nice work IMO. Maybe this PPU wont give any drawbacks...

#2 - ditto
It's currently twiddling it's thumbs in most games anyway.

Well atleast we can use some passive cooled X1600 cards or some equal nVidia cards. And we still have to see Aegia do interactive physics that cant already be done at CPU without problems.

But *brrrrr*...mean that we all will end up with 2 GFX card one way or the other.

Then what will that other core in that Dam Dual core processor will do... Is it design to sit ideal and feel happy about it....

What a wasteful, brute force method. Call me in a year when something that is actually going to stick comes to market (and several games support the acceleration).

Effects only physics holds no interest in me what-so-ever. Most video cards can come close enough now to "effects physics" with shaders. I want full-on interactivity.