Ageia on GPUs doing physics calcs

[Steve]

GD Hardware has interviewed Ageia over recent claims from Havoc that GPUs are up to the task of dealing with physics in games.

GD: What sort of quantifiable difference do you believe there will be between running game physics on a GPU/CPU vs. your PhysX PPU?

Manju: We have demos which already show in a game setting how much more physics there is with GPU + CPU + PhysX processor versus only GPU (dual) + CPU (dual core). We will be making these available shortly and believe me you will be pleased.

The first thing we expect gamers would notice is their graphics get worse in the former scenario. The GPU is sacrificing graphics cycles for physics, and we don’t believe graphics cards are sitting idle during games today or will be in the foreseeable future. Running a PhysX card along with one of those high-end cards will obviously give you the best physics AND graphics experience, which is the dream of developers and gamers alike.

That's interesting, given the number of CPU-bound games we see these days, though that's not to say that highly advanced physics won't be too much for a GPU.

[Blackmage]

i may purchuse one of these as i hate limiting my hardware, beacuse it's working out something that it doesn't need to like onboard sound takes cpu cycles

[TheAnimus]

are these things taking commands which the GPU normally recieves then?

How does a programmer actually use one? Does it interface with direct-x.

say i want rag doll physics, how the heck do i use this card? Is there a library to software emulate it on the 90% of PCs which don't have it.

[Syn]

Originally Posted by TheAnimus

are these things taking commands which the GPU normally recieves then?

How does a programmer actually use one? Does it interface with direct-x.

say i want rag doll physics, how the heck do i use this card? Is there a library to software emulate it on the 90% of PCs which don't have it.

AGEIA has made thier own SDK (Software Development Kit) that companies can use to connect the PsyX PPU with the game and let the GPU take care of the 3D part. So thats how they do it, thats how everything is done.