How's PhysX going?

[Steve]

GD Hardware interviewed Ageia's marketing director, Andy Keane, to see how things were going with the much talked about up-coming physics engine and processing unit.

GD: Will the gamer be forced to upgrade when new PhysX cards come out or will future games still work with the older cards a few years down the road?

Andy: Game developers have long lead times to add new physics features into their titles. Therefore, there will be a long usage timeline for an AGEIA PhysX processor enabled card. As new features come into the processors, game developers will have to add those features and release those titles, before the necessity of a hardware upgrade. The lifecycle of an AGEIA PhysX card should be acceptable to consumers.

[dangel]

"The lifecycle of an AGEIA PhysX card should be acceptable to consumers."

Hmmm depends doesn't it? Graphics cards already cost an arm and a leg - how much will these things cost? I wonder if at least some similar processing could be done by my 'spare' core instead?

Missed this: "The AGEIA PhysX processor will be available on a PCI card with 128MB of memory (for in game physics data and processing) at a retail price point of $249-$299 this Christmas."

So 200 quid on top of everything else. Ouch.

And on multiplayer "For a synchronized experience, the physics simulation may have to move to the server." Which means currently if you're playing with your m8 one of you has to do all the physics processing and then 'upload' it to the other??

[dangel]

I agree with some of this developer feedback:

""I've talked to them once. It is a very interesting idea, but one that will be very difficult to sell to consumers.

Graphics upgrades are hard enough to sell to consumers, and you can show what benefits you get with side by side screen shots. Physics will be a harder sell, since most people don't know what physic is to begin with. This is made more difficult by the new popularity in smaller MOBOs with fewer free slots.

Hardware simply never sells well, keep in mind in this new world of PC gamers, flight sims and space sims, which used to be the hardest of the hard core are designed to work with out a joystick, some don't have even have joystick support at all anymore.

Now if they can get a deal with AMD, Intel, MSI, nVidia, ATI etc. and bundle their silicon into something that people buy anyway, they will do well. It would make a nice USP to distinguish one MOBO from another."

John Williamson
Zombie Studios

"To be honest I don’t think gamers will spend money for dedicated physics hardware (unless it’s included in something they already buy like their video card) so I’m not sure if this will ever catch on…

However, if dedicated physics hardware could be guaranteed the improvement to the physics realism in games would be incredible."

Kevin Stephens
Monolith Studios"

http://www.gdhardware.com/interviews/agiea/005.htm

[kempez]

I agree. I would find it difficult to justify splurging out another lot of cash: especially if not all games support it.

I did hear the BFG were going to be a board partner with Ageia though - so at least it'll have a decent manufactorer backing it up

[dangel]

Perhaps the biggest issue is that of 'value' to the gamer - as if your writing a game the fundementals of gameplay have to work with/without the physx board so you can't really build a game, right now, with gameplay based around having the physx.
The same is true for graphics too - just because 2% of people have a 7800GTX you can't rely on it so things need to be scaled down. With visual things this is easy - less bling, same gameplay. With physics? Less bouncy barrels, less realistic explosions? It's not such a huge seller - it's not as visual, not as instantaneous for joe public. And to compound that you're also asking people to shell out for a card that costs as much as a good graphic card - if it comes down to choosing, which would you rather have?
I think sound is a good analogy here - would you pay for a 200+quid sound card when you already have onboard sound? The same is true with physics - look at something like half life 2 which has pretty darn good physics (at least in terms of the stuff that really affects gameplay) and that's running on a single core right now.
Cost - it's reliance on it's own pool of expensive memory (128meg now) means it's going to be hard to integrate onto (say) a motherboard without doubling the cost of the unit.
It's a huge marketing problem, and one they aren't going to solve with unknown titles (Bet on soldier) - they need valve, id etc on board to show it off. I reckon we're looking at long lead times on seeing titles that really take advantage of this too - perhaps well into next year.
Don't get me wrong - this has amazing potential - but getting it installed in even 50% of gamers PCs is a awe-insipiring task.