World's First Physics Processing Unit

Duane writes "Gamers Depot has an exclusive interview with the team behind Ageia - the maker of the world's first Physics Processing Unit (PPU) - which was just announced today. "Sure we've all heard about the CPU and GPU - that's old hat by now and as most hardware reviewers will tell you, it's about time we got something that's truly revolutionary. Yeah, Pixel shaders are cool, and can do a lot of really nice things; however, pale in comparison in scope to what the PhysX chip from Ageia has the potential to bring to gaming.""

Comments

Re:Before you get all excited

[Anonymous Coward]

GS: How will Epic's Unreal Engine 3 incorporate Ageia's technology?

TS: We've been collaborating with Ageia since their inception and Unreal Engine 3 thoroughly exploits the Novodex physics API; when the first Unreal Engine 3 based games begin shipping in early 2006, they will really up gamers' expectations. The combination of next-generation graphics, next-generation physics, and content-rich games goes way beyond current games, both qualitatively and quantitatively.

mmhmm. I guess epic 3 the v4p0rw4r3

Re:Oh great

[addie]

Someone explain to me why I need to purchase a *slower* processor with less ram to do it for me?

For the same reason people purchase graphics cards with slower clock speeds and less RAM to compliment their blazing fast processors. As the article explains, the CPU is a general purpose chip. A PPU will be fully dedicated to physics, and therefore likely far more efficient. By your logic, all processes in the machine should be handled by a single chip, which while elegant, is probably not the most efficient solution. I predict we will see more specific-purpose chips being developed, not fewer.

For the same reason we have GPUs, of course

[tepples]

Your video card's GPU runs at a slower clock rate than the CPU, but because its pipelines are completely optimized for T&L and triangle filling, it can do those tasks faster than your CPU ever could. Likewise, a physics processor is optimized for simulating the dynamics of a mechanical system.

Re:Interesting idea

[mikael]

I would believe that most developers have their own method for dealing with physics - from simple collision to ragdoll and the like.

Basic collision detection methods are bounding planes, spheres, capsules, and axis-aligned boxes, along with Binary Space Partitions, Quadtrees and Octrees combined with particle systems. It would be fairly straight forward design an instruction set to perform these operations between the simple primitives (spheres, planes). But BSP Trees, Quadtrees and Octrees would require a high level data format.

If all the collision testing could be done within a single thread within the time limit of a single frame, it would be no different from the player-missile and sprite graphics implemented on early home PC's (Atari computers could do hardware base per-pixel collision detection). Although, it would probably seem easier to have additional vector processors like Sony's Cell processor.

Re:Interesting idea

[Atzanteol]

Mmmmm. Apparently there is an open source lib for physics.

http://ode.org/

But your point about a standard like OpenGL not existing is true. We'll probably have a rehash of the early graphics library incompatabilities again. ::shudder::

You think people would learn. Open standards help a new technology to expand and to become accepted. It helps *everybody* in the industry.

Re:Interesting idea

[BannedfrompostingAC]

like bullets - these are "instant shot"

Wrong. Have you ever fired a gun? It actually fires a gyroscopically-stabilized projectile that takes a discernable amount of time to reach its destination. Hitting a non-stationary object reliably at long range (800m-1000m) is next to impossible.

This matters at the physics level. If you are going to fully implement the ballistics you are going to have implement the motion of the bullet, the atmospheric drag on the bullet, the gyroscopic stabilization, the effect of gravity on the bullet ("bullet drop") not to mention the effects of the individual specifications of the bullet itself, and perhaps some entirely random factors (the world isn't perfect).

And if you are implementing a game where players can fire an assault rifle full-automatic (600-700 rounds a minute or more, depending on too many factors to list - which might need to be implemented and calcuated by the computer, of course...) you can see that the CPU is going to start needing some help to work it out.

And that's just the bullets.

The gun example is just an example of the sort of jobs a co-processor might be required to do in an FPS environment. To cut a long story short, if you are going to be simulating life, even a small approximation of life, accurately, you are going to need to be calculating an awful lot of physics.