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

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

[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.