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NVIDIA To Enable PhysX For Full Line of GPUs

Posted by Soulskill on from the new-toys dept.

MojoKid brings news from HotHardware that NVIDIA will be enabling PhysX for some of its newest graphics cards in an upcoming driver release. Support for the full GeForce 8/9 line will be added gradually. NVIDIA acquired PhysX creator AGEIA earlier this year.

140 comments

  1. Linux Support by Helmholtz · · Score: 0

    Hopefully they'll include their Linux drivers.

    --
    RFC2119
    1. Re:Linux Support by jandrese · · Score: 4, Funny

      And hopefully some Linux game/app will come out that can use it.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    2. Re:Linux Support by KingOfBLASH · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Hopefully they'll include their Linux drivers.

      If you're going to make a comment that useless you might as well just say "frist p0st!" and be honest about your intentions
    3. Re:Linux Support by gujo-odori · · Score: 4, Funny

      And hopefully when it does I'll get first post in the /. article about it.

    4. Re:Linux Support by Gewalt · · Score: 5, Funny

      iduno, I'm inclined to believe his post was more useful than yours... or mine...

      --
      Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
    5. Re:Linux Support by mrbluze · · Score: 0, Redundant

      iduno, I'm inclined to believe his post was more useful than yours... or mine... I bet my post is less useful than all of the above.
      --
      Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
    6. Re:Linux Support by erikina · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah, but last time he did that he got modded off topic http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=556184&cid=23446146

    7. Re:Linux Support by GonzoPhysicist · · Score: 2, Informative

      They might have some incentive to now that AMD is both working with Havok and releasing Linux drivers with the new ATI card.

      --
      horror vacui
    8. Re:Linux Support by keithjr · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That's not a useless comment at all unless I'm missing something. UT3 hasn't been able to put out the long-promised Linux driver because AGEIA is being so unwilling to release the license grapple hold they have over the PhysX engine. This is a legitimate concern. Unless their stance changes, Linux drivers will not be possible.

    9. Re:Linux Support by carlmenezes · · Score: 4, Funny

      And hopefully the /. article won't be a dupe.

      --
      Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
    10. Re:Linux Support by Zymergy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      So ATI has in their new Linux drivers Havok technology and it works under Linux for the new ATI cards?
      What Linux application/game uses Havok?

    11. Re:Linux Support by Arethan · · Score: 4, Funny

      And hopefully the comments in the article won't all be attempts at +5, Funny.

    12. Re:Linux Support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/26/0346228

    13. Re:Linux Support by 3vi1 · · Score: 4, Funny

      And hopefully the story wont be posted 4/1/2009.

      -J

    14. Re:Linux Support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      of a dupe

    15. Re:Linux Support by Anpheus · · Score: 1

      And hopefully everyone won't just be stuck at +4 Funny and some negative karma mods that make the whole thing feel worthless.

    16. Re:Linux Support by hyperz69 · · Score: 1

      Tux Pong!

      l o l

      Think of the CPU LOAD SAVINGS!

    17. Re:Linux Support by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 1

      Maybe we can get a Windows game/app that uses it, too. So far we've had some tech demos with awful gameplay, but nothing worth buying.

      --
      Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
    18. Re:Linux Support by KingOfBLASH · · Score: 1

      But that's not what he said. There was no substance to his response -- just one sentence that was probably posted quickly in order to be the first post without getting modded down as troll....

    19. Re:Linux Support by tyrione · · Score: 1

      And hopefully... Oh Hope my ass.

    20. Re:Linux Support by slashdotwannabe · · Score: 1

      And HOPEFULLY somebody will say something on topic within the first hundred posts.

      --
      This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for
  2. I didn't RTFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So what's this PhysX?

    1. Re:I didn't RTFA by aliquis · · Score: 3, Informative

      Hardware accelerated physical acceleration, gravity and particlestuff if I remember correctly, atleast old examples used to be throwing away items or exploding walls and such.

    2. Re:I didn't RTFA by Vectronic · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Basically exactly what it sounds like... its a real-time physics calcuating engine.

      Used in games for things like shooting the limbs off of creatures, or even wind on trees, or water...

      Likewise for other 3D applications, im not sure how extensive it is, or what its limitations are, but im looking forward to it, and more because calculating physic type things on most 3D software takes a lot of CPU power, so if the GPU can handle that, that takes a great load of the main CPU. (from what I would assume)

    3. Re:I didn't RTFA by somersault · · Score: 4, Funny

      Mmmmm.. hardware accelerated litter..

      --
      which is totally what she said
    4. Re:I didn't RTFA by trooperer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I begin to wonder what's the use of having a multi-core CPU if GPU will be taking all the hard work?

      What's next? "Graphic" cards with hardware accelerated AI support?

    5. Re:I didn't RTFA by negRo_slim · · Score: 2, Insightful

      im not sure how extensive it is, or what its limitations are, Me niether, but the PhysX denos certainly had a neat feel to them... I think I ended up with them from a UT3 install, can't find a link to the originals, but I found this which looks exactly the same.

      But going from a little physics demo to full blown kick ass 3d game with any meaningful results is a whole 'nother matter.
      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    6. Re:I didn't RTFA by Vectronic · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Yes... quite obviously, that's why AMD + ATI, and Intel has their own Graphics stuff, VIA, etc.

      Given the power that can be crammed into millimeters of space, may as well combine them, eventually your entire "PC" will be the size of the average processor is now, which just aren't there yet, so there are some naysayers used to older tech, and the junkies waiting for the next best thing.

      Which, is both exciting and scary, welcomed and feared... but its just interesting right now like watching two planets collide.

    7. Re:I didn't RTFA by slaker · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It makes City of Heroes look all awesome, particularly if you use Gravity, Storm, Kinetics or Assault Rifle power sets.

      Having bullet casings, leaves, newspapers and the like drop and swirl around in response to player actions is actually pretty nifty from an immersion standpoint, particularly for a game that's essentially set in something that resembles the real, modern world.

      --
      -- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
    8. Re:I didn't RTFA by bmo · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Having bullet casings, leaves, newspapers and the like drop and swirl around in response to player actions is actually pretty nifty from an immersion standpoint"

      That's it. I'm done with immersion games. I'm going outside to stand in the rain. Back later.

      --
      BM0

    9. Re:I didn't RTFA by Carbon016 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There hasn't been for a while, that's why buying a quad-core CPU is largely useless for gamers and one of the best uses of a dual-core CPU is running a single-threaded application alongside Windows. Graphics cards are massively parallel multi-core systems and have much better real-world and theoretical performance in physics simulations. Physics and AI are all the GPU has left to conquer. I still see the CPU doing a lot of AI work, though, because those sort of algorithms (hey no recursion neat) are naturally far from the linear access sort of thing CUDA and related technologies are best at.

    10. Re:I didn't RTFA by amRadioHed · · Score: 4, Funny

      particularly for a game that's essentially set in something that resembles the real, modern world Because leaves didn't drop and swirl before modern times?
      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    11. Re:I didn't RTFA by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      I begin to wonder what's the use of having a multi-core CPU if GPU will be taking all the hard work?

      And now you know why the people at Intel have been pushing raytracing so hard recently: they know this, and are trying to avoid becoming irrelevant.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    12. Re:I didn't RTFA by slaker · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure the bullet casings or newspapers did, and given that essentially every PC game that's not City of Heroes is either a D&D ripoff, a Doom clone or a WWII shooter, I didn't want there to be any confusion.

      --
      -- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
    13. Re:I didn't RTFA by LilGuy · · Score: 1

      People still actually play that piece of crap?

      I went out and bought that quite a few years ago, and my friends all did too so they could play with me, and many of them won't speak to me anymore.

      I didn't realize people actually liked it though.

      --

      You're nothing; like me.
    14. Re:I didn't RTFA by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      AI support would need 'plot'
      I think we will have to wait a few generations until game developers see profit in expensive 'text'.
      Eye candy is what sells. Why waste time and cash with AI's :-)

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    15. Re:I didn't RTFA by ya+really · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There hasn't been for a while, that's why buying a quad-core CPU is largely useless for gamers and one of the best uses of a dual-core CPU is running a single-threaded application alongside Windows.

      Not exactly true, all of the Unreal Tournament Edition 3 engine games consistantly use all four cores in my Intel Q6600 with over a dozen threads spaced throughout my cores. The most notible examples would be UTE3, Bioshock and Mass Effect, 3 of the biggest games of 2007 and 2008. I can typically max out settings for UTE3 engine games.

      On the other hand, performance demanding games like Crysis are total doucebags and peg just one core and sometimes using one more if it feels like it every now and then. Although it's not a very good comparison since there's so many different factors involved, I would gather to say that if crysis took an approach of optimizing better for duo and quad core cpus, their publisher would have far less complaints about performance from gamers.

    16. Re:I didn't RTFA by Bootarn · · Score: 1

      When it comes to games, very few games take advantage of multi-core CPU:s, unfortunately. The only games I can recall benefiting from multi-core technology that I've played is Doom 3, Quake 4 and ETQW: Quake Wars. When it comes to general purpose computing, multi-core systems are often the way to go if you use multiple applications simulaneously. When I got my first multi-core system, I was completely amazed by how fast large program packages would compile. And this was only with two cores. I can't even begin to imagine what a delight it would be to compile stuff on a quad-core system.

    17. Re:I didn't RTFA by TheThiefMaster · · Score: 1

      Don't forget futuristic shooters, futuristic rtss and driving games.

    18. Re:I didn't RTFA by blahplusplus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "What's next? "Graphic" cards with hardware accelerated AI support?"

      Actually this isn't a bad idea, this is a good idea since pathfinding in games like Supreme commander is just a nightmare as you add more units, I've wondered about using the GPU for pathfinding acceleration.

    19. Re:I didn't RTFA by somersault · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Doom is a futuristic shooter. We had it back in this thing called the 90s ;) And an RTS is an RTS. Driving games on the PC have never been quite as prolific as on consoles either.. something I used to lament, but things are improving these days.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    20. Re:I didn't RTFA by mikael · · Score: 1

      What's next? "Graphic" cards with hardware accelerated AI support?

      If the problem can be represented as an array or matrix of data elements, and the core algorithm looks at two or more data elements together, then it can be solved using GPU techniques.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    21. Re:I didn't RTFA by xouumalperxe · · Score: 2, Informative

      Except that general purpose CPUs aren't really particularly great for raytracing. GPUs are simply special-purpose processors designed with raster graphics in mind. The newest fad is, of course, using all that special-purpose horsepower in more imaginative ways, but it's still a raster graphics processor at heart.

      Why is it that they're raster graphic special purpose processors? Because raster dominates the playfield. What's the logical conclusion there? As soon as raytraced graphics engines start becoming popular enough to write a standard library for them, a la OpenGL or Direct3D, nVidia and ATI will be marketing special-purpose raytracing processors, and intel will either radically shift their core market (general purpose CPUs), or be in the same position as it is today relative to games. The raytracing push has nothing to do with intel wanting to keep its present product line relevant.

    22. Re:I didn't RTFA by Yvan256 · · Score: 0

      There is no rain. You're still inside the system.

      Good luck.

      [NO CARRIER]

    23. Re:I didn't RTFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe it's cause I'm using xp64 bit... But the 64bit version of Crysis uses all 4 of the cores on my Q6600. I can play at 1024x768 very high settings (with the hack).

      I haven't even bothered with the 32bit executable so you may be right on that version not explioting the extra cores as well as it could.

    24. Re:I didn't RTFA by Ihmhi · · Score: 1

      a WWII shooter

      You mean a Wolfenstein Clone?

      --
      Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
  3. Hentai by jaguth · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe we'll finally see some realistic physics with fantasy tentacle rape hentai games. Is it just me, or do the current tentacle rape game physics seem way off?

    1. Re:Hentai by FeepingCreature · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's a problem with the underlying ragdoll representation.
      They're having difficulties realistically modelling penetration. Close contact like that tends to lead to numerical instabilities in physics engines. There's not much Physx can do to help, though.

    2. Re:Hentai by Darlo888 · · Score: 3, Funny

      lol?

    3. Re:Hentai by maz2331 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's just disturbing.

    4. Re:Hentai by TopSpin · · Score: 1

      You won this story.

      Happy Friday.

      --
      Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
    5. Re:Hentai by Minwee · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's why there are teams of researchers working night and day to improve the state of tentacle modeling.

      If you have what it takes to advance the state of the art there could be a big government grant and a PhD in it for you.

    6. Re:Hentai by somersault · · Score: 3, Funny

      Not as disturbing as the Chronicles of Goatse.cx Part IV: Rick Astley's Revenge

      --
      which is totally what she said
    7. Re:Hentai by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Funny

      Which is why the need to use motion capture! Of course,getting both the girl and the octopus to hold still while you stick all those little white balls in places that little white balls weren't meant to go won't be easy,but I'll be happy to take the girl if someone else wants to get the octopus.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    8. Re:Hentai by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Government grants for tentacle rape hentai games? I never knew I could make money doing what I loved!

    9. Re:Hentai by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you think that's bad you should see Tubgirl Strikes Back and Return of the Zombie Goatse... Buuh.

    10. Re:Hentai by AHuxley · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ask DARPA to fund computer modeling a tight cavity IED searching arm?

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    11. Re:Hentai by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      physx can't, but physex can

    12. Re:Hentai by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://alchemist.excessivelydangerousthing.com/ljcartoons/first-contact.png

      Caption: "when first contact with an alien race came it turned out that japanese cartoons were wrong ..." (Don't want to spoil the punchline)

    13. Re:Hentai by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're working during the day, yes. But at night? They're just test-driving their latest versions.

    14. Re:Hentai by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We've tried motion capture, there's too many occlusion issues ;)

    15. Re:Hentai by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So sad, my 'occlusion ' post was removed. What a bunch of pussies.

  4. PhysX? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So what exactly is PhysX? Click on both the links didn't really get me anything concrete.

    1. Re:PhysX? by aliquis · · Score: 5, Informative

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhysX

      Realtime hardware accelerated physics. Used to be on a separate expensive board which few games supported but Nvidia are implementing it on CUDA so it can run on their graphic cards instead.

    2. Re:PhysX? by arbiter1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      nvidia bought out he company so they own it and can put it on their cards, games that decide to add support for it it will benefit nvidia.

    3. Re:PhysX? by Adult+film+producer · · Score: 1

      here, you can watch it...

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GCZ1xRPMBI

    4. Re:PhysX? by Barny · · Score: 1

      I did hear in an interview with an NV engineer recently that they are working to have a CUDA environment under a standard x86 cpu, just with reduced speed (since there's only 1-8 CPUs).

      This stuff they designed specifically for their gforce shader unit (or vice verser), why should they do the work to key in AMD or anyone else to be able to do it, when AMD built their own GPU processing API do you think they offered to port it to NV cards?

      The big question, how hard are NV going to push TWIMTBP (The Way Its Meant To Be Played) affiliated game producers to use it.

      --
      ...
      /me sighs
    5. Re:PhysX? by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      The big question...

      The real big question, for people in the Real World who need to be able to support Nvidia and ATI GPUs, is when there's going to be a standard GPGPU and/or physics API that works on both.

      Until then, all this shit's entirely useless.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    6. Re:PhysX? by Barny · · Score: 1

      The number of people in this world you speak of, is not as large (or indeed any substantial subset) of the end users of the devices in question.

      As I said in another post, fire up all your games one at a time, and look through the start credits, TWIMTBP shows up a lot now on the "big" titles.

      And I am not even going near their new CUDA processing array servers, which stand on their own merits with this tech.

      --
      ...
      /me sighs
    7. Re:PhysX? by smaddox · · Score: 1

      It's not useless. There are a few graphics engines out there that are capable of scaling to different capabilities for different cards. For example: id Tech 4, Havok, Source engine, etc.

      It does make development more difficult, though.

    8. Re:PhysX? by Tawnos · · Score: 2, Informative

      The source engine, while "capable" of scaling to multiple cores, does a very poor job on current x86 chips. The games become very unstable with mat_queue_mode 2 on, and there are problems with jerky motion in any sort of latency.

      It's a shame, too, because the engine works with multicore on various consoles, and it's a lot faster when it does work on PC.

  5. Works on just the one card? by neokushan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I read TFA, but it didn't really give many details as to how this works, just some benchmarks that don't really reveal much.
    Will this work on single cards or will it require an SLi system where one card does the PhysX and the other does the rendering?

    Plus, how does handling PhysX affect framerates? Will a PhysX enabled game's performance actually drop because the GPU is spending so much time calculating it and not enough time rendering it, or are they essentially independent because they're separate steps in the game's pipeline?

    --
    +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    1. Re:Works on just the one card? by Ant+P. · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      The effect on framerate doesn't matter - the target audience for this will have at least one spare graphics card to run physics on.

    2. Re:Works on just the one card? by neokushan · · Score: 1

      Are you sure that's the target audience, though?
      See I've only got 1 card and I'd love hardware accelerated physics, but I sure as hell wouldn't buy a separate card for it.

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    3. Re:Works on just the one card? by lantastik · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's not true at all. It works in a single card configuration as well. Modern GPUs have more than enough spare parallel processing power to chug away at some physics operations. Guys are already modifying the beta drivers to test it out on their Geforce 8 cards. The OP in this thread is using a single card configuration:
      http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=689718

    4. Re:Works on just the one card? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Previously you had to buy a $200+ physics card from Ageia. I'm not sure how well a graphics card can do physics, but it'd be neat if I could take an older graphics card and repurpose it to do physics instead of throwing it away.

    5. Re:Works on just the one card? by QuantumLeaper · · Score: 1

      Ageia isn't a hardware company, so you couldn't buy one from them but they did license the hardware to other who did make cards for $200. The PS3 use a PhysX chip, if I remember correctly.

    6. Re:Works on just the one card? by Kazymyr · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, it works on one card. I have enabled it on my 8800GT earlier today. The CUDA/PhysX layer gets time-sliced access to the card. Yes, it will drop framerates by about 10%.

      OTOH if you have 2 cards, you can dedicate one to CUDA and one to rendering so there won't be a hit. The cards need to NOT be in SLI (if they're in SLI, the driver sees only one GPU, and it will time-slice it like it does with a single card). This is actually the preferred configuration.

      --
      I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
    7. Re:Works on just the one card? by nobodyman · · Score: 2, Interesting

      According to the Maximum PC Podcast they saw significant framerate hits with single card setups, but that it was much better under SLi. They did stress that they had beta drivers, so things may drastically improve once nvidia gets final drivers out the door.

    8. Re:Works on just the one card? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As of right now the PhysX stuff doesn't support multi-GPUs, but supposedly that's in the works as well.

    9. Re:Works on just the one card? by Goalie_Ca · · Score: 1

      While the card is off to render the cpu sits waiting. While the cpu is busy the card sits waiting.

      --

      ----
      Go canucks, habs, and sens!
    10. Re:Works on just the one card? by ya+really · · Score: 1

      I have an 8800gt and the latest drivers. How exactly are you enabling physx for it? I don't see any options listed for the drivers config. Just curious, not calling you a liar since there may be a way.

    11. Re:Works on just the one card? by TheThiefMaster · · Score: 1

      No, don't be stupid. Any half-decent games engine nowadays does everything with parallel threads.
      They (cpu and gpu) still have to wait on each other if they finish early (to synchronise the frames), but they will spend at least 50% of their time both running at once. Ideally it would be 95%+, but games are often unbalanced in favour of graphics complexity these days.

    12. Re:Works on just the one card? by Kazymyr · · Score: 3, Informative

      You need the latest unreleased yet drivers for toe GTX2xx series, version 177.39. Then edit the nv4_disp.inf file and add an entry for device ID of 0611 (=8800GT). You will then be able to install the driver on the 8800GT. Next, install the new (also unreleased yet, but google is your friend) 8.06 software for PhysX. That's it.

      --
      I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
    13. Re:Works on just the one card? by Kazymyr · · Score: 1

      Damn, even with preview...

      the GTX2xx, not toe GTX2xx

      --
      I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
    14. Re:Works on just the one card? by Shipwack · · Score: 1

      If not the chip, at least some PS3 games use the Ageia physics engine.... The game "Pain" involves fling a man or woman into objects in a downtown area and watching them splat and twist into windows, cars, monkeys, etc. Somewhat disturbing....

  6. Kind old news by j-turkey · · Score: 1

    This was reported in February, shortly after Nvidia purchased PhysX. Of course, the GF9 series had not been released yet, so it was not mentioned in the news posting -- but future support sort of goes without saying. I'm fairly certain that it was reported on /. with a nearly identical headline in February as well.

    --

    -Turkey

  7. Does anyone else remember... by lantastik · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    ...how much gamers used to shit all over PhysX cards? Now, they can't wait to get their hands all over it.

    1. Re:Does anyone else remember... by urbanriot · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Really? I don't know any gamers that are excited about this. Name more than one game (without googling) that supports Physx?

    2. Re:Does anyone else remember... by lantastik · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't need to Google. Anything built on the Unreal 3 engine has PhysX support built in.

    3. Re:Does anyone else remember... by urbanriot · · Score: 1

      So... Unreal 3? That's one...

    4. Re:Does anyone else remember... by lantastik · · Score: 3, Informative

      Reading comprehension...anything built on the Unreal 3 engine.

      Like one of these many licensees:
      http://www.unrealtechnology.com/news.php

      Native PhysX Support:
      http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2007/05/30/unreal-3-thinks-threading

    5. Re:Does anyone else remember... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Duke Nukem Forever.

    6. Re:Does anyone else remember... by urbanriot · · Score: 0, Redundant

      So... Unreal 3?

    7. Re:Does anyone else remember... by neokushan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unreal 3 is an engine that's used on LOTS of games - technically ALL of them have PhysX support, so no, not "just" Unreal 3, because there is no game called Unreal 3.

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    8. Re:Does anyone else remember... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      So just Unreal Tournament 2007?

    9. Re:Does anyone else remember... by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Except modern physics engines (see: Quake 1 for MS DOS) use threads for each individual moving physics object, and the Render Thread that manages control of the graphics card uses 1 thread itself (hard to split up that...), so with new Quad Core and 8 and 16 core systems you've got a much better physics processing engine running on your CPU.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    10. Re:Does anyone else remember... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      No, there are a few games which use the Unreal 3 engine:
      Clicky

    11. Re:Does anyone else remember... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who needs to google? I'm just a good guesser:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games#Unreal_Engine_3

    12. Re:Does anyone else remember... by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 2, Informative

      Except modern physics engines (see: Quake 1 for MS DOS) use threads for each individual moving physics object Name one engine that is that stupid.

      When we're talking about game worlds in which there could easily be 50 or 100 objects on the screen at once, it makes much more sense to have maybe one physics thread (separate from the render thread, and the AI thread) -- or maybe one per core. I very much doubt one real OS thread per object would work well at all.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    13. Re:Does anyone else remember... by 3.1415926535 · · Score: 1

      Try http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_home.html

    14. Re:Does anyone else remember... by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 3, Informative

      Um, except if you you have exactly 1 physics thread you have to juggle complex scheduling considerations about who needs how much CPU, handle the prioritization against the render and AI threads, handle intermixing them, etc. You have to implement a task scheduler. ... which is exactly what Quake 1 did. Carmack wrote a userspace thread library, and spawned multiple threads. Since DOS didn't have threads this worked rather well.

      An OS thread will give any thread a base priority, and then raise that priority every time it passes it over in the queue when it wants CPU time. It lowers the priority to the base when it runs. If a task sleeps, it gets passed over and left at lowest priority; if it wakes up and wants CPU, it climbs the priority tree. In this way, tasks which need a lot of CPU wind up getting run regularly-- as often as possible, actually-- and when multiple ones want CPU they're split up evenly.

      If you make the render thread one thread, you have to implement this logic yourself. Further, the OS will see your thread as exactly one thread, and act accordingly. If you have 10000 physics objects and 15 AIs, keeping both threads CPU-hungry, then the OS will give 1/3 CPU to the physics engine; 1/3 CPU to the AI; and 1/3 CPU to the render thread. This means your physics engine starves, and your physics start getting slow and choppy well before you reach the physical limits of the hardware. The game breaks down.

      You obviously don't understand either game programming or operating systems.

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    15. Re:Does anyone else remember... by rsmith-mac · · Score: 1

      All of them can support PhysX. They don't have to offer hardware acceleration, they don't even have to use PhysX for physics if they don't want to. This is critical, a lot of UE3 games are not supporting PhysX hardware acceleration. UT3 is still the only game.

    16. Re:Does anyone else remember... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Lazy Town" with realistic hardware accelerated physics? Just what I was waiting for!

    17. Re:Does anyone else remember... by Charcharodon · · Score: 1
      Hardly flamebait. Everyone was dumping on them pretty bad.

      "WHAT I have to buy a second card, it's not free/can't run off the bios chip in the MB, WTF!!??"

      The funny thing that now that the PhysX cards are Rago (It's in there) you still are going to have to buy a second video card to keep your frame rate up and increase the number of physX objects. Of course with this arrangement your GPU is less speciallized thant he PhysX hardware and can be used for all the CUDA applications.

      I'm going to end up laughing if the physX ends up running better on the dedicated cards which by the way are below $100 now, verses a new $300-500 CUDA enabled video card. Typically dedicated hardware is faster than anything else.

      Reguardless this will finally put to bed the whole "chicken or the egg" argument for widespread physics support in games. At least for those that don't have Intel graphics.

    18. Re:Does anyone else remember... by Shipwack · · Score: 1

      City of Heroes/Villains

    19. Re:Does anyone else remember... by urbanriot · · Score: 1

      Since we're being anal / technical, Unreal Tournament 2007 is also regarded as Unreal Tournament 3. So far, the only game that I see that's out and supporting Physx is Unreal Tournament 2007. So, I'm not sure if you're Nvidia shills or out of touch fanboys, but "LOTS of games" is a serious overstatement.

    20. Re:Does anyone else remember... by neokushan · · Score: 1

      Your point is moot, as "Unreal 3" and "Unreal tournament 3" are two completely different things. One's an engine, one is a game based on that engine.

      But sure, if you want a list of games, how about Mass Effect, Huxley, Gears of War and Roboblitz? Those are just the unreal engine games off the top of my head that I know have hardware PhysX support, there's plenty of other titles out there that use it as well, such as both GRAW games as well as a few other Tom Clancy games (one of which being Vegas - another unreal engine 3 game), Age of Empires 3 and plenty others.
      But it's a chicken-egg thing, currently Havok seems to be the de facto standard of game physics for a whole number of reasons - but if PhysX on Nvidia proves to be more efficent, then more developers will start using it, especially since Unreal Engine 3 supports it directly.
      Like it or lump it, PhysX has a decent amount of support and with nvidia supporting it directly on their GPU's, that support is only going to get better.

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    21. Re:Does anyone else remember... by lantastik · · Score: 1

      At first I thought you were playing coy, but now I just think you are retarded. UE3 is the engine. PhysX support is native to the engine. Any game developed around that engine, will inherently support PhysX.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games

      Unreal Engine 3

      * 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand â" (2008) Swordfish Studios
      * A4 (sequel to A3) - (2009) AniPark
      * Aliens: Colonial Marines â" (Late 2008) Gearbox Software
      * Alpha Protocol - (Spring 2009) Obsidian Entertainment
      * America's Army 3.0 â" (2008) US Army
      * American Mcgee's Grimm - (2008) Spicy Horse
      * APB â" (2008) Realtime Worlds
      * Army of Two â" (2008) Electronic Arts
      * Alliance of Valiant Arms - (2007) Pmang
      * Black College Football: BCFX: The Xperience - (2007) Nerjyzed Entertainment
      * Black Powder Red Earth - (TBA) Echelon Software
      * Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway â" (2008) Gearbox Software[23]
      * BioShock - (2007) 2K Boston/2K Australia
      * BlackSite: Area 51 â" (2007) Midway Austin
      * Blitz - (2008) CJIG
      * Borderlands - (TBA) Gearbox Software
      * Crimecraft - (2008) Vogster Entertainment
      * Damnation - (TBA) Blue Omega / Point of View
      * DC Comics MMO â" (TBA) Sony Online Entertainment
      * Earth No More â" (2009) Recoil Games / 3D Realms
      * Empire - (TBA) Chair Entertainment
      * Empire: Alpha Complex - (TBA) Chair Entertainment
      * Ender's Game â" (TBA) Chair Entertainment
      * Elveon â" (TBA) 10tacle Studios[24]
      * End - (TBA) Faramix Enterprises[25]
      * Fatal Inertia â" (2007) Koei[26]
      * Free Realm - (TBA) Sony Online Entertainment
      * Frontlines: Fuel of War â" (2008) Kaos Studios
      * Fury â" (2007) Auran[27]
      * Gears of War â" (2006) Epic Games
      * Gears of War 2 â" (2008) Epic Games
      * Global Agenda â" (TBA) Hi-Rez Studios[28]
      * Hail to the Chimp â" (2008) Wideload Games [29]
      * Highlander: The Game â" (TBA 2008) TBA
      * Hei$t - (2007) inXile Entertainment
      * Hour of Victory â" (2007) Midway Games
      * Huxley â" (2008) Webzen Games[30]
      * Lost Odyssey â" (2007) Mistwalker[31]
      * Mass Effect â" (2007) BioWare[32]
      * Magna Carta 2 - (TBA) Softmax
      * Medal of Honor: Airborne â" (2007) Electronic Arts[33]
      * MirrorÂs Edge (TBA) DICE
      * Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia â" (2007) Artificial Studios[34]
      * Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe - (2008) Midway
      * Mortal Online - (2009) Star Vault
      * Parabellum - (2008) Acony
      * Project M - (TBA) NC Soft
      *

    22. Re:Does anyone else remember... by seeker_1us · · Score: 1

      If you have 10000 physics objects and 15 AIs, keeping both threads CPU-hungry, then the OS will give 1/3 CPU to the physics engine; 1/3 CPU to the AI; and 1/3 CPU to the render thread. This means your physics engine starves, and your physics start getting slow and choppy well before you reach the physical limits of the hardware. The game breaks down.
      Well, what about multicore systems?

      Quad core: 1 core to the AI, one core to the physics, and 1 core to the render thread. No starvation?

      Seems to me that with the progress of multicore CPU this is going to become irrelevant fast.

    23. Re:Does anyone else remember... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And maybe you're too retarded to understand that 'supporting' isn't the same as 'implementing'.

    24. Re:Does anyone else remember... by lantastik · · Score: 1

      I would be embarrassed to post as myself too there urbanriot. It's native to the engine. What don't you understand about that? Do you know how game engines work?

      You do know games use physics right? So in your mind it makes perfect sense to rewrite/license additional/not use the physics code that is native to the engine? Man, you truly are dense.

      Maybe in your mind it makes sense to pay the outrageous licensing fees for the Unreal 3 engine, and then pay additional licensing fees for the Havok physics engine.

      Do you know anything about computers/software/etc. or do you just post on slashdot to make yourself look cool with your nerd friends?

    25. Re:Does anyone else remember... by urbanriot · · Score: 1

      That's not me, jackass. I had no problem going on my current track, but it seems that someone else hijacked it. Fortunately, they made a similar point to what I was leading to. Since it's upsetting you so much, I'll leave it where it is.

    26. Re:Does anyone else remember... by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      1 core to AI, 1 to physics, 1 to render, 1 idle. Or 13 idle, since Intel believes 16 cores is the "Sweet Spot" and will hit the desktop in a few years.

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    27. Re:Does anyone else remember... by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

      Um, except if you you have exactly 1 physics thread you have to juggle complex scheduling considerations about who needs how much CPU, handle the prioritization against the render and AI threads, handle intermixing them, etc.

      Which people do.

      Or simpler: Give the render thread priority, and set it to vsync. Anything above 60 fps is a waste.

      If you have 10000 physics objects and 15 AIs, keeping both threads CPU-hungry, then the OS will give 1/3 CPU to the physics engine; 1/3 CPU to the AI; and 1/3 CPU to the render thread.

      Assuming the render thread needs that 1/3rd.

      Keep in mind that ideally -- that is, if you're not lagging -- none of these are pegging the CPU, and you're just making whatever calculations you make every tick.

      You obviously don't understand either game programming or operating systems.

      Well, let's see -- most games I know of won't take advantage of more than one CPU. In fact, when Quake3 was ported to dual-core, it took a 30% performance hit -- and keep in mind, that's Carmack doing it.

      And this is hardly the first place this argument has been made -- green threads are inherently more efficient than OS threads. Take Erlang -- it runs as many OS threads as you have cores, and distributes green threads among OS threads.

      So I don't actually have to understand these. I just have to refer you to the people who do -- and obviously have a fair bit of experience making it work. Do you?

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    28. Re:Does anyone else remember... by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Well, let's see -- most games I know of won't take advantage of more than one CPU. In fact, when Quake3 was ported to dual-core, it took a 30% performance hit -- and keep in mind, that's Carmack doing it.

      Really? Quake 3 was already threaded when released; I looked through the code myself. On Windows, however, the Windows scheduler pegs all threads in one program to the CPU the program's on unless you manually manage that part of the scheduler (you have to give threads CPU affinity or they have affinity to CPU 0). I had it on Linux (which, if threads have no CPU affinity, will distribute them to the next available CPU when scheduling), it pushes both cores just fine.

      And this is hardly the first place this argument has been made -- green threads are inherently more efficient than OS threads.

      Ah, the green threads argument. Green threads was made when threading didn't work; back in the 2.2 days, Linux had a horrible thread scheduler and making more than 50 or so OS threads caused the computer to cry. Making a thousand made it drag its ass, and 10000 wasn't possible by a long shot. Things got better in 2.4; and then someone implemented NPTL on a different threading model, and tested with hundreds of thousands of threads spawning and exiting, doing little trivial tasks, sleeping, etc, and .... it ran. The kernel created 100,000 threads in 2 seconds; this took 15 minutes before!

      We have 1:1 threading where each schedulable entity is an OS thread. With green threads, you have M:N threading where one OS thread might represent several real threads. In the latter case, you can get away with switching between threads in a given thread group without a context switch; Linux takes that (minor) hit, but is smart enough to schedule effectively and NOT do a cache/TLB flush when going from one thread to another in the same process (which is the big problem with thread-to-thread context switches). Unfortunately, you can also have priority inversion (low priority thread causing the blocking of a high priority thread), synchronization issues, and scheduling problems if you don't coordinate explicitly between the kernel and the thread library to control scheduling at the OS level (which, of course, gives you an abusable system API to raise your own priority). Such coordination is expensive and reduces performance.

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  8. I called it by glyph42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I called this when the PhysX cards first came out. I told my excited coworkers, "these cards are going to be irrelevant pretty soon, because it will all move to the GPU". They looked at me funny.

    --
    Music speeds up when you yawn, but does not change pitch.
    1. Re:I called it by ruiner13 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Awesome! Would you like a medal or a monument? What stocks should I buy next week? Who will become the next president, oh wise prophet?

      --

      today is spelling optional day.

    2. Re:I called it by neveragain4181 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hi

      We need an address for your 'Sarcastic Achievement - Level 3' certificate - you'll have to pay postage, but I'm sure you won't mind that, right?

      Ned Again
      COO - Sarcasm Society
      Level 5 Sarcasm Ninja (certified)

    3. Re:I called it by slaker · · Score: 0, Troll

      That is kind of a non-sequitur when you work in a whorehouse.

      --
      -- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
    4. Re:I called it by Barny · · Score: 1

      Of course not that NV were packaging a GPU accelerated Havok engine with TWIMTBP for developers (look at company of heroes for that kind of thing), their plans with Havok dropped out when Intel brought the engine tech, so NV secured Ageia so that this time its tech can't be yanked out from under it.

      A fun thing to do, load up all your favorite games, and actually watch the intros, how many have TWIMTBP, how many of the new games from these makers will require a NV card for their games physics to run well?

      --
      ...
      /me sighs
    5. Re:I called it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think what he wants is his own slashdot-publicized column since his number of correct predictions is roughly the same as Dvorak's.

  9. and the mac osx drivers by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 1

    and the mac osx drivers

    1. Re:and the mac osx drivers by rootooftheworld · · Score: 1

      why doesent anyone port I/O Kit from Mac OS X to linux (or *BSD)?

      --
      I know full well that tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack
  10. heh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh gee this sounds so nice for the 3 games that will use it, but I wonder if it will crash and burn the 700 series chipset motherboards like their video corruption issue. LOL

  11. Interesting Moderation by JeremyBanks · · Score: 1, Funny

    I love that this was modded insightful.

  12. Why keep the specialized interface? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They got rid of the specialized hardware, why keep the the specialized interface?

    If you use standard shaders for these pre-render calculations you can avoid excluding support for half the graphics hardware available on market, possibly a license fee aswell.

    How anti-opensource and non-slashdot for supporting this attempt of NVIDIA to monopolize.

    1. Re:Why keep the specialized interface? by Timothy+Brownawell · · Score: 1

      If you use standard shaders for these pre-render calculations you can avoid excluding support for half the graphics hardware available on market, possibly a license fee aswell. And why would NVIDIA want to forgo a chance at forcing customer lock-in like that? (Well, unless they thought they might be considered a monopoly, making such harmful anti-social behavior also illegal...)
  13. Do they do their accounting like Apple does? by bwalling · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If they do, it'll cost $15 for the driver to enable this.

    1. Re:Do they do their accounting like Apple does? by MagdJTK · · Score: 1

      I'm assuming you're talking about the 802.11n controversy? That was actually down to anti-monopoly laws; Apple were legally obliged to charge people a certain amount for the upgrade.

    2. Re:Do they do their accounting like Apple does? by bwalling · · Score: 1

      The iPod Touch updates cost money, whereas the iPhone updates don't. Reasoning is that the Touch revenue is recognized at time of sale, and iPhone revenue is spread over many months. One would expect nVidia to take the revenue when they sell the card, so if Apple are correct with their argument about adding functionality and the accounting, nVidia would need to charge. The post was mostly in jest.

  14. title ? by smoker2 · · Score: 1

    NVIDIA To Enable PhysX For Full Line of GPUs
    No, actually they are adding it to new editions of their cards. Not current cards already in machines. It is not a driver update.

    1. Re:title ? by dave420 · · Score: 1

      Read the article again. Then read your post again. Then realise where you went wrong.

  15. Audio on stream processors? by Lukiano · · Score: 1

    I'm still patiently waiting for an Audio "processor" that uses these capabilities. Let's say, a GPGPU OpenAL Driver that outputs to your motherboard DAC, or that uses SPDIF with an GPGPU-enabled Dolby Digital Encoder.

  16. Word War vi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Word War vi is about a pilot flying above a planet called Emacs. The goal is to shoot all the creatures and buildings, unanimously named "macros."

    I would like my trophy made of Pewter, thanks.