Vanguard to support PhysX processor

[Persious]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/vangu...ml?sid=6146419

ran into this on the vanguardsoh.com forums, sorry if its already been posted here.

Ageia PhysX hits the market
Company announces availability of first physics processor, lists upcoming games lined up to use it.

With the Game Developers Conference (GDC) under way in San Jose, Ageia Technologies has taken the opportunity to trumpet a series of developments regarding its PhysX processor.

First and foremost, as of today, the chip is now available in new systems from Alienware, Falcon Northwest, and Dell. Add-in boards featuring the physics processing unit (PPU) are expected to be widely available starting in May. Ageia has designed the chip to handle complex real-time calculations that will allow games to have more varied and impressive visual effects, from explosions that never blow up the same way twice to environments that react appropriately to the natural physics of force, speed, volume, pressure, and density.

Fancy hardware doesn't mean much without games to play on it, and Ageia also announced a bunch of PhysX-supporting titles across major genres today, including Ubisoft's tactical shooter Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Epic Games' multiplayer first-person shooter Unreal Tournament 2007, and Big Huge Games' real-time strategy Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. Other titles in the works using the PhysX Accelerator include Sigil Games Online's massively multiplayer title Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Black Element Software's space shooter Alpha Prime, and Metropolis Software's third-person action game Infernal.

Console gamers aren't left out in the cold, as Ageia PhysX technology will also be incorporated into Sony's PlayStation 3. The company today announced that the latest version of its PhysX software development kit will be made available to PS3 development teams at the end of the month.
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By Brendan Sinclair
Posted Mar 22, 2006 12:55 pm PT

[Greymain]

Added one to my dream machine spec along with all that other stuff thats not in the shops yet.

I expect a "interesting" time getting it all working together!!!

[Persious]

I guess Nvidia fired back at this during GDC, announcing their version using the Havok FX physics stuff. However, the way I understand it the game you play has to exclusively support one of the various standards and the Nvidia version actually takes processor power from the GPU to run. In fact the Nvidia version when used in on SLI will render with one card and do physics calculations on the other!? Personaly I would much rather prefer running an independent PCIe PhysX board and sacrifice no video processing.

The 2 differing standards are fairly pointless to debate however as the game must be programmed to utilize what your playing. Thus the decision has sort of been made for us.

Information on the Nvidia system with havok FX http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...ZW50aHVzaWFzdA

[Jaeth]

Oh my, yet another component for my system - same as Grey, I guess.

[Pirotess]

Just when our boxes were starting to get empty of addon cards, another appears!

[Jaeth]

Man, laptops will fall even further behind performance-wise now.

[Cromulent]

It's a good thing that I am planning on waiting till a little nearer release to get a new computer. That way at least I'll be able to see what the game actually supports.

[tyR]

I'm a little scared to invest in a PPU. They may just become integrated into graphics chips and eaten up by nVidia and ATi. I've got a wait-and-see attitude.

[Greymain]

I look on it this way. I know Vanguard supports the card. I know that I can get a decent Video card at a reasonable cost. It is quite likely I will upgrade after a year so to swop my Video card and PPU card for a Video card with built in PPU would cost less. Whats more it will give enough time for standard drivers and interfaces to appear. I get the distinct feeling that ATI and Nvidia are rushing out fudged products simply to not be left out.

[TheKnight]

Until nVidia or ATI creates a GPU with 640 or 768MB memory (512 for the GPU, 128 or 256 for the PPU) it wouldn't be wise to combine the two.

I'll be getting one this summer, I"m waiting for Asus to put out their 256MB version.