Nvidia buys out Ageia..

[TrinireturnofGamez]

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14067


 This is both good and bad news, the good news is all the promising Physics technology Ageia was working on may not go to waste, incorporated into Nvidia graphics cards as a co-processor or on the die itself , it would reach millions of PCs rather than thousands.

 The bad thing is Nvidia may have such a superior product that AMD will be relegated to serving the ultra low end graphics market , leaving Nvidia with no competition for gaming products.

 This will hopefully be what pulls PCs ahead of consoles : DX10 graphics combined with ultra realistic physics , completely destructible worlds , more interaction etc.


Intel purchased Havok physics awhile ago , killing their implementation of GPU physics i believe .

Hopefully Intel stays true to their word and launches into the high end graphics market as well, competition is crucial.

[TriniXaeno]

was never impressed with ageia to be honest.

I figure the only reason we don't see completely destructible worlds is because it's a game play conundrum and not for lack of a dedicated physics processor.

as for pulling PCs ahead of consoles....how so? If it's a hit, consoles will implement the technology too. Granted we may have to wait for the xbox 1080 or Nintendo Pii to see it, lol

[Spazosaurus]

PC GPU's are already significantly more technically advanced than console GPU's. I can't possibly see that as being an argument. He probably means in terms of increased popularity and sales of pc's.

[TriniXaeno]

yeah, I mean everyone wants every bell and whistle, so if it's included on an nvidia gpu for a few pennies more and you can tick one additional box in the games config screen (physics...check!) then they'd definitely see increase in popularity.

AMD will have a hard time downplaying their lack of a physics option to the masses while nvidia could drum it up as the second coming.

good point.

less so a concern for the console argument.

[TrinireturnofGamez]

 A dedicated PhysX processor would make games a good bit less CPU Dependant .
 
 If some form of onboard Physics is available on the bulk of graphics cards, it may very well help lower the system requirements for PC gaming.

 If you dig up the old Cellfactor thread, most of the physX effects can be done on a normal dual core CPU fairly well , but with CPU usage shooting up very high.

If the technology were implemented tomorrow  , it may make it possible for someone with an old 2ghz P4 to game very happily as his graphics card is taking up much more of the work than before  .

  Hopefully games will start relying less and less on the general horsepower of a PC , and more on a single card that can be swapped out with ease .

We'd be going from the graphics card to the 'gaming' card.

  PC gaming would become alot more attractive if your old 500 USD dell could be turned into a gaming machine with the purchase of a 250USD card , same price as a 360 or Wii.

  Rather than having to spend 1500 or 2000 US for the latest tech.



 The 8800 GPU is over 600 million transistors fat, the next generation of stuff may be over 1.2billion , at that level squezing in a 125 million transistor PhysX co processor won't affect yields too much .

   

[Spazosaurus]

Trini makes much sense with the video card taking the brunt of the force exerted by games. Let's face it, video cards already have enough memory and processing power to be a PC by themselves.

But such a situation would exist only in a perfect world. What would happen to the board, cpu and memory manufacturers when dependence on their products is shifted entirely from their hands. I could think of more than a few manufacturers that wouldn't let something like that happen, even if hell frosw over.

[Trinitus]

"PC gaming would become alot more attractive if your old 500 USD dell could be turned into a gaming machine with the purchase of a 250USD card , same price as a 360 or Wii.
Rather than having to spend 1500 or 2000 US for the latest tech."

Or the companies could make a keyboard mouse port for those consoles and make special PC-like versions of those console games, which will eliminate PC gaming to an extent.

[Arcmanov]

Ah, but they already do.  The Xbox and PS3 have USB ports.  While the Xbox setup is kinda complicaed, the PS3 handles USB keyboards and mice quite handily for certain games.  Most notably, Unreal Tournament 3.

[Crixx_Creww]

eliminate pc games completely??

lawllll

iam sorry, there are far to many people that will never take a backwards step to console gaming

[TrinireturnofGamez]

PC gaming will never die simply because everyone in the middle class has a PC .

What will happen to PC gaming is that it will change : More focus on MMORPGs due to the huge income they can bring in , and much less on high budget PC exclusive titles like Crysis .

PC gaming will never die due to the simple fact that we'll be still playing DOTA, Starcraft II etc.  years from now just like how Starcraft has lasted a decade .

I don't think CPU and motherboard manufacturers will care too much  if a 'gaming card' made their products superfluous (for games) , Dell and other companies will still fool n00bs into buying high end stuff , and gaming is a small fraction of the market compared to video editing , servers etc.

What i'd love to see is Nvidia  one day buy out Creative , and integrate Sound   , Graphics and Physics onto one card. 100 US for a sound card is still robbery IMO .

[Spazosaurus]

Well we've long since established that PC gaming is here to stay. We've already beaten THAT argument to shreds.

While the idea of a gaming card that negates the need for a bess processor may not put CPU manus out of business, they damn well would care. Let's face it. I am CERTAIN that a significant percentage of high end CPU sales can be attributed to enthusiasts/rich kids who go on to use them to build their monstrous gaming rigs. When last you start a recent game and DIDN't see one of those "Intel inside" or "Plays best with Intel" clips? Nah, I think CPU manus will have a significant hissy fit.....then there's those who just wanna encode video (or some other cpu intensive task).

Remember, they have dedicated server part divisions (Read Opteron and Xeon for DAAMIT and Intel respectively) and a whole other bracket for the rest of us.

Look, even some of us buy server parts for use in gaming rigs.

Even if their server sales remain untouched, the rest of sales would taper off significantly. In a time when AMD isnt doing so great like nowtimes, a move to a "gaming card" could very likely mean the end of them. But now that they're in the gaming race as well, you can bet your sweet @ss that they eh supporting anything that will alienate any one of their interests.

[Crixx_Creww]

high end cpus do not make up the bulk of their business
so they wont care as much, what they would rather do is integrate graphics into their boards.


cpu manus make money from the business sector, aka integrated boards

and then the next bulk comes from their server market
then comes consumers


similarly graphic card companies make most of thier money from integrated chips and low and mid level graphics cards

high end is not where the money is

[Spazosaurus]

Yes yes high end cpu's dont account for the majority of their sales, but we not talking about that. We talking about GAMERS who would have gone for a high end CPU to complete their gaming rig now not doing so because of a gaming card. While CPU manus not depending on gamers to "eat ah food", they'll be losing out on that profit.

Think about it. Low end parts dont cost much, but the beauty comes in selling in quantities.

In contrast, high end cpu's dont sell in high quantities, but the high cost per unit is more than enough to pay for the big boys' salaries or that new fab, even if they sell in RELATIVELY lower quantities (we still talking about thousands or tens of thousands).

[TriniXaeno]

the biggest factor with the high end cpu is the mind share it brings.

sales is not an issue, but the fact that "company A's flagship cpu" wtfpwns the opposition gives the brand mind share as a superior product.

At one time. when AMD was top dog....people would buy semprons  gladly (even though they sucked) because AMD was generally considered a good option since the Athlon 64s were ripping up in benchmarks.

Likewise now that core 2 duo gettin on bad, people buying intel centrino rubbish like is the hottest thing since slice bread.

moral of the story, even though high end cpus don't sell loads, they are an integral part of the overall sales strategy as their performance affects the sales of their slower siblings.

[Crixx_Creww]

what wrong with centrinos?? lawll nothing?
centrino is their collection of mobile chipsets

is not like they using celerons in it
meroms and core duos
good stuff

[TriniXaeno]

The original centrino was a pack of bawls.

It only became respectable with later iterations.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrino

[Trinitus]

Whew thanks fellas my mind is at piece now on your comments, but one thing struck out and made sense, was the fact that gaming is only a small market in comparison to the other market uses of the PC.

But do those ports work properly, as in the sense that they are official?

[W1nTry]

News

Nvidia to buy Ageia

PC gaming going south fast

By INQUIRER Newsdesk: Tuesday, 05 February 2008, 12:38 AM

NVIDIA SAID it is to buy up 3D physics firm Ageia.

In a statement, chief Nvidian Jen-Hsun Huang reckons his outfit, "can now bring Geforce-accelerated Physx to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world."

The sound of hundreds of millions gamers yawning followed.

According to INQ hack Charlie Demerjian: "If PC gaming wasn't already headed headfirst into the toilet, this is a mighty strong wiggle of the handle."

Quite.

Well... Intel bought Havoc... so I guess it would make sense... with all the TWIMTBP games out there it should be quite a boost to the physics card to get swallowed by Nvidia.

[shivadee]

HA
ENT i tell alyuh that goin to happen
only a matter of time before PhysX integrated into GPU's