Ageia's PhysX PPU

[Blade]

Ageia is a new company and has a new idea. They want to take the load off of the CPU and GPU by creating a PPU (Physics Processing Unit). This is not only supposed to reduce the load, but is also supposed to add phenomenal effects to environments.

BFG's AGEIA PhysX PPU Action Accelerator Card Review
On the last page of the review, PC Perspective talks about an email that was written by Havok that talks about how framerates are reduced in the new Ghost Recon (which is supposed to support the new PhysX card). Apparently Havok was used instead of Novodex. They say that the GPU is not at fault for this decrease in framerate, but PhysX is. Ageia then looked at their driver where they found a mistake. I haven't seen an article that uses the updated driver so I don't know whether or not the updated driver fixes the issue.
AGEIA PhysX Physics Processing Unit Preview

I really believe that in the future when prices decrease, and compatibility increases, the card can actually be utilized to it's full potential. But right now because of all the limitations the card isn't worth its $350 CDN. The images shown in the articles don't really show very much improvement, but what they say this card is actually capable of is exciting and I can't wait until videogames are produced utilizing this technology. I hope this idea lives on long enough and manufacturers support it integrating it into videogames.

[Guest]

Maybe if it's out by the PS4, we will have actual Toy Story Graphics like Sony promised with the PS2.

[Blade]

haha yeah, i think in one of the articles, they mentioned that it should've been used in consoles because then they wouldnt as much trouble developing games for it. because everyone would have one in that console (unlike PC's) the game developers could utilize it a lot better