Pave Low Posted February 14, 2008 Share Posted February 14, 2008 Hot on the heels on the news of NVIDIA purchasing Ageia (see here) The Tech Report have posted the following: GeForce 8 graphics processors to gain PhysX support by Cyril Kowaliski — 10:39 AM on February 14, 2008 During Nvidia's fourth-quarter financial results conference call, Nvidia shed a little more light on its acquisition of Ageia and what it plans to do with the firm's PhysX technology. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang made no announcements regarding the deal until asked in the question-and-answer session, but he was happy to divulge a decent number of details. Huang revealed that Nvidia's strategy is to take the PhysX engine and port it onto CUDA. For those not in the know, CUDA stands for Compute Unified Device Architecture, and it's a C-like application programming interface Nvidia developed to let programmers write general-purpose applications that can run on GPUs. All of Nvidia's existing GeForce 8 graphics processors already support CUDA, and Huang confirmed that the cards will be able to run PhysX. We're working toward the physics-engine-to-CUDA port as we speak. And we intend to throw a lot of resources at it. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if it helps our GPU sales even in advance of [the port's completion]. The reason is, [it's] just gonna be a software download. Every single GPU that is CUDA-enabled will be able to run the physics engine when it comes. . . . Every one of our GeForce 8-series GPUs runs CUDA. Huang thinks the integration will encourage people to spend more on graphics processing hardware, as well: Our expectation is that this is gonna encourage people to buy even better GPUs. It might—and probably will—encourage people to buy a second GPU for their SLI slot. And for the highest-end gamer, it will encourage them to buy three GPUs. Potentially two for graphics and one for physics, or one for graphics and two for physics. Last, but not least, Huang said developers are "really excited" about the PhysX-to-CUDA port. "Finally they're able to get a physics engine accelerated into a very large population of gamers," he explained. Huang was unwilling to get into a time frame for the release of the first PhysX port. However, considering this will be purely a software implementation and Nvidia now has Ageia engineers on its payroll, the port may not take too long to complete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted February 14, 2008 Share Posted February 14, 2008 I'll wait and see if they can pull it off without huge FPS issues, if they do, this could be a big selling point for the 8000 series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firefly2442 Posted February 14, 2008 Share Posted February 14, 2008 So it's going to be a firmware upgrade for the card? Pretty cool if they can pull it off. Heck, I've got one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buehgler_AS Posted February 14, 2008 Share Posted February 14, 2008 To quote the quote from the OP "[it's] just gonna be a software download" should be no firmware magic required. The 8 series GPUs are really quite generic computing devices, it will probably just be a change to the driver that will dedicate pert of your GPU to running the CUDA implementation of the PhysX system. I guess I was more on track than I had thought here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutlink Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 The only thing I wonder about is performance. Is my 8800GTS going to perform like a 8600GTS if I enable Physx processing on it or not? Guess we'll have to wait and see. I don't want to spend several hundred on an SLI setup to have one card used for physics and the other for graphics when I can use a dedicated PPU that cost less than $100. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoQuarter Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 ^ First rule of economics; if there is competition, eat the competition, and profit off of it. ____ Whatever they come up with (software/firmware), I hope it is true and the first-run 8800GTXs' are grandfathered in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROCO*AFZ* Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 ^ First rule of economics; if there is competition, eat the competition, and profit off of it. ____ Whatever they come up with (software/firmware), I hope it is true and the first-run 8800GTXs' are grandfathered in. Agreed... my 8800GTX is itching to handle some physics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CR6 Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 That is just an amazingly cool bonus for GF8xxx users. But I agree with Rocky ... would be curious about the frame-rate hit, especially for the lower end cards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRIN_Wolfsong Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 (edited) It's been a little over a month since Nvidia bought AGEIA Technologies... And what we've all known for a long time has now finally come to happen. No more physics cards. The physics card as a hardware device will die. Nvidia spokespersons were very precise about that as they said that the current PhysX cards will be the first and the last of their kind. http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=c...57&Itemid=1 [Moved to PC Hardware forum and merged with similar thread on this] Edited March 10, 2008 by Pave Low Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dporter Posted March 11, 2008 Share Posted March 11, 2008 I wonder if this means that the current PhysX cards will start selling for cheaper. If they are I'd actually think about picking one up. Don't they only take up a pci 1.0 slot? Would be cool to see some more of the effects in GRAW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted March 11, 2008 Share Posted March 11, 2008 God Im glad I bought a g8800gtx when I did and not a cheaper card and a Pysics card too. Pave. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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