OC3D Review: Cell Factor Revolution

[FarFarAway]

Cell factor Showcases Ageia's PhysX...but is it any good?

We take a look...

Link

 

[Joe]

bleh phys processors shoved on a PCi bus are fricking pointless

with multi Core systems becoming the norm these will be made redundant , and quickly.

Even If a game engine is not programmed in Parallel/Smp there could easily be a seperate physics engine running on another core and it and the game engine could talk using a 'software bus'

but nice review ... i may get it (even @ 58% i want a nice looking shooter to play )

 

[FarFarAway]

And hey - it's free

 

[Ham]

Tech showcase imo, not a game.

 

[Joe]

Tech showcase imo, not a game.

mindless blaster with some flair but yea a showcase of a pointless tech

 

[jiffz]

Awesome review Kempez - was a good read

Nice to see they are trying to offer real-life physics, where everything is destructible & movable. Do you think newer graphics cards / dual core systems, will be able to cover what the PhysX card is supposed to do?

 

[FarFarAway]

I don't think so actually. The operations done on the PhysX are pretty complicated and are better suited to either the PhysX card itself or a GPU, rather than a Multi-Purpose CPU with brute force

ATI have shown some pretty tech demo's on this done on the GPU, but nothing solid like a game as of yet

 

[jiffz]

I did always wonder where the responsibility for physics lie in a system - CPU or GPU. Seems the Phys card can take care of it all. Would be great if games utilised these cards and similar cards were brought out to compete, drive down prices and further develop physics engines.

I'd love a game like DOD:S with a totally destructable enviroment. It would stop some players camping in the same spot (boring) and force them to assess the battlefield in it's current state to find a new spot. You could also make new routes to flank the enemy/objectives. No game would be played the same again!

 

[FarFarAway]

Agreed mate, would be great

I think a CPU could cope with some Physics, but not on the scale that PhysX/ATI's tech demo's have shown

 

[Joe]

Agreed mate, would be great

I think a CPU could cope with some Physics, but not on the scale that PhysX/ATI's tech demo's have shown

you say that now but wait until intel have 8 cores in ur box ... only 1 being used for the actual game engine / A.I.

 

[FarFarAway]

you say that now but wait until intel have 8 cores in ur box ... only 1 being used for the actual game engine / A.I.

In theory yes but hopefully games are going to be using multiple cores.

Plus a GPU has like 128 pipelines or whatever - which is where GPU architecture (and physx) come out on top with physics