Jump to content

AGEIA PhysX Cards


The JD

Recommended Posts

As everyone who's anyone probably knows, the next big things to hit the PC gaming world are Game Physics Cards. At the moment I have only heard about one such company that makes these cards and that is: AGEIA. I've already played Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter which supports this and even without the hardware, the software rendered a pretty good physics system.

I was just wondering if the new GTA IV will use this technology. It's coming out two years from now and it also is having a graphics engine makeover so will R* juice it up some more by using the PhysX cards?

Your thoughts and comments please...

Edited by The JD
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well if it's 2 years until release then R* won't use it for GTA IV, simply because GTAIV for the PC is likely to also be 2 years away.

It won't be ready for them to develop for it.

Ahh you misunderstood! The card is already out. I meant that GTA IV is coming out in 2 years for the PC. R* had better not leave us PC fans in the dust. It will be the end of GTA Modding as we know it! Unless of course someone actually manages to make a mod for a PS3 or Xbox 360 although the probability of this happening is very low indeed.

Does anyone actually have any evidence (Hard or Circumstantial) to suggest

that a PC release of GTA IV is unlikely?

Spaz: The benefits are huge! I mean, imagine completely destructible 3D environments, a feature that has been posted on the GTA IV wishlist a million times. Then comes better car physics, airplane handling in extreme weather conditions etc. Just check the website out. Its got an entire section on the benefits.

Edited by The JD
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unless you didn't know, all those "improved physics" are just eye-candys. They don't provide any real phisycs. That card just adds more effects to the game, but they don't influence the gameplay.

Example: A grenade explodes and deals 100HP damage to all units in an area. Without PhysX card, you just see a normal, "classical explosion". With that card, you'll see a grenade exploding and lots of clusters appearing, smoke, bigger explosions, objects tearing appart... However, that's all that card does. It doesn't calculate the speed, weight, or damage caused by every cluster. Those clusters won't damage nearby objects, they'll just dissapear when they make a contact with an obstacle (or dissapear in the air).

Still, this looks good, but the card costs about 250$, and as an alternative you can use Havok FX engine (software renderer) that is free for all nVidia users with new graphics cards. So I think it would be better to buy another graphics card and put them together into SLI, where one GPU makes physics caluculations and another renders picture. If a game doesn't support Havok FX, then you can run a game with better quality.

Software wins among hardware!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Example: A grenade explodes and deals 100HP damage to all units in an area. Without PhysX card, you just see a normal, "classical explosion". With that card, you'll see a grenade exploding and lots of clusters appearing, smoke, bigger explosions, objects tearing appart... However, that's all that card does. It doesn't calculate the speed, weight, or damage caused by every cluster. Those clusters won't damage nearby objects, they'll just dissapear when they make a contact with an obstacle (or dissapear in the air).

Actually, the reason these clusters would appear is because your graphics card(s) do not have to handle the physics side of gameplay, allowing it/them to produce more realistic graphics, because the physx card does that. However, you need compatible games for this to be realised...

Edited by Noz51
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...