ASUS AGEIA PhysX Card In February

if bf2 comes out with a patch that uses this and it adds like 30fps, id get it

Would make a cool new onboard feature for mainboards.

It will be interesting to see how this is recieved. Personally I think this is going to be a really hard sell. 'Better' physics in existing doesn't really do it for me, but if for instance there was a game like Red Faction (only better) that had crazy destructable environments, where you could take down huge buildings with enough firepower, then maybe.

But untill this has a killer app to jump start it, I predict this is going to be 'trickleware'.

The only thing I see working in AGEIA's advantage is the next gen consoles. As developers learn to take advantage of multi core processing and can dediate a core or two to crazy physics, PC ports will probably wind up utilizing 3rd party physics solutions more and more. But even still, it's going to be like pushing a trailer up a hill with a rope. Especially when the cards are ~$300.

i think taking advantage of dual core systems would be a better way to go

Where's a list of games that will support this? It's a good concept if it can really take a lot of stress off a CPU, but a game needs to support it. So...? What games will take advantage of this.

Also, I'm wondering how this will affect the development of games. More time to code it? Less time? hmmm.... hm hm hm hmm...

My dear Shackers, your lack of faith and optimism worries me :)

sweet hobo dick another add on card to play video games? im going console come ps3

The problem is that you can't scale physics like you can graphics. If you have physics in a game that are any more than show, you have to calculate it the same whether or not you have a "physics accelerator". Sure, you can accelerate leaves blowing in the wind or something else that isn't really interactive, and just turn it off for people without the card, but what's the point?

Graphics scale much better. You can change resolution, color depth, texture size, model complexity (as long as the hitbox doesn't change), etc. But anything with a hitbox, anything the player can "touch" or can get in the way of a bullet, or greatly change line of sight, etc. needs to be calculated the same for consistency, especially in multiplayer.

Obviously games cannot require a physics accelerator. And the game has to essentially play the same whether or not you have this special card.

The barrier to entry here is really big. People are going to have to be willing to buy it just to get more eyecandy first, rather than more actual interactive physics.

This actually almost annoys/worries me.

If physics cards catch on, that's just another couple hundred dollar item to have to upgrade.

If there is enough game support and it's cheap enough I'll get one. But I'd like to see some videos with and without it first to see how big of a difference it can make. But then again if it can shift all of the physics load off of the CPU it should be a big FPS boost in some games.

I'll wait for the "2" version of this card.....

What will this bring to the table?

Haha. No.

Games Running the UnReal Engine 3.. will be why people buy this...

I hope something supports it out of the box other than silly demos.

Yes, this has been a rumour for some time now. Still no official announcements from AGEIA, ASUS or BFG, though...