Ageia Physics Accelerator & Sims?

I checked out the website for the Ageia PhysX accelerator boards and while it listed 100 games and 60+ developers, the closest to a sim I saw was a space shooter. The hardware looks to be as impressive as the breakthroughs 3d video cards provided, but what, IF ANY, driving/racing sims will make use of these cards? Anyone hear of any developers looking into this area? dave henrie

On Tue, 02 May 2006 23:15:43 -0500, Dave Henrie <[email hidden]> wrote: > I checked out the website for the Ageia PhysX accelerator boards and >while it listed 100 games and 60+ developers, the closest to a sim I saw >was a space shooter. > The hardware looks to be as impressive as the breakthroughs 3d video >cards provided, but what, IF ANY, driving/racing sims will make use of >these cards? Anyone hear of any developers looking into this area? Isn't Microsoft planning on adding a physics API to DirectX? I guess most developers will wait for that. Beside, how many of these physics boards are sold yet? Cheers! Remco

Alienware is shipping their newest PC's with the PhysX chip now. http://www.alienware.com/intro_pages/ageia_physx.aspx http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Area-51_7500/area-51_7500_features.aspx?SysCode=PC-AREA51-7500-R2&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Aurora_7500/aurora_7500_features.aspx?SysCode=PC-AURORA-7500-R2&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT http://www.alienware.com/ALX_pages/choose_alx.aspx What I've been told is that the Novodex engine (used for the chip) isn't particularly suited to high accuracy simulation stuff and may not be good for serious car sims. It's fantastic for other stuff though and the fluid dynamics stuff is very impressive indeed.

Dave Henrie wrote:

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> I checked out the website for the Ageia PhysX accelerator boards and > while it listed 100 games and 60+ developers, the closest to a sim I saw > was a space shooter. > The hardware looks to be as impressive as the breakthroughs 3d video > cards provided, but what, IF ANY, driving/racing sims will make use of > these cards? Anyone hear of any developers looking into this area? > > dave henrie

It's nice technology but nobody is going to buy one. Yea they could bundle it on other hardware but why bother? After this first wave no software company is going to risk investing in this. And how would it affect multiplayer? It's not a big deal if someone has different graphics than another player, but what if they had different physics?

"Todd Wasson" <[email hidden]> wrote in news:[email hidden]:

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> Alienware is shipping their newest PC's with the PhysX chip now. > > http://www.alienware.com/intro_pages/ageia_physx.aspx > > http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Area-51_7500/area-51_7500 > _features.aspx?SysCode=PC-AREA51-7500-R2&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT > > http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Aurora_7500/aurora_7500_f > eatures.aspx?SysCode=PC-AURORA-7500-R2&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT > > http://www.alienware.com/ALX_pages/choose_alx.aspx > > What I've been told is that the Novodex engine (used for the chip) > isn't particularly suited to high accuracy simulation stuff and may > not be good for serious car sims. It's fantastic for other stuff > though and the fluid dynamics stuff is very impressive indeed. >

My thought would be possibly the enviroment could be assisted. Instead of having ROCK SOLID tirewalls or haybales, we could have deformable objects. Anything that could take some of the load off the cpu. However, my biggest worry about this technology now is the state of this hardware's development. Is this a matue product that will make leaps and bounds improvements in gameplay? Or is this the equivalent of the S3 Virge, a 3d card so weak it really wasn't even a 3d accelerator. and now to Rex's thoughts: ------------ It's nice technology but nobody is going to buy one. Yea they could bundle it on other hardware but why bother? After this first wave no software company is going to risk investing in this. And how would it affect multiplayer? It's not a big deal if someone has different graphics than another player, but what if they had different physics? ----------- In a way we have already had that situation for years. I had a 386sx, My buddy had a 486. He had better 'physics' because his system could respond better to his input than mine. (in games like doom, I could sneak up behind him, start shooting, and he could turn and then begin shooting and quickly fire more shots that I could even with a head start. I'm sure when the first 3dfx card was displayed with what? the $200 price tag, NOBODY thought ANYONE would spend that much money for just a few more colored objects on a screen. Thanks guys for the input dh

As somebody who bought a Rendition 1000 card, let's just say I'm not going to be the guinea pig this time around... ;)

Dave Henrie wrote: > I'm sure when the first 3dfx card was displayed with what? the $200 > price tag, NOBODY thought ANYONE would spend that much money for just a few > more colored objects on a screen. I agree. Remember the hoohah when the first games that required a 3d graphics accelerator with no option to play it without. Heck I go back to when sound cards were optional - who remembers Test Drive - The Duel, RAC Rally and Indy 500 with the PC speaker providing the "effects". Old gits only should reply :) Cheers Tony

> I agree. Remember the hoohah when the first games that required a 3d > graphics accelerator with no option to play it without. Heck I go back to > when sound cards were optional - who remembers Test Drive - The Duel, RAC > Rally and Indy 500 with the PC speaker providing the "effects". Old gits > only should reply :) Eww....you used a crumby PC back then? Those were the days when the Commodore 64 and then the Amiga reigned supreme...! (and were much cheaper) :-D

"Steve Simpson" <[email hidden]> wrote in news:445ab920$[email hidden]:

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>> I agree. Remember the hoohah when the first games that required a 3d >> graphics accelerator with no option to play it without. Heck I go >> back to when sound cards were optional - who remembers Test Drive - >> The Duel, RAC Rally and Indy 500 with the PC speaker providing the >> "effects". Old gits only should reply :) > > Eww....you used a crumby PC back then? Those were the days when the > Commodore 64 and then the Amiga reigned supreme...! (and were > much cheaper) :-D >

Don't get me started on Amigas. I waited and waited for WING COMMANDER and Ultima 5 to get ported over to the Amiga and when they did, they used half the colors and ran twice as slow as native Amiga products. I went to a local Amiga dealer and the Commodore Newsletter he had displayed trumpeted how Commodore was going broke. I walked out of there with still having a thousands bucks to spend and never felt so dirty as when I bought a pc the next day. dave henrie

On Thu, 04 May 2006 23:11:02 -0500, Dave Henrie wrote: > Don't get me started on Amigas. I waited and waited for WING COMMANDER > and Ultima 5 to get ported over to the Amiga and when they did, they used Looks like you were late to the party. Those were the days when games were already being written for the PC, not as native Amiga games (heck, Civ was a bugfest on the Amiga). > trumpeted how Commodore was going broke. I walked out of there with still > having a thousands bucks to spend and never felt so dirty as when I bought > a pc the next day. No worries, you should be thankful you didn't join the pc crowd when they were the laughing stock of the gaming community ;) All the best, Uwe -- GPG Fingerprint: 2E 13 20 22 9A 3F 63 7F 67 6F E9 B1 A8 36 A4 61

Uwe =?iso-8859-15?Q?Sch=FCrkamp?= <[email hidden]> wrote in news:[email hidden]:

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> On Thu, 04 May 2006 23:11:02 -0500, Dave Henrie wrote: >> Don't get me started on Amigas. I waited and waited for WING >> COMMANDER >> and Ultima 5 to get ported over to the Amiga and when they did, they >> used > > Looks like you were late to the party. Those were the days when games > were already being written for the PC, not as native Amiga games > (heck, Civ was a bugfest on the Amiga). > >> trumpeted how Commodore was going broke. I walked out of there with >> still having a thousands bucks to spend and never felt so dirty as >> when I bought a pc the next day. > > No worries, you should be thankful you didn't join the pc crowd when > they were the laughing stock of the gaming community ;) > > All the best, Uwe

I've still got my Texas Instruments TI 99. Maybe one of you dinosaurs want's to buy it off me to relive those glorious days ;) Don

Don Scurlock wrote: > > I've still got my Texas Instruments TI 99. Maybe one of you dinosaurs > want's to buy it off me to relive those glorious days ;) > > Don I think I can trump that... I believe I still have my very first "PC" in storage, A Coleco ADAM! -- Scott B. Husted http://www.Husted.cc

"Scott B. Husted" <[email hidden]> wrote in news:8oScnXvEr_ [email hidden]:

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> Don Scurlock wrote: >> >> I've still got my Texas Instruments TI 99. Maybe one of you dinosaurs >> want's to buy it off me to relive those glorious days ;) >> >> Don > > I think I can trump that... I believe I still have my very first "PC" > in storage, A Coleco ADAM! > >

I had the Coleco game unit...not the Adam, I did learn how to make Smurfette drop her skirt and show off her bloomers. I also had the Atari 2600 adapter for the Coleco that allowed all the Atari cartidges to play via the Coleco. And prior to that, it was a Magnovox Oddyssey II with the world's first cartridge loaded RPG. The 2nd generation Oddyssey cart-based games that came out just prior to it's demise were light years ahead of the Atari. Then I graduated to a cassette loaded Vic 20, before getting a C-64 with not one but TWO modded disk drives so I could use either one as the main drive and backup with the other. (there was some mod needed to bypass some copy protection.) I am glad I finally outgrew my outright theft of software. Then again, some of the games I played most on the C-64 were hand typed machine language monsters from magazines. I must have had ALOT of time on my hands.... dave henrie

Dave, Funny thing abour your history, relative to mine, I recall having my Amiga 3000 and also having the nerve desperate desire, to sneak into my "PC" classmate's dorm room, (with fear of persecution from my Amiga buddies, ya know) jones'n to run NR(1) on his (at the time) half decent pc... that was the year & week (flinching) I joined the dark side... that year I also realized I would need a degree in Computers, thanks to these POS things from Intel & MS, I knew there would be a huge industry of computer support from about week one on windblows... LOL! For the record, I even tried to make one of those 386 on a card for the Amiga work well enough to run Nascar, lol, before I gave up on that sheet... Dave Henrie enlightened us with:

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> "Scott B. Husted" <[email hidden]> wrote in news:8oScnXvEr_ > [email hidden]: > >> Don Scurlock wrote: >>> >>> I've still got my Texas Instruments TI 99. Maybe one of you >>> dinosaurs want's to buy it off me to relive those glorious days ;) >>> >>> Don >> >> I think I can trump that... I believe I still have my very first >> "PC" in storage, A Coleco ADAM! >> >> > > I had the Coleco game unit...not the Adam, I did learn how to make > Smurfette drop her skirt and show off her bloomers. > I also had the Atari 2600 adapter for the Coleco that allowed all the > Atari cartidges to play via the Coleco. And prior to that, it was a > Magnovox Oddyssey II with the world's first cartridge loaded RPG. > The 2nd generation Oddyssey cart-based games that came out just prior > to it's demise were light years ahead of the Atari. Then I > graduated to a cassette loaded Vic 20, before getting a C-64 with not > one but TWO modded disk drives so I could use either one as the main > drive and backup with the other. (there was some mod needed to > bypass some copy protection.) I am glad I finally outgrew my > outright theft of software. Then again, some of the games I played > most on the C-64 were hand typed machine language monsters from > magazines. I must have had ALOT of time on my hands.... > > dave henrie

"Dave Henrie" wrote..

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> <snip> > ----------- > In a way we have already had that situation for years. I had a > 386sx, My buddy had a 486. He had better 'physics' because > his system could respond better to his input than mine. (in games > like doom, I could sneak up behind him, start shooting, and he > could turn and then begin shooting and quickly fire more shots > that I could even with a head start.

Lol Dave, your comment brought up a memory from my first LAN game among friends. We were playing Quake and my PII-233MHz was struggling to keep up. I could see myself being gibbed on the monitor next to me as I was still trying to duck this guy's rockets... Thanks for the chuckle!! Jan. =---