Nvidia Support for AGEIA PhysX Processors is Dead

[spoofedpacket]

[citation][nom]7amood[/nom]how to "discontinue support" and "back the technology" at the same time??isn't AGEIA = PhysX???which one is dead now??? please enlighten me[/citation]

Read the article, smart boy, and you might just figure it out.

 

[Caffeinecarl]

I wonder... what about the dedicated type of PhysX on cards like the 9800GTX+/GTS 250 and the GTX 260+?

If it does anything at all, come up with a final driver just for the standalone cards and let that be it. Just my 2 cents.

 

[kronos_cornelius]

One thing I don't get is: if Nvidia has the Fermi card re-engineered to be closer to multipurpose vector computing, that should mean that it can do 3D and physics equally well depending on the algorithm. Then, what is the PhyX tech bringing to the table ? The new Fermi + OpenCL standard or CUDA should make PhyX obsolete.

 

[redrabbit803]

If i'm not correct didn't AMD say PhysX would die back in December of 2008; two years after AMD acquired ATI. In my opinion there was nothing wrong with PhysX processor other than the lack of drivers. As far as games, Nvidia should have worked with the people of Havoc to where the Havoc engine supported the PhysX processor for physics acceleration. Kind of like how photoshop is faster with cuda support.

 

[Guest]

Another $$$ wasting add on card down bites the dust. In your next comp. just waste the money on a Killer NIC, or actually make some use of it with a new SSD.

 

[knowom]

Win it just means they can concentrate more resources on making CUDA/PhysX better. The only people that get burnt really are ATI so who cares let em cry about it!

 

[captaincharisma]

[citation][nom]stm1185[/nom] or actually make some use of it with a new SSD.[/citation]

lol SSD drive? really? lets see.... spend 100 bucks on a 1TB hard drive or spend 50-100+ bucks more on a SSD drive that is like 30-100GB that will just give a 1-5% increase in performance. ya SSD drives are a really smart move

 

[husker]

[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]lol SSD drive? really? lets see.... spend 100 bucks on a 1TB hard drive or spend 50-100+ bucks more on a SSD drive that is like 30-100GB that will just give a 1-5% increase in performance. ya SSD drives are a really smart move[/citation]
Okay, lets not be hating on SSD drives! Besides, not everything is about performance increases. Would you (did you) pay extra for a monitor larger than 12 inches, even though the larger screen offers no performance gain an may even be a performance drain. It ain't all about the numbers.

 

[Guest]

1-5% increase in performance? Stop pulling numbers out of your a$$ lol. SSDs are not only quicker by data transfer outright (on most SSDs) but they slaughter HDDs when it comes to IOP/s which is why they make a huge difference when used as the OS drive.

 

[meowkitty77]

[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]lol SSD drive? really? lets see.... spend 100 bucks on a 1TB hard drive or spend 50-100+ bucks more on a SSD drive that is like 30-100GB that will just give a 1-5% increase in performance. ya SSD drives are a really smart move[/citation]

Do research before you start running your mouth please. I have an Intel SSD, and many, excluding people who actually own one like me will tell you its a very big difference. My computer boots in under 30 seconds, absolutely no wait once it gets to desktop, can use programs INSTANTLY. Not only that, every program I start will start instantly with zero wait, and I load maps much faster in games, including TF2, BFBC2, and the SC2 Beta.

Seek time and Read/Write Rates. DO SOME RESEARCH.

It makes everyday usage of my computer unbelievably faster, I can't even use other peoples computers now, because they are so slow.

 

[liquidsnake718]

Yeah its been about time to upgrade if you are still using a physX standalone processor, coz you can basically buy a 9600gt or better to use as a dedicated physX card if you have 2 pcie2.0 slots on your mb... Nvidia does need to step up on their marketing for physX and impliment it for free with more new games....

 

[Chris_TC]

[citation][nom]LATTEH[/nom]Well they should start making it so its more capable of running on the CPU instead.... otherwise whats the use? if we have a Intel GPU or ATI gpu we won't be able to use your techneogy[/citation]
Isn't that the point? Extra functionality can influence buyers' decisions. I'm the perfect example. If ATI had CUDA (and to a lesser extent PhysX) I'd immediately buy a 5970.

But I do more on my machine than play games, so I have to stick with nVidia for now.

 

[Guest]

i don't even know what the hell it was used for.

 

[cronik93]

PhysX was useless anyway.

 

[Onus]

I have Sacred 2, which uses PhysX, but I have a HD5770 now and I'm not willing to play driver version games. NVidia said "all or nothing," and my answer is, "Ok, NOTHING."

 

[dtemple]

This is unsurprising, the original dedicated PhysX cards were based on some sort of GeforceFX chip. I wouldn't expect them to continue supporting that now.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Corporate acquisitions happen all the time. Sometimes the acquiring compnay just grabs what it was after and lets the rest of the acquired company disappear. It happens all the time.

 

[brendano257]

[citation][nom]husker[/nom]Okay, lets not be hating on SSD drives! Besides, not everything is about performance increases. Would you (did you) pay extra for a monitor larger than 12 inches, even though the larger screen offers no performance gain an may even be a performance drain. It ain't all about the numbers.[/citation]


Well....the SSD isn't exactly an aesthetic device either. The problem with them is they are only an enthusiast product at this point. They are still too expensive for the average user, not to mention small enough where you definitely require a separate storage drive, which the average user won't like to set up. I have a main drive and a storage drive, but I just can't justify an SSD yet because of the price per GB.

 

[alyoshka]

It's petty much bad policy to stop supporting old hardware of a company you bought over..... it's like buying a car and the manufacturer is bought over by merc which stop servicing the earlier make cos of a name change.....

 

[kelemvor4]

What's with all these people commenting who didn't even read the article. PhysX didn't die, the tech was not "Shelved" nothing of the sort. Old outdated physx cards made by agea are being phased out. Current GPU's perform better anyway. If you want dedicated physx, get a gt200 cheap on ebay. From what I read, ATI users can even use these for physx.

Not like it matters anyway, physx support is built into too few games for me to care.

 

[CaptainBib]

Physx is nothing more than an application of CUDA, old Ageia cards couldn't even run it very well. A gt240 (~$100) is all the physx card you'll ever need, so its not very expensive to upgrade from an Ageia card.

Physx has MUCH more potential than Havok, Havok runs in software whereas Physx is hardware accelerated; Physx can do more and do it faster.

The problem is no game is physics based (you might be able to blow up trees, but you won't kill anyone with the shrapnel) so Physx is more of an extra that many developers don't bother with.

 

[alyoshka]

Although I have a Ageia Physx card, I really do like the effects it and the minute details it has been showing while playing GRAW and a few others. The problem is that it does heatup a hell of a lot. I can agree that newer tech maybe better than the old stuff. But since they never had it in the older cards thats why Ageia had an opportunity to come out with a dedicated card, what Nvidia has done , is, just bought over the whole thing, inculcated it into the newer cards and now, discontinued it.
I really have no idea if this is going to work with my ATI XFire cards but I will try and see to it that it does......
Really bad policy though.

 

[drowned]

What ever happened to the good ole days when they would retire something by blowing it up. Nothing says PhysX like pieces of it flying everywhere...

 

[Syndil]

PhysX? Don't care.

 

[bochica]

Nvidia is only dropping support on the Ageia card, not the GeForce cards with the built-in PPU as it is pretty much included with the GeForce drivers. Read the article.

The PhysX has been built in the cards since the 200 series (ATI has the Havok system which both Nvidia and ATI were working on before Nvidia took PhysX), they don't need the Ageia card anymore. Plus Ageia only made one PPU card, and that was years ago. It is an old hardware, and it time to let it go. Any company would drop support on it, not just Nvidia.

Hell, it was released during the Radeon X1xxx/GeForce 7xxx days, was running on the standard PCI bus, and was $250 when it first came out. Like others have stated, it is probably time for you to upgrade. You can probably spend $120, more or less, and get a PPU supported graphics card which is much faster and better developed than the Ageia card itself.