Hello PPU!
polycounter lvl 18
"...such cards can handle up to 50000 rigid bones. A CPU can do a couple hundred at the most. "
http://theinquirer.net/?article=21648
Now this is what I've been waiting for. Imagine 100 pawns runnig at you. Detonate a bomb into the middle of the pack. 800 body parts fly in 800 directions. Now that's fun!
http://theinquirer.net/?article=21648
Now this is what I've been waiting for. Imagine 100 pawns runnig at you. Detonate a bomb into the middle of the pack. 800 body parts fly in 800 directions. Now that's fun!
Replies
Heh, lost twins?
The technology sounds impressive. I wanna see demos, especially of water. NOW!
Edit: with the upcomming multicore CPUs it is much more likely that one of these paralell cores will be used for computing physics. Might not be as optimised, but a full 4ghz cpu just for physics (and currently they plan 2 and 4 core multicore cpus, but in the future there might be even more cores in one cpu) should be more than enought (hmmm, but didn't B.Gates say that about floppy disks too???)
AIR CURRENTS = the next lens flare!
WIND POWER... AIR CURRENTS
[/ QUOTE ]
Think of the possibilities! I could create a WW2 game!
if this card can do the physics on 50,000 bones, that still sounds like a lot more than the graphics card or the cpu can process as far as the geometry that's attached to it.
3 spine bones, 4 arm, 4 leg, 4 foot, 15 hand bones, makes 30 bones, on a few-thousand-or-so poly model. 30 goes into 50,000 1666 times. that's 1,666 models on screen.
obviously this ppu thing is amazing, and it's going to speed up games, and you're not going to have that many models on the screen at once ANYWAY, but it still seems that claiming it can do 50,000 bones is a bit of a bottleneck, because i can't immagine a way that there's going to be 50,000 bones worth of geo on the screen. unless i'm missing.. something.....??
With the upcoming multiprocessor consoles I guess you're free to let one or two processors handle only physics. The remaining game logic isn't very demanding. Perhaps AI might take some power but what's left is probably little enough that even Cheapy's PCs could handle it. If we put more and more tasks into dedicated chips the CPU will soon be pretty useless which will create the dilemma of technically not needing a good CPU and the marketing pressure of claiming the MHz crown.
On the other hand I doubt it's physics that make Perimeter slow to a crawl in larger battles even on an Athlon 64 3000, 1GB RAM and a GeForce6800...
And PPU or not, it would still choke on Clonk's physics.
John: If bones no longer were an issue I'd go ahead with my 150+ bone rigs that consist 3/4th of dynamic bones (cloth simulation). It's all just a matter of trying.
With the upcoming multiprocessor consoles I guess you're free to let one or two processors handle only physics. The remaining game logic isn't very demanding. Perhaps AI might take some power but what's left is probably little enough that even Cheapy's PCs could handle it. If we put more and more tasks into dedicated chips the CPU will soon be pretty useless which will create the dilemma of technically not needing a good CPU and the marketing pressure of claiming the MHz crown.
On the other hand I doubt it's physics that make Perimeter slow to a crawl in larger battles even on an Athlon 64 3000, 1GB RAM and a GeForce6800...
And PPU or not, it would still choke on Clonk's physics.
[/ QUOTE ]
One of our next gen characters has 150 - 180 bones just in the hair...
and i suppose that come to think of it, because you can't do morph targets in games (inless you can in next gen stuff) then you'll probably have to rig the hell out of the face, too.. and bones for armour that shifts about, etcetc. yah, silly me. sometimes i forget about stuff like that.
They also mentioned that this physics chips may or may not be showing up in the PSP3 or Xbox 2.
Anyhow, their point was right now. Big deal. Most people aren't going to spend $110+ for even a add in card just to see better physics other than the hardcare gamer. So its not like alot of developers are going to integrate that functionality. A few more years, and that functionality will be possible in the CPU or built into the motherboard chipset.
--
[ QUOTE ]
http://theinquirer.net/?article=21648
Seriously hard to read... about every other word was a spelling mistake. Who the hell is Gabe Novell! (Newell?)
Considering the popularity of this news in the gaming community, you'd think this article would have the once over from an editor.
regards
[/ QUOTE ]
(still, gave me an email to write)