While that is a good idea, wouldn't it make more sense just to spend the money on a better CPU that will do the same thing. If this is wrong please tell me, I'd like to know more about how the physics are handled.Zaber123
Having a better CPU can improve things, sure, but... it can only go so far.A CPU is a general-purpose piece of silicon that in addition to running a given game/app at a time, is then managed by your Operating System to handle all the other extraneous stuff (processing driver/hardware interrupts, managing memory addresses for different apps, and somehow handling all the various software/hardware threads an actively used computer will generate without choking on its own data in the process).
A CPU is capable of a wide variety of math, from very simple (2+2=?) to exceedingly complex (matrix/discrete mathematics, linear algebra, etc.), and logic. It can handle the types of instructions to calculate various elements of physics, but it's not its forte, nor does it have undivided attention to it (unless the code is designed to be broken up into several threads and can be split among a lot of different cores, this is unlikely). And if you want the rest of the game to run efficiently and have the CPU process sound (with onboard audio), video elements (for GPU's that don't have the full level of hardware support for the app/game in question), and be able to reasonably respond to your input, there's only so many objects that it can calculate accurately regarding the physics of them at a time in a scene.
A PPU is very specialized logic for its main silicon, and its purpose is singularly focused on handling physics applications. And unlike GPU-accelerated physics, it can accurately calculate the physics behind the graphical effects (so that objects fly/move/behave as they would in reality), but the gameplay physics (as in how those objects affect each other, the player/characters, etc.). Where a common CPU may at most be able to (very accurately) calculate the physics of about 100 or so objects on screen without seeing performance hits for other elements of a game, a PPU-enabled game with the physics running off the PPU could then accurately (to within so many points of precision) handle thousands of objects within the game environment. Couple this with GPU-accelerated physics, and you can then effectively have thousands upon thousands of objects on screen that previously the CPU would have been far too burdened to handle to having negligible effect on the rest of the processes the CPU would have to do... and in turn allow the CPU to focus on its own strengths (such as the logic for A.I. and preparing data to be accelerated/processed for the next scene).
An ideal system in this regard could be a multi-core CPU, with SLi or CrossFire (more likely, like Tri-CF or Quad-SLI, so that you could enjoy the graphics acceleration and have a spare GPU or two for handling effects physics), a PPU for gameplay physics, and a dedicated sound card to handle the audio.
Issue with that is of course, the game engine has to be able to support all of these different ways in which stuff could be offloaded, but then still have a mode to be able to scale up/down features if a person doesn't have the physical hardware to accelerate this or that without making it impossible to play.
My one gripe with the PhysX PPU in this regard is that it does nothing for games that don't use their PhysX API. It does nothing for Source-engine games, nor games that use the HavoK physics effects or any other game engine or component that would handle the physics of what is going on on-screen. At least if there was some benefit for stuff that didn't readily use their own physics API, it would be much better justifiable. SLi and CrossFire are able to at least provide SOME benefit even on games that weren't designed when those technologies debuted.
So basically what you have to look at with the PhysX PPU is whether there's a game employing it that you like enough to want to spend the money for that dedicated hardware. According to Ageia, they intended on releasing the PhysX card at least another year later, but had to release it early because Ubisoft wanted it for GRAW. And well, we saw how well that turned out. :|
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