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BFG AGEIA PhysX Accelerator 128MB Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Monday, 08 May 2006 |
PC Perspective shares a review
on the BFG AGEIA PhysX
Accelerator 128MB graphics card. According to AGEIA and BFG, the future is finally here. We have been discussing and
analyzing the prospects of a dedicated physics processor for PC gaming since AGEIA's first announcement of it
before E3 last year. Initially
we had only a very high level view of what AGEIA hoped to accomplish with their hardware and software
technologies, but as time went by we have learned more about it. Today we are
finally seeing the finished product. The business plan for AGEIA was to seed their software
physics API, initially called Novodex but later renamed to PhysX, for
free.
 BFG AGEIA PhysX Accelerator 128MB Review
Appealing to many developers for the low, low price of free-ninety-nine, the
PhysX engine has made its way into several game engines such as Unreal Engine 3,
due out later this year. While developers can use the software API to run the
physics in the software, the API also allows the developer to use the PhysX
hardware to create even more complex interactions. By giving away the engine and
promoting it to developers, AGEIA is trying to create a large software base that will lend
itself well to PPU hardware sales. While the name for this concept might seem a
bit grandiose, the ideas behind it are very logical.
Since the PPU would
take a large majority of the physics work off the CPU, the processor would be
less bogged down and thus could address more cycles to feeding the GPU with data
to crunch and keeping the game state in order. This should mean an automatic
frame rate increase for any games that were significantly CPU bottlenecked
before the introduction of a PPU. Also though, there are some aspects of the
PhysX chip that increase work loads on both the CPU and GPU. This will in turn
push AMD and Intel as well as NVIDIA and ATI to find new ways to increase
their computational power.
At its current state, the BFG AGEIA PhysX PPU card is a mixed
bag. On one hand, the card's additions to Ghost Recon and the couple other
titles that are in retail that support PhysX, are less than spectacular. The
changes in realism and visual quality are really minimal and I think most users
would feel that the required additional $200 investment wouldn't be worth it
quite yet. The word yet is important here, as I think with a game engine like
Unreal using the PhysX technology, there is a lot of potential for this
technology to take off towards the end of 2006.
Even though Havok, paired with NVIDIA and ATI, has started implementing GPU
based physics calculations, they have admitted that Havok is aiming only at particle
effects for the near future. AGEIA seems to have set higher goals and intends to reach them
in 2006. If they achieve that goal, then a BFG AGEIA
PhysX card might find a comfortable place in your system. Buying one now might
seem a bit preemptive, but there won't be any hardware upgrades in the near
future for AGEIA's PhysX so
there are no worries about hardware cycle time.
Until the software really
takes off, you'll have all the goodies in the mean time and have some bragging
rights as well. Though the status of hardware accelerated physics is up in the
air and could fall anywhere at this point, I think that by the end of 2006 the
BFG AGEIA PhysX PPU will be a popular
product with enthusiasts.
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