Nvidia's SLI physics will bring "thousands" of objects to life and realistically simulate how they interact with each other.
When the technique is implemented in future games, the benefit for players will be more realistic virtual worlds.
Overview :
Physics simulation is a rare sight in video games today and an effect that is largely avoided by game designers. The behavior of independent particles - often many thousands created in scenes such as explosions or fluid dynamics - need enormous processing power realistic to calculate the effects of their collisions.
As gamers demand more realism, physics is generally seen as the next evolution in video games and will be available much quicker than initially believed by analysts. Ageia's physics engine - the first physics technology to be announced and demonstrated on consumer PCs - was believed to be a niche market solution that would need many years to penetrate the market. And while Ageia will be hitting the market with a dedicated physics board later than expected, it has generated buzz, gained support - especially from Asus, BFG and Sony's Playstation 3 - and created a foundation for physics in the consumer market.
Both ATI and Nvidia have been quiet about their physics strategy in recent months. In October of last year, ATI discussed the opportunity to use the massive floating point computation power of a graphics processor to enable accelerated physics. But with ATI's recent explanations around "dynamic load balancing" and Nvidia's SLI Physics, the direction has become clear.
Nvidia's SLI Physics :
"SLI Physics" will offloads physics calculations from the CPU to the graphics processor and promises to bring movie-type effects from crashing cars and speeding bullets to the PC screen - all with smooth frame rates. A new software driver for Nvidia's graphics cards will use the second graphics processor to enable the feature in future games.
Multiple graphics processors provide plenty of excess floating point capability to run more than just graphics and overcome the limitations of the main processor of a computer system. Physics appears to be the first and major new application graphics chips will be aiming for.
The new drivers will simulate object and particle effects like fluid, smoke and dust, all within the GPU. The data will stay on the graphics processor, a "transfer to the CPU will not be required."
While the name "SLI Physics" indicates that two graphics processors are needed to run physics, Nvidia officials said that owners of single-GPU systems will still see "some benefit," but couldn't provide more detail at this time.
Also, the company expects SLI physics to eventually enable "dynamic physics load balancing" via a desktop control panel interface, for owners of dual or quad GPU systems. The driver details are still being worked out.
Software Package :
Physics SDK developer Havok and 3D graphics designer Nvidia have teamed up to develop a software package allowing physics calculations to be run on Nvidia graphics chips.
The Havok FX package will be provided to developers later this summer, Nvidia said on Monday, and will be designed for the GeForce 6 and GeForce 7 family of graphics cards.
The SDK will support the inteaction of "thousands" of objects calculating friction, collisions, gravity, mass, and velocity; using the SDK, debris, fluids, and smoke will be able to be modeled. The cards must support Shader Model 3.0.
SLI Physics v/s Traditional CPU Physics :
Nvidia gave out some preliminary figures achieved in a demo that shows 15,000 boulders colliding with each other. The demo, aptly nicknamed "BoulderMark" was run by an SLI Physics enabled machine and GeForce 7900 GTX graphics cards with 64.5 frames per second while the CPU-only system topped out at out 6.2 frames per second.
Rivals :
Nvidia could be first to market with accelerated physics, but there will be more options to bring more realism to the desktop.
Ageia - a company that licenses its physics technology to other companies - announced their PhysX physics processing unit (PPU) last year at GDC. Boards were promised to start selling Q3 of last year and are now scheduled to be available from manufacturers such as Asus and BFG in the second quarter of this year for prices between $100 and $400. Ageia's physics software currently has the advantage of having been available for some time, which allowed the technology to be integrated in several games such as Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and the Unreal Engine 3. Sony is also using the software in their upcoming PlayStation 3 console.
Mult-core processors and multi-threaded game code capable of using all of the CPU's processing engines may render Havok's technique redundant, which is why it's pitching the system at special effects rather than game-play physics. The company sees the code controlling, say, fountains of objects rather than what happens when the player shoots at something.
Nvidia's Advantage :
More than six million SLI systems have been sold and dual-graphics systems are a common sight in the enthusiast market. Millions of installed video cards can be quickly converted to use SLI Physics as a result. The question is how quickly game developers will be reacting to the availability of SLI Physics.
Launch Date:
SLI Physics will be demonstrated for the first time in a technology demo at this week's Game Developer's Conference in San Jose and Nvidia promises to launch drivers thereafter.
When the technique is implemented in future games, the benefit for players will be more realistic virtual worlds.
Overview :
Physics simulation is a rare sight in video games today and an effect that is largely avoided by game designers. The behavior of independent particles - often many thousands created in scenes such as explosions or fluid dynamics - need enormous processing power realistic to calculate the effects of their collisions.
As gamers demand more realism, physics is generally seen as the next evolution in video games and will be available much quicker than initially believed by analysts. Ageia's physics engine - the first physics technology to be announced and demonstrated on consumer PCs - was believed to be a niche market solution that would need many years to penetrate the market. And while Ageia will be hitting the market with a dedicated physics board later than expected, it has generated buzz, gained support - especially from Asus, BFG and Sony's Playstation 3 - and created a foundation for physics in the consumer market.
Both ATI and Nvidia have been quiet about their physics strategy in recent months. In October of last year, ATI discussed the opportunity to use the massive floating point computation power of a graphics processor to enable accelerated physics. But with ATI's recent explanations around "dynamic load balancing" and Nvidia's SLI Physics, the direction has become clear.
Nvidia's SLI Physics :
"SLI Physics" will offloads physics calculations from the CPU to the graphics processor and promises to bring movie-type effects from crashing cars and speeding bullets to the PC screen - all with smooth frame rates. A new software driver for Nvidia's graphics cards will use the second graphics processor to enable the feature in future games.
Multiple graphics processors provide plenty of excess floating point capability to run more than just graphics and overcome the limitations of the main processor of a computer system. Physics appears to be the first and major new application graphics chips will be aiming for.
The new drivers will simulate object and particle effects like fluid, smoke and dust, all within the GPU. The data will stay on the graphics processor, a "transfer to the CPU will not be required."
While the name "SLI Physics" indicates that two graphics processors are needed to run physics, Nvidia officials said that owners of single-GPU systems will still see "some benefit," but couldn't provide more detail at this time.
Also, the company expects SLI physics to eventually enable "dynamic physics load balancing" via a desktop control panel interface, for owners of dual or quad GPU systems. The driver details are still being worked out.
Software Package :
Physics SDK developer Havok and 3D graphics designer Nvidia have teamed up to develop a software package allowing physics calculations to be run on Nvidia graphics chips.
The Havok FX package will be provided to developers later this summer, Nvidia said on Monday, and will be designed for the GeForce 6 and GeForce 7 family of graphics cards.
The SDK will support the inteaction of "thousands" of objects calculating friction, collisions, gravity, mass, and velocity; using the SDK, debris, fluids, and smoke will be able to be modeled. The cards must support Shader Model 3.0.
SLI Physics v/s Traditional CPU Physics :
Nvidia gave out some preliminary figures achieved in a demo that shows 15,000 boulders colliding with each other. The demo, aptly nicknamed "BoulderMark" was run by an SLI Physics enabled machine and GeForce 7900 GTX graphics cards with 64.5 frames per second while the CPU-only system topped out at out 6.2 frames per second.
Rivals :
Nvidia could be first to market with accelerated physics, but there will be more options to bring more realism to the desktop.
Ageia - a company that licenses its physics technology to other companies - announced their PhysX physics processing unit (PPU) last year at GDC. Boards were promised to start selling Q3 of last year and are now scheduled to be available from manufacturers such as Asus and BFG in the second quarter of this year for prices between $100 and $400. Ageia's physics software currently has the advantage of having been available for some time, which allowed the technology to be integrated in several games such as Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and the Unreal Engine 3. Sony is also using the software in their upcoming PlayStation 3 console.
Mult-core processors and multi-threaded game code capable of using all of the CPU's processing engines may render Havok's technique redundant, which is why it's pitching the system at special effects rather than game-play physics. The company sees the code controlling, say, fountains of objects rather than what happens when the player shoots at something.
Nvidia's Advantage :
More than six million SLI systems have been sold and dual-graphics systems are a common sight in the enthusiast market. Millions of installed video cards can be quickly converted to use SLI Physics as a result. The question is how quickly game developers will be reacting to the availability of SLI Physics.
Launch Date:
SLI Physics will be demonstrated for the first time in a technology demo at this week's Game Developer's Conference in San Jose and Nvidia promises to launch drivers thereafter.
