X-bit labs

E3 Expo 2005: Hardware Innovation Behind the Gaming Fun (page 6)

Category: Editorial

by Anna Filatova

[ 05/19/2005 | 09:18 PM ]

AGEIA: Way to Create Real “Real World”

I am pretty sure that high-speed memory technologies offering super-high bandwidth and fast transfer rates will be demanded not only in the console market, but also in the PC market, and it might be an opportunity for solutions like XDR. I am sure you have already read this news story about the AGEIA physics processor. Now I would like to tell you a bit more about it.

The main goal of the PhysX processor designers is to give software developers more tools to include motion and create believable environments in the games. CPU cannot do what the GPU does in the system, so we see clear separation of functions. The same with physics. The creation of realistic physical effects and real-world gaming environment where the characters can interact with all objects is a pretty complicated task and requires a lot of resources. This is where the new PhysX processor steps in. It will be responsible for the following parts of the game, allowing the CPU and GPU have more resources for their needs. The mastermind behind the actual gameplay can be presented as a triangle, where each component has its own unique responsibilities:

These three points of focus are:

• Gaming physics, which brings to games such features as:
  • Rigid body dynamics
  • Finite element analysis
  • Soft body dynamics
  • Fluid dynamics
  • Hair Simulation
  • Clothing simulation
  • Universal collision detection
• AI
• Management of the game

The PhysX based graphics cards are expected to become available in Q4 this year. ASUS is the primary partner interested in manufacturing physics boards so far. The chip will be manufactured with 0.13micron technology, and the 182sq.mm die will host 125 million transistors.

Speaking about the board design it is important to say that the boards will support PCI interface. Yes, the regular PCI. There are certainly marketing as well as technological reasons for that. First of all, far not all the mainboards out there come equipped with two PCI Express slots onboard, so since you will need a graphics card AND a physics card, you may simply have no PCI Express slot for the latter, but you will always have PCI. Besides, even if you have two PCI Express slots, you might want to have an SLI or any other dual graphics card solution running, which again means there would be no room for the physics board. That’s just one of the reasons. However, I am sure that sooner or later they will also switch to PCI Express, as it will allow much faster operation.

Here is what the card looks like so far:

PhysX based graphics card with 128MB GDDR3 memory onboard

There was a demo system with a dual-core Intel processor, ASUS mainboard, 1GB of RAM and a new PhysX based graphics card running, and I saw a few interesting demos showing “absolutely real world”. By this I mean that every single object in the scene was real and features physical characteristics which could change as a result of interaction between the objects. All changes of the gaming physics were performed in real time, i.e. the physical parameters were recalculated constantly.

To tell the truth this was the moment when it occurred to me how much more complicated the game developers’ task has actually become. Right no when you are playing some game, there are a few possibilities for you to act in each particular case, i.e. the game forces you to follow the preliminarily planned rout. If you hit against the wall, nothing will happen: you will just stand there facing the wall. And you can keep shooting the wall or hitting it with some weapon – nothing is going to happen, because the wall is not real, it is not meant to be real, it is not meant to be destroyed. And with the opportunities offered by the new PhysX processors you will be able to destroy this wall in a dozen possible ways: shoot through it, drive into it, throw something heavy, etc. So, say, you broke through it. And what’s then? And it means that there should be a new game scenario activated: the plot will differ, you will no longer follow the “correct” route, you will be on your own. And it means that the game developers should foresee all the possible scenarios, develop them in advance, ensure that you do not get into nothing. They should really create the entire (literally) gaming world, which would be much larger and much more complex than it ids now.

But let’s leave the decision about the level of physics to be implemented in new games to the game developers, especially since they seem to be pretty excited about the new technology offered by AGEIA. Among the companies which have already expressed vital interest in the new hardware are such big names as Epic Games, Ubisoft, and quite a few others.

The cards based on the new AGEIA PhysX processor will start sampling in Q3 2005, and when they appear in retail in Q4 their price is supposed to be between $249 and $299.