physX cards ... just wondering ...

[elxr06]

PhysX cards give you realistic physics to your games that are compatible with those cards.

But are they like normal graphics cards? Or could you use PhysX cards with normal Nvidia/ATI graphics cards?

Just wondering, 'cuz I saw them on the BFGtech site.

[Calum]

PhysX cards are physics cards.
They are designed to enhance performance and physics realism in supported games.
They work alongside your existing hardware - you will still need a graphics card to play the game.
However, I don't recommend buying a PhysX card - they rarely improve performance, can in fact degrade it, and are definitely not worth the cash.

[Deerpark]

I agree with Calum, they're not worth the money.
You won't find many games that can actually use the PhysX card either, because it can only do physics acceleration on games using the PhysX physics engine. And few games use that engine.

[homer]

thriced, i agree with calum and deerpark.

[elxr06]

ok cool. I wasn't intending on picking one up anyway but I was just wondering what it was. 

[quaxo]

ok cool. I wasn't intending on picking one up anyway but I was just wondering what it was. 

A fad... kinda like those home VR headsets with motion tracking they made for PC in the 90s. They were almost useless unless a game supported it. The only game I recall that was any good and supported one was Mechwarrior 2 and Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries. You could still use it with Doom and other games, but the motion tracking did nothing.

I doubt this Physx thing will last, kind of like the Sega Dreamcast... and Sega Saturn... and Vanilla Ice... Windows ME... Enron... supersonic travel... Chris Crocker...   video phones... Crystal Pepsi... the 8-track... Flowbee... Michael Jackson's marriage to Lisa Marie Presley...

[elxr06]

now that nvidia has merged with AGEIA, the top physx card developer company...

nvidia says that all geforce 8 cards will soon be able to be updated with physx support.

To me, that probably means that by downloading new software, you should be able to add physx card capabilities at no extra cost, which is the same as having a gfx card and a physx card in one board instead of two!



http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/15/geforce-8-gpus-to-acquire-physx-support-via-software-download/

[Deerpark]

Correct.
I'm guessing Nvidia is going to built in PhysX support in future driver revisions.

[elxr06]

so that means you can play unreal tournament or whatever with the physx card software that nvidia is trying to build so that you can download and essentially give your seris 8 card a upgrade!

[Deerpark]

Well I'm just guessing here since Nvidia haven't released any details on how they're going to do it (to my knowledge). But I would think they would include PhsyX support in the Geforce drivers so any games that supports the PhysX engine could use a GF 8 card for physics calculations just like a PhysX card.
The downside of course is that the physics calculations will have to share GPU with the graphics calculations. So any PhysX acceleration could be at the expense of graphics performance.