Well i was just wondering if anybody had saw this, its the first time i've come across it. ATI CrossFire™ and Physics
Yeah, ATi's mentioned this awhile back, but so far, the implementation of it really hasn't come out...yet. It's the chicken or the egg problem concerning physics. ATi and nVidia won't really push it unless there's a benefit, and the game developers won't push it unless there's wide enough hardware support. Physics acceleration simply doesn't have a demand for it yet, and we have yet to see a title that makes it a must have. The second problem for a dedicated physics card comes in with multi-core processors. ATi/AMD and nVidia can bide time, but for the likes of Ageia, physics is their only product, as far as I'm aware. Yeah, I've seen it, and it's interesting, but I'm not sure how much of a development it will get since ATi is now owned by AMD.
right, good point,i think i understood you correctly, your saying there isn't such a huge push for a physics chip because most of the work can be done by a second core.
Well, it's not even that. It's like video cards used to be: they weren't in demand because they weren't required for games to run. 3D accleration just wasn't needed. Same with physics, it's not always needed, and when it does, the Havok software physics engine is used. No physics hardware to buy. Ageia is trying to create a market. They very well may succeed, but still be out of business. For AMD and nVidia, they have multiple products, so if one doesn't do so hot, they're not going to sweat. This excludes the capital they have outside of their products. Of course, look at Phantom (formerly the infamous Infinium Labs) that's just now shipping it's first product (and not suing doubters this time around).
