You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
NovodeX Physics SDK to Support Next Generation Xbox
- Thread starter GashPrex
- Start date
Why is this non-news? Just this morning there was a big speculative thread about it... now that they announced Xenon support it is suddenly non-fucking news? I guarantee if this was a Revolution announcement, it would be the biggest news of the day. No need for damage control yet fellas.
jedimike said:Why is this non-news? Just this morning there was a big speculative thread about it... now that they announced Xenon support it is suddenly non-fucking news? I guarantee if this was a Revolution announcement, it would be the biggest news of the day. No need for damage control yet fellas.
Because this looks like it's just a SOFTWARE announcement, which is entirely fucking useless and has no impact on this whole upcoming console war.
Now, if they announced they're using the HARDWARE....well...
jedimike said:Why is this non-news? Just this morning there was a big speculative thread about it... now that they announced Xenon support it is suddenly non-fucking news? I guarantee if this was a Revolution announcement, it would be the biggest news of the day. No need for damage control yet fellas.
Because everyone was hoping that their hardware/Physics accel chip would be in the box, and not a sdk that does everything on the Xbox 2's cpu.
EDIT: ;_; maybe having it said three times makes more sense?
jedimike said:Why is this non-news? Just this morning there was a big speculative thread about it... now that they announced Xenon support it is suddenly non-fucking news? I guarantee if this was a Revolution announcement, it would be the biggest news of the day. No need for damage control yet fellas.
People were speculating there'd be a dedicated physics chip in Xenon, and it appears now there isn't. So..that's why..I guess..
Amir0x said:Because this looks like it's just a SOFTWARE announcement, which is entirely fucking useless and has no impact on this whole upcoming console war.
Now, if they announced they're using the HARDWARE....well...
that's impressive. You already know exactly how this will impact next gen. Very impressive
Personally, I don't know either way - but what I do know is this company has done some impressive stuff and it's certainly not a bad thing to have them on board. How much of an impact - we will see er.. wait you already know.
Just because its an SDK dosen't mean it's unimportant.
GashPrex said:that's impressive. You already know exactly how this will impact next gen. Very impressive
Personally, I don't know either way - but what I do know is this company has done some impressive stuff and it's certainly not a bad thing to have them on board. How much of an impact - we will see er.. wait you already know.
Just because its an SDK dosen't mean it's unimportant.
my thoughts exactly...
GashPrex said:that's impressive. You already know exactly how this will impact next gen. Very impressive
Personally, I don't know either way - but what I do know is this company has done some impressive stuff and it's certainly not a bad thing to have them on board. How much of an impact - we will see er.. wait you already know.
Just because its an SDK dosen't mean it's unimportant.
I see you need to learn what "impact" means. Having a hardware based solution is a LOT more difficult to combat than a SDK. Shit, they could announce support for Sony PS3 tommorrow. Who knows? This is why it's of so little importance right now.
No, I am pretty sure I know what "impact" means. They could announce support for PS3 tommorow, or they could not. I can't tell the future like you. MS could integrate this SDK better than Sony or they could not. I don't know.
As for hardware vs sdk - of course a hardware solution is usually better but that dosen't mean a SDK won't be useful.
As for hardware vs sdk - of course a hardware solution is usually better but that dosen't mean a SDK won't be useful.
GashPrex said:No, I am pretty sure I know what "impact" means. They could announce support for PS3 tommorow, or they could not. I can't tell the future like you. MS could integrate this SDK better than Sony or they could not. I don't know.
As for hardware vs sdk - of course a hardware solution is usually better but that dosen't mean a SDK won't be useful.
It's going to be devs that integrate in the SDK, not MS specifically (unless it's a game MS is developing internally that uses the SDK).
The only thing this impacts is developers who choose to use the SDK, not the Xenon in general. They are just porting the SDK to support Xenon.
jedimike said:my thoughts exactly...
Who's engaging in damage control right now? You. For the fact you went on a tirade because you couldn't read. There's a huge difference between SDK and a dedicated PPU.
EDIT: And I don't believe there's gonna be a PPU. Something that big would have been leaked. Supporting the SDK, considering the press release yesterday mentioned getting SDK support from UBI, Sega, Epic and was designed with XNA support in mind, that should have been assumed by anyone who read it.
OG_Original Gamer
Member
I was hoping they would adopt this processor.
rastex said:People, this PR statement does NOT rule out the possibility of a PPU in Xenon. They're just saying that the API will be available, what hardware and how it's used on Xenon isn't specified. Precisely why this is all non-news.
"AGEIA's NovodeX Physics SDK is a powerful middleware engine for game developers who want to make the most of the multicore architecture of the next generation Xbox platform"
This = CPU. It'd be amazing to have their PPU in there, but it's so unlikely barring last minute surprises. A guy at AGEIA also pretty much ruled out the PPU in most next-gen systems because "they're design is already locked" - if any system's design is pretty much locked, it's Xenon's (or at least it should be, if they wanna get it out this year).
Enigma said:Who's engaging in damage control right now? You. For the fact you went on a tirade because you couldn't read. There's a huge difference between SDK and a dedicated PPU.
EDIT: And I don't believe there's gonna be a PPU. Something that big would have been leaked. Supporting the SDK, considering the press release yesterday mentioned getting SDK support from UBI, Sega, Epic and was designed with XNA support in mind, that should have been assumed by anyone who read it.
Wrong. My point was that with or without a dedicated processor, it is still news. Nobody knows what impact this will have and discounting the ability of the company and their tools simply because it is a software solution vice a hardware solution is extremely ignorant.
It's just an SDK. There's no stopping them from adapting this to the PS3 (except maybe licensing agreements), or some other company developing the same thing for the PS3. Since it's just dev software, who really cares? In FLOPS, Cell's gonna have more under the hood in that department anyway. This is non-news for a reason. That chip would have been interesting, although I personally think it would have been a waste. Will physics really be that big a deal next gen when most games use altered (read: imaginary) physics? PEACE.
yes, but
running physics code on a general cpu doesnt sound really hardware accelerated to me..
"Today marks the beginning of a new era of hardware-accelerated physics for developers and users alike, in which pervasive interactive realism enters the world of gaming."
running physics code on a general cpu doesnt sound really hardware accelerated to me..
It's floating point math, nothing more. It's not like they're gonna hardcode physics equations into a chip. It's just gonna be a chip with lots of vector math capabilities. The VMX unit in each XeCPU core could "accelerate" the physics. IOW, don't believe the hype. There's a reason this story is falling by the wayside. PEACE.golem said:yes, but
running physics code on a general cpu doesnt sound really hardware accelerated to me..
KeithFranklin
Banned
Pimpwerx said:It's just an SDK. There's no stopping them from adapting this to the PS3 (except maybe licensing agreements), or some other company developing the same thing for the PS3. Since it's just dev software, who really cares? In FLOPS, Cell's gonna have more under the hood in that department anyway. This is non-news for a reason. That chip would have been interesting, although I personally think it would have been a waste. Will physics really be that big a deal next gen when most games use altered (read: imaginary) physics? PEACE.
Yeah Yeah, but it is still news until the same SDK is announced for the PS3 with the same or more capabilities. This is like saying XNA/DirectX isnt a big deal because it is possible (Although unlikly) that Sony could have a better framework ready for the PS3.
Actually if you read their whitpaper, they are doing something exactly like this. In the same way that GPU's implement trig functions in hardware, there are certain functions that can be laid out in hardware to accellerate physics calculations. PEACE.It's floating point math, nothing more. It's not like they're gonna hardcode physics equations into a chip.
KeithFranklin: Meh, if you're interested, that's fine. I'm not gonna fault you for that. But in the big picture, this means nothing really. This isn't anything that can't be done on the other systems, and even if they don't have a specific physics SDK, it doesn't matter a whole lot. Most games fudge their physics. It's not like Polyphony Digital won't write up a kickass physics model again. The applications of this SDK, or rather the importance of it is lost on me and some others. The prospect of a hardware processor dedicated solely to physics was news-worthy though.
Huh? That's for their chip, not the SDK. But that's interesting anyway, hardcoding functions into the chip? I'm curious to know what they'd code in. Integration is about as complex as it gets, isn't it? I don't remember using Laplace or Fourier math in any of my physics classes. I'm curious to know what gains they get over a standard vector processor with this. And if it compromises other floating point math. I wonder if it's like hardcoding functions into a calculator. But I'm too lazy to read a white paper on a chip that AFAIK, isn't going into any next-gen system. I see their physics processor being great in a design lab though. 7 years ago, some guy from Ford was telling us how doing laminar flow modeling for one of their intakes took 4 days for some workstation clusters to run one sample. PEACE.
fugimax said:Actually if you read their whitpaper, they are doing something exactly like this. In the same way that GPU's implement trig functions in hardware, there are certain functions that can be laid out in hardware to accellerate physics calculations. PEACE.
Huh? That's for their chip, not the SDK. But that's interesting anyway, hardcoding functions into the chip? I'm curious to know what they'd code in. Integration is about as complex as it gets, isn't it? I don't remember using Laplace or Fourier math in any of my physics classes. I'm curious to know what gains they get over a standard vector processor with this. And if it compromises other floating point math. I wonder if it's like hardcoding functions into a calculator. But I'm too lazy to read a white paper on a chip that AFAIK, isn't going into any next-gen system. I see their physics processor being great in a design lab though. 7 years ago, some guy from Ford was telling us how doing laminar flow modeling for one of their intakes took 4 days for some workstation clusters to run one sample. PEACE.
KeithFranklin
Banned
Sorry Pimpwerx I dont believe something is a non-story because it could be also done on another system. Hell anything could be done on another system, but if middleware makers are having a much easier time creating tools for XBOX 2 then the XBOX 2 will have a very nice headstart not to mention probably better tools as well.
Extending Kieth's point, this announcement IS a story if Novadex doesn't release anything for PS3. It's just that Middleware providers usually release their products for all platforms. The reason why they're not announcing anything about PS3 now is either they have no plans to develop on it (very unlikely) or they just can't talk about it right now (far likelier).
Because Havok has a TON of marketshare, Novadex is playing the PR game to try to increase their visibility to devs. Riding on the coat-tails of MS Xenon press conference is the perfect opportunity for them to do so.
Because Havok has a TON of marketshare, Novadex is playing the PR game to try to increase their visibility to devs. Riding on the coat-tails of MS Xenon press conference is the perfect opportunity for them to do so.