AGEIA in 2007 - Is This the Year of the PPU?

[Rob Williams]

It's been over nine months since we've last taken a hard look at what AGEIAs been up to, but we are about to catch up. We are looking into what they've been up to and also what's on slate for the coming year.

You can read Gregs current look at AGEIA right here. Discuss it here when finished reading!

 

[Rory Buszka]

How is Ageia going to combat the general feeling of apathy that seems to exist around physics acceleration in general? I think that's the biggest question in Ageia's future.

It seems like consumers are loathe to shell out $160 (the price of an ATI X1650XT card) simply to add a bit of extra realism to their games. I use the comparison to a midrange video card because most of the enthusiast market is midrange. A survey was conducted not too long ago that showed that the vast majority of gamers and enthusiasts own midrange hardware, not the top-end, bleeding-edge stuff. Either Ageia needs to find some way to lower the price of the PhysX solution, or else they need to find some other way to convince the average gamer that a physics accelerator isn't just a bleeding-edge luxury, but a necessary part of their gaming PC.

If that little PCIe x1 PhysX card makes it to market, and if there's enough support in games, I might consider one for my machine. My motherboard (NF570 Ultra-based) has one PCIe x16 slot, three PCIe x1 slots, and two PCI slots. If more expansion cards don't become available that use the PCIe x1 slots, then I'm stuck with a full-ATX motherboard with the expandability of a micro-ATX.

 

[Rob Williams]

Either Ageia needs to find some way to lower the price of the PhysX solution, or else they need to find some other way to convince the average gamer that a physics accelerator isn't just a bleeding-edge luxury, but a necessary part of their gaming PC.

Or they could work on getting a PhysX processor included on "gaming" motherboards, or something similar. You mentioned that most gamers wouldn't want to buy a card that's the same price as their X1650XT... to me, the card is not meant for them. If you truly care about graphics/game performance, you would go higher than a X1650XT. If money is an issue, then any amount for a PhysX would be too much.

It's going to be a slow adoption, that's for sure.

 

[Greg King]

I don't think they really need to lower the price. You can find them now online for under 200 dollars. Now, they might sell more if they lower the price but even at 20 dollars, it's just as useless as it would be at 400 dollars because there aren't any games for it at the moment. We keep getting trickled down pics of Warmonger and it could turn into a great game... could. I just don't honestly this that the price at this point is the problem. Look at it this way. If Killer isn't being ripped to shreds for charging as much as they do for a NIC card, Ageia deserves no criticism from those who think that they price is to high.

And I don't think that there is any form of apathy towards physics acceleration. I feel that it's that there aren't any games that truly show off what can be done with a discrete PPU. It's going to be interesting in 2007 to see just what comes out. At this point, its like purchasing an ATI x1950 XTX to play Diablo on. There just isn't a need.