John Carmack, co-founder of id Software, co-creator of industry defining video game titles such as Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3d, DOOM (and its sequels), and Quake (and its sequels), and whose graphics engines have been used in games such as Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Half-Life, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and many others, spoke on his belief in the unimportance of Physics Processing Units (PPUs) which are dedicated physics processors for the PC. At the moment Ageia's PhysX card is the only PPU on the market. Current hardware can't handle the computational load that complex physics calculations place on the CPU. PPUs are there only to handle physics calculations, similar to how a graphics card takes the load off the CPU for graphics rendering. Carmack believes that future multi-core CPUs should easily be able to handle these types of physics calculations. ATI/AMD and nVidia also have plans in the works to use additional graphics cards as physics processors in the future, though it would require 2 or more graphics cards in a system.
I would tend to agree with Carmack on this one for three reasons. First, because he is a freaking genius, and he knows what he's talking about. If Carmack says PPUs are unnecessary, he's probably designed a system with his newest graphics engine, or a future prototype, to circumvent the problem. Second, at the rate that CPU and GPU technology is increasing, I don't think realistic physics will be a problem before long, with Intel coming out with 8 core CPUs here in the next couple years. Third, the market for these kinds of add-in cards is very small. The hard-core gamer who needs everything looking spectacular on a 30" monitor is about 1% of the total computer user market, and maybe 5% of the gaming market. These are the people that shell out $1,000 for dual graphics cards, $700 on a CPU, 4GB of RAM, etc... That doesn't leave a lot of opportunities for sales for companies like Ageia. The casual gamer with a mid-range graphics card, a gig or two of RAM, and a $100 CPU, who plays their favorite games 2 or 3 days a week, isn't going to shell out $300 more on a card that just makes physics better. This is the large majority of gamers. These types of people care more about the fun factor of the game, not so much the eye candy.
I know I won't be buying one of these PPUs anytime soon. I don't game nearly as much as I used to anymore, and I'd rather wait until nVidia and ATI/AMD get their physics processing technologies out. I'd rather have 2 graphics cards with 1 set of drivers, than a graphics card and a physics card, each with their own drivers. Fewer different devices and fewer drivers leads to less complications and headaches, which is just fine with me. :)
source: Engadget
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