The reason why we have given Editor's Choice is because of great price and performance. But it's far from being the best card. The target for 7300GT buyers will probably not have the high end monitor or the fastest system. They will probably not going to buy PPU card as well. It's only decent for 1280x1024 gaming without PPU enabled. But I need nothing less than 1600x1200 for my Dell 2001FP. So I will definitely have at least 7900GT and above for any decent gaming.
Not if the software is designed to make good use of the PhysX... Then we have the question about brute processing power. What's the flops-rating for the PhysX-processor? What is it for various GPUs? I have no idea. I do think that the demand for all types of calculations often goes up simultaneously in games when things get rough. So with the GPU assigned to "other" tasks as well, the demand for such tasks to be carried out temporarily increase when the demand for more graphics calculations also increase and you'd normally get a drop in frame rate anyway. Now the drop in frame rate will just be deeper and more prolonged. Cheers Olle
I've tried 1280x960 on my 19" CRT, but thought the text and other stuff got too small to read properly at my typical viewing distance of about arms length plus 10cm. Therefore I went back to 1024x768 and feel fine with that... /Olle
The seperate Physics engine will still help the processor, and the processor wouldn't have to do so much. Even the graphics card. But one seperate Physics engine just for the gravity of the game? Watched the Cell Factor trailer (that exploits the wonders of the Physics engine) and all I can see is falling buildings, collapsing buildings, rolling barrels, people got washed/pushed/ejected out by huge impacting explosion only. They should add more stuff inside, like the texture and lighting processor and all the eye candy stuff. More fun that way. P.s: the card is still useful for simulating car crashes and important simulation in research and development. Maybe.
aiya.. u can have PPU, GPU..but if the stories sux, the games still sux. take WoW for example. fantastic game. but do u need a ppu??? nooooooooooooooo that's why PS2 can still sell 400k units per month. that's like 6 years after the launch. where is..er..u know
That's a big "if" Do remember that Chai uses a 20" LCD...that's quite a bit more screen space than a 19" CRT
And 20" LCD is true 20" viewable space, unlike 19" CRT. Seriously, does it really matter with games at high res? Things are sharper at high res, I see no reason why one should run at lower resolution in games, and isn't PPU meant for gaming?
What about intergrating the PPU inside the Graphics card, and also some inside the processor (like processor instructions)? Or add another new math-co-processor for the complex physics calculations?
I don't have a problem with the idea, just the price. After all, why do most serious gamers use soundcards? I think this might be a wait and see thing. I can't see why you would want to offload any vga capabilities to physics because lets face it, when a new line of vga cards come out, most of us run out and buy them and you might argue that we don't really need their power, but I just went out and got a 2nd 7900gt for SLI and it's one of the better investments I have made. I for one, wouldn't look twice at physx at the moment. It's waaay overpriced but like all things tech, it will come down as more units hit the market. It will certainly be interesting to see who comes out the winner. VHS/Betamax anyone? Just my two cents
My point is that my monitor is neither low end nor unable to handle high resolutions but still unsuitable for it. You really need large screens to make use of higher resolutions. At work I use a 17" TFT set at the native resolution of 1280x1024. Text is smallish but readable. Scaling it up to 20" that would be 1550x(something) pixels, meaning that on a 20" monitor @ 1600x1200 the text is slightly smaller still, really pushing the limit of what's useful. (Not to mention that for fast paced games I really require bigger text than when I allow reading to take some time.) Cheers Olle
No way! The examples I made above are just part of the equation. There's so much more computing waiting to be done... /Olle
This is a really subjective matter. I seriously don't mind having a 17" LCD that can support resolutions up to 1600x1200 or 20" LCD with 1920x1440 native. I don't mind the text being small and I want more desktop space and higher resolution for gaming This is one of the main reason why I buy 2007FP, I need at least 1600x1200. I cannot live with anything below 1600x1200 If there is a 17" or 19" LCD that supports 1600x1200, I will definitely go for that instead of the 2007FP.
So what do you guys think of as "readable" when it comes to physical font size (as measured on the screen)? To me it's like 4 mm = Easy reading. 3 mm = Readable with some minor effort. 2 mm = Needs concentration and close attention to read. ... provided a suitable font is used. /Olle
I think this is getting out of topic... and I think font size is not really fixed to the resolution or pixel size. As resolution increases with no increase in display area, yes, the font will look smaller, but you can always increase the font size. If you guys want to discuss about font readability, I can split this topic off. Just let me know. Thanks!
Exactly. There's hardly any fonts in games. I honestly don't see high res as an issue. High res is almost needed for good graphics these days. Would you play games at 1024x768 with jagged edges? Graphics will always look better at high res.
I just found an interesting Danish review of the BFG PhysX card. There the actual test is subordinate to a very interesting in depth description and discussion about the PPU, it's history and future, with a historical flashback to the introduction of 3d GPUs in 1996: Why on Earth would anybody pay hundreds of dollars for a separate 3d graphics card...? Here's the review (in Danish and English): AGEIA™ PhysX by BFG /Olle
That's because there's support for the games, and the difference is huge! I did pay for a special 3d card back in 1998 I think.
Actually, I don't think anyone here doubts that physics will be the next big thing in game play. Rather, it's a matter of affordability and application. Right now, the PhysX is expensive because of its low production and it being a separate card. If the PhysX gets integrated onto a graphics card or even into a GPU, then the large production can greatly reduce the cost. In addition, there's still a lack of application for the PhysX card. If we want it to really take off, at least a few of the top games must support it. Otherwise, people will have little impetus to adopt it.
