Nvidia Gets Smart
No, not The Smart™.Take a look at this press release
(http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060320/sfm088.html):
NVIDIA Corporation, the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, and Havok, the game industry's leading supplier of cross- platform middleware, will be demonstrating a physics effects solution that runs completely on a graphics processing unit (GPU) -- an industry first -- at this year's Game Developer Conference (GDC) in San Jose, California (March 21st through 24th).
Sometimes I see things coming, but this blindsided me. And it's a great idea. The dedicated PPU solution as a standalone card is a dead end--great concept, but the number of people who would buy an add-in card just for that is limited--but if you could offload those functions from the CPU to the GPU, it's just another reason to load up on high-end solutions like SLI, because you're not just loading up on graphics power anymore. Now, you're loading up on physics power as well.
Viva la physics power! Or something like that.
If your graphics technology has gotten so powerful that it's overkill in 99% of the games out there, you better find another function that can be assumed by the graphics card. And Nvidia is calling this "SLI Physics," so that tells you the solution they're pushing, even though it's usable with a single GPU.
Great, great idea.
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