Will physics acceleration cards have Linux support?

[MetalMusicAddict]

Ive seen some articles on these new Ageia (http://www.ageia.com/) physics cards. With UT2007 I plan on building a new desktop. So in looking around for info on UT2007 I found out about these cards

Physics acceleration: the Next Big Thing? (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060322-6436.html)
Is the World Ready for Physics Acceleration? (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1777121,00.asp)

So will there be support for these cards? I have also seen that these cards/chipsets might eventually be put on GFX cards and kill the need for a seperate card. ATI and nVidia will develop their own that is.

ATI Claims No Physics for "9 to 12 Months" (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3092)

[NESFreak]

to few linux games make a small chance for a official driver.
because of the fisicscard being unsuported, less games will come to linux.
because less games coem to linux, the chance to official driver will become even smaller.

Don't think they'll relese the source code for volenteers to make a driver.

Spread ubuntu or be screwed.
(yes i hate linux, but i don't blame linus for it. EA and ubisoft are the ones)

[Lord Illidan]

to few linux games make a small chance for a official driver.
because of the fisicscard being unsuported, less games will come to linux.
because less games coem to linux, the chance to official driver will become even smaller.

Don't think they'll relese the source code for volenteers to make a driver.

Spread ubuntu or be screwed.
(yes i hate linux, but i don't blame linus for it. EA and ubisoft are the ones)

You hate linux??? Why?

If you want games + linux, dualboot!!

[Max Luebbe]

I disagree.

There's a software company called Id. You may have heard of them.
They always release all of their games with Linux versions, and are usually nice enough to eventually release their source.

Perhaps John Carmack will make his own support, or apply pressure to get it done.

Something linux could do that would be cool, would be to write software to hijack an extra graphics card. Graphics cards are getting extremely powerful, and more or less do nothing but tons of matrix math. By making clever use of OpenGL code or messing around with shader programs, you can trick your graphics card into doing all sorts of computation for you. There are also ways to get parallel execution by having multiple video cards working on the task.

A former university professor of mine did a research project that employed this method, and other programs that use this idea exist. One that doesn't do physics, but does computer vision has gained some press. Check out openVIDIA on sourceforge.

[GuitarHero]

I hate the ide of physics cards. Its just one more pricey component we have to buy to stay on the leading edge of computer gaming. Video cards are expensive enough as is, as with processors too. This will be my last gaming computer. Consoles ftw

[MetalMusicAddict]

I hate the ide of physics cards. Its just one more pricey component we have to buy to stay on the leading edge of computer gaming. Video cards are expensive enough as is, as with processors too. This will be my last gaming computer. Consoles ftw

I like the idea of them, but yea, the price is a downer. $300 is what I think I saw. I guess the best hope is for these to be built onto GFX cards then using official drivers from nVidia & ATI. My current desktop is showing its age for what I wanna do thats why Im looking.

[mips]

There seems to be different implementations of physics cards and they don't function the same. You get the dedicated add on card and then you get the scenario where a nvidia SLI card will use the second card to do the physics calculations. It should all just be on one card imho.

[NESFreak]

You hate linux??? Why?

If you want games + linux, dualboot!!


There's a software company called Id. You may have heard of them.
They always release all of their games with Linux versions, and are usually nice enough to eventually release their source.

just got my pc windows free for a few weeks. The new homecalling genuine advantage spyware did it. My firewall blocked it, but windows kept complaining. So windows suck for security reasons wich is MS its own fault. Linux lacks gaming (yes i know IDsoft but the world isn't made of fps shooters), but this isn't the fault of linux.
They say that about 3% of the desktop users uses linux, but i think moast of them like to play games, unlike my mailing grandma or my msn'ing sister. Then there also the fact that moast of us are dualbooting wich means we are also counted as windows user, wich means that while only 3% of the desktopusers uses linux, there's more then 3% of the gamers that like to play native linux games. Or atleast this is how i see it. It's about time the game developers start acting like id an release for instance oblivion on linux. But until then i hate using linux as a gaming platform and stay with my cute coopa troopa smashing little DS.

NESFreak

[Brunellus]

nearly no chance of native Linux support for this.

[MetalMusicAddict]

nearly no chance of native Linux support for this.

After looking around the only chance I do see is if its implimented on gfx cards and nVidia/ATI continue to provide better drivers. Oh well.

[mips]

After looking around the only chance I do see is if its implimented on gfx cards and nVidia/ATI continue to provide better drivers. Oh well.

If it's nVidia then I think you will see support for Linux seeing the uses extend to many other fields than just gaming.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/havok-fx-gdc-2006.html
http://www.ageia.com/
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/06/19/can_ageia/

[Brunellus]

I'm a bit ambivalent about Nvidia.

Yes, they have decent binary drivers, but they're not good about releasing specs.

One wonders if/when Free implementations will be able to crack this thing.

[mips]

Yes, they have decent binary drivers, but they're not good about releasing specs.


Which high-end GPU vendor does ? Somehow I don't see it happening in the near future unless a open source hardware design gets of the ground but for that you need a serious R&D budget.

ATI has opened the spec for their older cards, dunno about nVidia.