I would love to have all these kinds of processors (physics, AI, etc...) to be integrated into the motherboard. GPU just doesn't make sense as some people replace it all the time. Imagine an fps wargame where bots/enemy would take cover like the soldiers in CoH without any predetermined spots.
I am personally think it this way: I speculate that the AIPU will cost around 300euros (just speculations, nothing more). Beind limited by budget, I prefer to buy a 600euros CPU which will be able to do all the AI caclulations and many many other things (like video/image editing, physics and mainly all these things that a cpu does) than buy a 300euros CPU and 300euros AIPU. A AIPU will sell for 2 reasons: 1. Because it can provide excellent AI that advance the games to a new level 2. Because it is a way for the companies to making more money by providing to the costumers what was already doable by cpu, and "force" us to buy it (by exclussive games or by stoping to try to code good AI through CPU). If the reason that they sell us this AIPU is the first we must embrace this new techology (and by "we" I mean the gamers community). I, personaly, I would buy this AIPU. If the reason is the second one (which IMO I think it is) this product must be rejected totally because it will just make gaming an even more expensive hobby. We must just wait and see how it goes. It's too soon to know which will be the fate and the advances of this new technology
its would be amazing and would add a little extra touch to games, but if its not on a console its not going to be on the pc anytime soon.
LOL! As it stands right now Computer game developers can't even (or won't) make games that take advantage of Dual core procs or DX10! Do we really need another piece of hardware that the developers won't utilize. Currently the CPU and GPU developers are light years ahead of PC game developers. This reminds me of the Ageia Physx card. Another un-utilized component. IMO, todays Core 2 Dual core & Quad core CPU's have plenty of un-utilized processing power to handle even 3 times the AI that game developers are currently including with games.
Everyone complain about current hardware not being optimized what makes you think it ever will be?!?!?! It NEVER going to be they still dont use feature that were on Geforce 4 cards.... Physx is far from a failure.. hate to break it to you guys but Ageia will be around for a long time.. ALOT of people have physx cards ..alot of them over 100,000. and its now starting to to really show some great stuff warmonger ,GRAW2,UT3,fallen earth ,switchball and cell factor has a patch coming out that will make you drool. . And hopefully this AI card will do the same. just because game developers can code for AI doesn't mean they are experts at it.. the use of hardware could very well make is it easier for developers if a third party company was responsible the AI .. muchless using its own hardware so the complex Ai doesnt use up precious CPU cycles. because for a cpu to do this type of AI would be extremely taxing.
first off, i have a physx card, so get ur flames on about that and out of the way. now i need to talk about the physx card breifely to make my point, and im not gonna refer to crysis doing so. ppl say a graphcs card or a proccessor can do waht a ppu can. ur half right. the graphcs cards nowadays have way more hardware in them, so fo course they could if they were programed to. however, if ur gpu does that, it cannot fully do the job of all the nifty gpu effects its supposed to do. same for a proccesor. im betting my life a quad core could EASILY out do a ppu. if it was dediacted and did NOTHING else. of which case, is teh same reason we HAVE a dedicated ppu. all this, minus the gpu part, goes for the ai card. our duel and quad cores could do the job. of course, by doing so, they wouldnt do anything else. a dedicated unit helps ALOT. take Cellfactor for instance. whith a ppu, duel cores an quads struggle. doesnt matter if u had 2x HD2900XT in crossfire and 8gb of ram. the calculations were too much to handle WITH everything else the procs had to do. i think an ai card is a great idea ONLY if they use it right. they say it can outperform normal cpu ai, so i'll give them that. unless it comes out and we see first had that it can do sh*t, i see no reason to bad mouth it yet. who knows, it could help more than we all think. now that ive gotten this ridiculously long reply done. let the flamming begin because i do have physx card
Another game that would be significantly enchanced by an AIPU is Armed Assault. Now, I'm not saying that everyone would need one, but rather the servers that run Co-Op missions. Everyone who has played ArmA knows that it has horrible AI.
Having an AI card is not going to make any game with poor AI any better. If the game was developed with poor AI than all the hardware in the world is not going to change that. Regarding the Ageia Physx card, I was going to buy one, but after finding out that only a couple games even took advantage of the card I decided not to. The basic Idea of Physx cards and AI cards is great, Problem is lack of support and even the game that do support the Ageia card are not utilizing it's potential. I saw a few demos with and without the Ageia card and I sorry, but other than a few more particles I really didn't see anything that made me say "Wow!" As for getting an Ageia card to increase your FPS, sorry but it wont help. I have seen multiple benchmarks on games that do utilize the Ageia card and the scores with and without the Ageia card are almost exactly the same. I know it seems like the using the Physx card would take some load off the GPU and CPU, but that's just not the case. The FPS in some tests were even a bit lower with the Physx card. A great idea that just wasn't supported or utilized properly by PC game developers. Face it guys, PC gamers like us are a dying breed. In 10 years we will all have to buy a console if we want to play newer games.
That was said last year, five years ago, ten years ago and so forth. And, omg, we are still here, and we will remain here. The whole "zomg PC is going to die!!111" thing is kinda annoying.
this could be the farthest thing from the truth....you need to read the post before yours before you decide to make comments. the ppu give a fps increase in GRAW1 , cellfactor, Infernal and even two worlds. all these ive witnessed first hand and other ppu owners will attest to it.. but anyway the AI card I think is even a better idea than the physx card in some ways because i think that AI in games is very important.I cant name one game that i play that the enemies are so smart that you struggle to defeat them. once you find the one method to defeat them it can be duplicated again and again... think about how great it would play a really cool RPG where the enimies develop strategy against you. instead of random encounters.... its all thought out and coordinated with how they are going to attack you based on the situation.lets say your healer is dead so they attack you with undead . then surround your fighter thats week against magic users. but then you revive your healer and they retreat and bring in archers...ETC ETC.. think how great that would be.. anyone that can picture this and plays RPG's would think that was awesome.. to the bottom post below DMONK.... Hate to break it to you but you have to do that anyway... and games will run without it but people that have dedicated hardware will get a greater experience..
so we not only have to buy a graphics card(which has pretty much doubled in price the lats few years) we have to buy a physix card and an AI card. You spend almost 1g just to get a game to work.
Getting a FPS "boost" with only a minor difference in graphics in those few games isnt worth buying a whole new component. Also, there are plenty of games that have relatively good AI without the use of an AI card. Problem with both is the developers arent going to put forth the extra effort it requires to make a game benefit from an OPTIONAL part...this is why addons (espically for consoles) die quick.
thats just it they have ok A.I not incredible A.I. Ive seen this coming for a while having dedicated hardware is the way of the future..just like GPU's came before it Now comes AI.you cant fight the future.........
Sure cant...which is why we have Multi Threading and Multi Core processors...maybe youve heard of them?
lol argumentative.... Multi core is not gonna matter..It cant do what dedicated hardware can without exhausting its resources. did it ever occur to you that developers want this kind of stuff because they make money on it.. do you think its by accident that dev company's sign on in contracts to support this hardware.?!?! independent dedicated hardware for games is finally a reality. we are no different than the people who didnt want GPU's
Too bad its optional hardware that takes extra effort and resources to code for. If PPUs and AI cards were integrated with motherboards then I would fully agree with you. But as long as these cards are optional, its not going to get the support or even the credit they deserve.
