Physics processing unit: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 05:19, 31 May 2017

Revision as of 23:51, 4 August 2017

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Since Havok's acquisition by [[Intel]], Havok FX appears to have been shelved or cancelled.<ref name="Shilov2007">{{cite web |title=GPU Physics Dead for Now, Says AMD’s Developer Relations Chief |last=Shilov |first=Anton |date=2007-11-19 |accessdate=2007-11-26 |publisher=Xbit Laboratories |url=http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20071119065621_GPU_Physics_Dead_for_Now_Says_AMD_s_Developer_Relations_Chief.html}}</ref>

==Vs. GPUs vs PPUs==

The drive toward [[GPGPU]] has made GPUs more suitable for the job of a PPU; DX10 added integer data types, unified shader architecture, and a geometry shader stage which allows a broader range of algorithms to be implemented; Modern GPUs support compute shaders, which run across an indexed space and don't require any graphical resources, just general purpose data buffers. NVidia [[CUDA]] provides a little more in the way of inter-thread communication and [[Scratchpad memory|scratchpad-style workspace]] associated with the threads.

Nonetheless GPUs are built around a larger number of longer latency, slower threads, and designed around texture & framebuffer data paths, and poor branching performance; this distinguishes them from PPU'sPPUs &and the Cell as being less well optimized for taking over game world simulation tasks.

The [[Sieve C++ Parallel Programming System|Codeplay Sieve compiler]] supports the PPU, indicating that the Ageia physX chip would be suitable for GPGPU type tasks. However Ageia seem unlikely to pursue this market.