Closing Thoughts - PhysXs Big Break? Unreal Tournament 3 PhysX Performance

Closing Thoughts

Wrapping things up, we’re reminded again of AGEIA’s prowess at producing technical demos. Like the free CellFactor: Revolution and Warmonger games, these maps serve more as a demo of what developers can do with the PhysX hardware than anything else. But AGEIA is also closer to getting the PhysX PPU used in enough important games that it becomes something more than a piece of tech demo hardware.

The performance improvements offered by the PhysX PPU with AGEIA’s maps are substantial, which is where we would expect them to be, but CTF-Tornado also offers an interesting path for AGEIA to go down that we haven’t seen them go down yet. Out of the PhysX titles we’ve looked at so far, the addition of the PPU either adds performance-harming eye-candy (GRAW), effectively meaningless eye-candy (City of Heroes), or a game uses physics so heavily that it’ll never be a mass-market AAA title because it’s unplayable without the PPU (CellFactor).

We’ve been wondering if and when someone would produce a work using the PPU that showcases the PPU as a way to improve performance without the lack of said PPU killing performance, and we’ve found that work in CTF-Tornado. Perhaps it’s not an otherwise remarkable map, but we think AGEIA would certainly have an easier time selling the PPU if there were more games that could be playable with or without a PPU, while the PPU offered a tangible benefit.

Unreal Tournament 3 as measured by its stock maps however is not that game. There’s an interesting performance boost in what we believe are a fraction of the total maps, but it’s practically academic. The possible performance boost doesn’t occur in enough maps or occur as a big enough boost to clearly justify installing a PhysX PPU; either way the game is going to be completely playable. But it’s a start.

Unfortunately we find ourselves once again sitting on the fence when it comes to deciding if the PhysX PPU is a worthwhile piece of hardware or a dud. AGEIA continues to show us just enough in the way of games and performance that we can’t write it off, but we still don’t have the killer app that justifies the PPU either. It once again boils down to a matter of throwing it a new computer along with the kitchen sink, or playing exactly the right combination of games and enjoying exactly the right combination of eye-candy, that the PPU becomes worth it.

At the very least, AGEIA and its partners have brought down the price on PhysX cards from their heavy introductory prices. At least through the end of the year, AGEIA has BFG selling their PhysX card for $99, making the part a more practical purchase. This doesn’t change our fence-sitting position on the matter, but it does help to keep the PPU viable for now and keeps us from writing it off after so few games in the last year and a half.

Looking forward, it seems like it’s a matter of time however until AGEIA and its partners release a new PhysX PPU and cards based on said PPU. We’ve heard the rumors of a new, far more powerful part in production, and we know from AGEIA’s developer efforts that they intend to stay in the game a while longer yet. Coupled with the interesting situation on CTF-Lighthouse of being PPU limited, a new PhysX PPU seems imminent. When, how much, and how that will go over with still such few PhysX-supporting games out there remains to be seen. Now may not be the best time to throw in the kitchen sink however if AGEIA intends to release a new PhysX product within the next few months.

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