I didn’t want anyone to think I wasn’t covering the Computex Show properly, so I thought I’d go ahead and make some interesting news posts here before getting my entire article online later in the week. 

The first day of the show, ATI demonstrated their adaption of GPU-based physcis acceleration to a few journalists in a very small room.  Nothing very new was shared, though they officially announced support for Havok FX, something we already knew about since GDC in March.  We were already told they would support physics acceleration on two different graphics cards, unlike NVIDIA’s current stance that requires two identical cards for SLI Physics.  What was new was support for three GPUs in a system for CrossFire graphics rendering and a seperate card for physics work.

ATI Physics at Computex - Processors 3

This system has three Radeon X1900 cards in it for CrossFire and physics work.  It had a 1 kilowatt power supply in it too, go figure.

ATI Physics at Computex - Processors 4

This system is running CrossFire as well with two X1900 cards, but the smaller X1600 card in the middle is doing the physics work.

ATI said that every GPU from the X1600 and up will support physics acceleration, so those inexpensive cards floating around Newegg might be a good investment afterall.

Other Articles of Interest on Physics in Gaming