[ODE] hardware physics chip

[Erin Catto]

Sorry, let me explain. It appears that the API to the chip is Novodex. In
other words it appears that one cannot use the chip to accelerate their own
physics engine.

Erin

-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Jones [mailto:ed.jones at oracle.com] 
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 10:26 PM
To: Erin Catto
Cc: 'Jeffrey Smith'; 'ODE Mailing List (E-mail)'
Subject: Re: [ODE] hardware physics chip

I don't mean Open as in Open Source.

I mean Open as in "A common interface" - like OpenGL.

I don't think  OpenGL drivers are generally Open Source are they?
But you access the graphics acceleration the cards perform via a common API.


Erin Catto wrote:

>How about closed source? I didn't see anything open about this chip. Please
>tell me I'm wrong.
>
>Erin
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ode-bounces at q12.org [mailto:ode-bounces at q12.org] On Behalf Of Ed
Jones
>Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 7:18 PM
>To: Jeffrey Smith
>Cc: ODE Mailing List (E-mail)
>Subject: Re: [ODE] hardware physics chip
>
>I imagine this would necessitate some form of "OpenP[hysics]L" or 
>"OpenD[ynamics]L" abstraction layer so that you can write your physics 
>code independent of the acceleration hardware being used?
>
>Isn't the biggest benefit of video acceleration that you can just chuck 
>a load of vertices and textures onto the card, leave them there, and 
>periodically tell the card where to draw them without having to pull and 
>push stuff back and forth across the bus? If you had a physics 
>accelerator you could send the whole scene definition to the card, but 
>then each simulation step you'd have to pull the positional data off 
>that card and squirt it at the graphics card. To get full benefit 
>wouldn't you need the physics accelerator on-board the graphics card?
>
>Sounds interesting though.
>
>Cheers,
>Ed.
>
>
>Jeffrey Smith wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Vrej Melkonian [mailto:vmelkon at yahoo.com] wrote:
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Is it possible to create a special chip for physics? It's not like 
>>>graphics that can really benefit from a specially designed chip.
>>>   
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>Yes it is possible, and yes physics can benefit from a specially designed
>>chip.  It is possible to parallelize much of the physics computation
>>required for medium-to-large scenes in addition to having specialized
>>hardware for extremely fast 4x4 matrix computations
>>
>>Limor Schweitzer <limor666 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Does anyone know if these guys base their stuff on ODE ?
>>>   
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>They are using Novodex (www.novodex.com), which has been written by some
>>ex-MathEngine employees (among others), and thus shares some architectural
>>similarities with ODE.
>>
>>It's an extremely robust physics engine, you should check out the demos.
>>
>>-jeff
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>    
>>
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