[ODE] hardware physics chip

[Ed Jones]

Oh, OK.

That's pretty pointless then. I can't see every developer who wants to 
use hardware-accelerated physics wanting to use Novodex. Although 
obviously the Novodex folks will be hoping that they do!

IMHO.


Erin Catto wrote:

>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.
>http://www.planetofwomen.net/studio.html
>
>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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>>    
>>
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