[ODE] Future of physics processors and IM API

[David Black]

Hi,

>So the Novodex API definitely has a role to play as the technology matures.
>Whether it will still be the right thing to use in five years, I don't know,
>but Ageia has to start somewhere.  We know a lot less about how to do
>physics now than we knew about how to do 3D graphics ten years ago.  Back
>then, you could look at an Infinite Reality machine and think, "Someday, all
>this will fit on a PCI card."  Companies like SGI had done all the
>fundamental R&D, and it was just a matter of waiting out the tech.
>
>Ageia is in the uncomfortable position of having to make it all up as they
>go along, and without working with the Novodex guys, they wouldn't have a
>chance, IMHO.
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In my opinion a better analogy is between NovodeX and Performer(or some 
other retained mode graphics API). What I would like to see is an 
equivlent to Glide or OpenGL for physics. ie dealing with buffers full 
of physics state and issuing immidiate mode commands to the hardware.

I am not so concerned with if this is a proprietry API (like Glide) or 
an open standard such as OpenGL.

Presumably the Novodex guys have some sort of internal API (however 
poorly defined) for communicating with the hardware, this is what I 
would like to see exposed really. I expect it is similar to glide, ie 
very much tied to the particular hardware architecture, but it would be 
a start and a more solid/general API could be built up from that.

As for Ageia being in an uncomfortable/difficult position, no argument 
here. The mind boggles at how tough it is to debug a hardware physics 
simulator, tracking down errors in software is difficult enough:-(

David


>-- jm
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>>I just hope AGEIA (or someone else) comes up with a physics chip which
>>can be accessed at these levels, rather than only through something like
>>novodex(which is great, but not suited to everyones needs and I am sure
>>given the chance people could improve upon it).
>>
>>I also wonder if the AGEIA chip isnt just novodex in the firmware on the
>>card and executed by a CPU with some additional hardware. (Anyone
>>remember rendition graphics cards?). I just dont think such an approach
>>is very scalable...
>>
>>What are peoples thoughts
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