[ODE] Future of physics processors and IM API

[Geoff Carlton]

There's an important difference between physics accelerators and 3D 
graphics acclerators. 

When 3D cards were first taking off, you had popular games that ran on 
current systems, but could look amazing under the hardware (e.g. glquake 
vs quake).  So gamers played the vanilla one, and then saw how good they 
could be having it.  I don't think that holds true with physics 
hardware, because if its not required the physics improvement must 
surely be minimal - a better ragdoll, more tin cans etc.  The extra 
physics must be aesthetic if the game can run without it.

I think the real market here is consoles, because then games can tailor 
themselves to running physics hardware and not need a fallback.  
Microsoft/Sony gets to brag about their games having a real difference 
over the opposition, and developers get to play with some new tech in 
their games.  Then we could start to see really interesting stuff with 
regards to physics.

Geoff