First of One said:
The T-buffer is used by the Voodoo4/5 to do FSAA, which is implemented at
the driver level and works with all games. If you are referring to the
T-buffer motion blur and soft shadow effects, there was one mod for Quake3
by 3DPulpit that enabled them. Nowadays those effects are doable by any
nVidia or ATi card that supports multi-sample AA. There are quite a few
games with soft shadows (FEAR, Oblivion, Chaos Theory...), whether they
use the AA buffer or pixel shaders, really doesn't matter to the end user.
There is a difference between the T-buffer and PhysX. The T-buffer was a
enhancement feature for a video card. Games that didn't use the T-buffer
effects still utilized 3D acceleration from the Voodoo4/5. If a game
doesn't use PhysX, the Ageia card sits idle, just producing heat and
taking up room.
Most of that has absolutely nothing to do with the point being
made. It never was a comparison of the relative value of Voodoo
cards and PhysX cards. ( I have all the 3DFX cards up to and
including the Voodoo 5 5500 AGP) I was using the "T Buffer"
effects as features that had to be implemented by software
designers and basically never appeared, just to show that I am
aware of that possibility for the PhysX card as well. The fact
that there weren't "T Buffer" enhanced games out when I was
pre-ordering my 5500 AGP didn't enter into my purchase
decision (even the fact that 3DFX was in its last days, didn't)
The PhysX cards will work with a couple of games that I will
be playing, now. It has gained support with developers and
there are commitments for it to be included in games from the
likes of: Epic and Ubisoft, soon.
From an Anandtech review:
"Currently, rather than a direct hardware API, the features of the
PPU will be accessed via the NovodeX SDK. This physics engine
was bought by AGEIA and built to use either software physics
simulation or the PhysX hardware. This gives developers some
flexibility to develop software that works with or without the
hardware.
AGEIA would like to have hardware support from other SDKs,
but currently only their in house engine adds hardware support.
Of course, there are already some games that are built using
NovodeX. And more are coming. Epic and Ubisoft (among
others) announced that they will be using NovodeX and
building in support for hardware accelerated physics through
the PhysX PPU. With future Unreal Engine 3 and Ubisoft games
supporting a PPU, AGEIA has a good start ahead of them."
"We like the idea of the PPU a lot. But like plasma television
(which has been around for decades), just because good technology
exists doesn't mean vendors and consumers will adopt it. We hope
PhysX or something like it leaves a lasting mark on the PC industry.
As unpredictable as they are, it's about time we had another
revolution in game design."
But to make the point again , we are talking about a new toy,
nothing else. Some toys spend little time out of the closet, before
a new one takes its place. Some become part of a lifelong
pastime.
Luck;
Ken
