Hi
i have a question

i have a AGEILA PhysX Card,can we use this card
for Boinc too!!


has someone an idea ??

it´s only an idea but this card has a lot power where we can us and we need all power where we can get !

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i dont know what that is... but if its a graphics card then no. At least thats as far as I know.

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It's a PPU (Physics Processing Unit) - a relatively new concept, it makes for more realistic physics effects in games (although current games really do not take advantage of it yet with very few exceptions).

So it's not really a graphics card, but it enhances graphic effects and gameplay by offloading some of the calculations from the main CPU and enabling better AI, for example.

HTH,
Simon.

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Mr. Chicken is right on the nose. The Ageia not, Ageila, card is a PPU designed to make physics more realistic in games. I'm not sure of it's capabilities, but if it can't do the right calculations with the right amount of acuracy, then I doubt it will be supported, just like graphics cards.

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From my understanding of the PPU, it specializes in calculations needed for physics effects which I believe SETI could really benefit from if there was a way to use the hardware since it is VERY efficient and fast at processing multiple (2000+) physics calcuations simulatenously.

Would be nice to see, though I'm not a PPU owner.

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Yeah I'd buy a few, If It could be of help to Me when crunching for Seti.

You could always compile a verison of the program so it will run on the card. Of course that involves stuff waaaay beyond my capabilities. People have compiled versions for all the different OS's, at least most of them. The problem is, and always has been, that this card, and video cards like it, are not in wide spread use, as compared to OS's, so the application is limited in its potential users.

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But isn't S@H more about "pattern searching" than any sort of physics calculations? Ie, is looking for a signature pattern of frequency changes which would indicate stronger than expected (non background noise) originating from another point of origin (ie, not from our own little blue-green marble).

Maybe for some of the other BOINC projects yes, but don't see how it could help S@H crunching?

This is an interesting topic. I'd be interested to know if anyone knows whether the Ageia PhysX accelerator accelerates FFTW? If it does, it'll help with a lot of scientific projects. I know ClearSpeed does have an accelerator that will accelerate FFTW and claims up to 50Gigaflops per second, but it's too high priced for the majority of us at the moment. There are talks that AMD is looking to add a ClearSpeed accelerator for AMD that would have direct access to Hypertransport, but we'll see if that really ever happens.

Torrey Lauer
Modern Travel Services / Rainbow Sky Travel
moderntravel d01.t net / RainbowSkyTravel d01.t com

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But isn't S@H more about "pattern searching" than any sort of physics calculations? Ie, is looking for a signature pattern of frequency changes which would indicate stronger than expected (non background noise) originating from another point of origin (ie, not from our own little blue-green marble).
Maybe for some of the other BOINC projects yes, but don't see how it could help S@H crunching?

Yes Seti is about 'pattern searching' but it does it thru highly intensive mat calculations. It calculates one item, calculates a second item, then compares the two. It is not about pictures.

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AGEIA PhysX

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me@rescam.org