Been looking for this card.... It's the P200 Ageia Physx card that was never released.
If you or a loved one has this card. Sell it to me
View attachment 139974
Product description
Absolutely unique product! Not a serial model! Physical Process Accelerator AGEIA PhysX Accelerator 200 Series PCI Express Card - PPU2 codename Maplewood - Engineering Samples
Physics Processing Unit (PPU) - “Physics Processing Unit” (a coprocessor for processing physical phenomena) manufactured by Ageia Technologies is a hardware accelerator of physical calculations that is designed to relieve the burden of computing interactions of objects in the virtual world from a CPU-GPU bundle. AGEIA has created this class of devices to improve the performance of games, 3D modeling systems and engineering design systems. Using the PhysX SDK software package, when developing games, all the complex interactions of objects - solids, tissues, and liquids - rests on the Ageia software component and, if there is a PPU, is processed on it, and not on the central processor.
The processor used in PPU, using parallelization of computation and optimization only for a certain type of calculation, allows speeding up calculations up to 200 times in comparison with the same calculations on a regular CPU of that time. It is the link between the software engine embedded in the game and the individual physical accelerator on which it performs work that has become the main achievement in this technology. At the time of the presentation in 2005, it was a breakthrough solution that allows you to increase the performance of dynamic interactions in games and get more realistic effects. This innovation is comparable to the appearance of the first 3D graphics accelerators in the 90s.
Initially, a model of the 100th series with a P1 processor and a PCI interface was released, then a PCI-E version and options from third-party manufacturers, such as ASUS PhysX P1 or DELL W056C, were released. Accelerators began to be installed in their computers by well-known suppliers - Alienware, Dell and others, and developers began to introduce the PhysX engine into computer games. In 2008, with a strong interest in acceleration technologies for physical engines, nVidia completely bought Ageia with all its intellectual property, closed a separate accelerator production and introduced PhysX technology into its video cards starting from the 8000, 9000 and GTX 200 series.
In the future, the technology of hardware calculation of physical processes from other manufacturers did not receive distribution not because of any restrictions on the part of nVidia, but because of the sharp development of central processors. Moreover, it was not just the nominal increase in clock frequency that turned out to be important, but the introduction into newer processors from Intel and AMD of extended sets of special instructions that at the kernel level (i.e. the hardware level) made it possible to accelerate complex standard mathematical calculations close to those performed on PPU. The development of superscalar and optimization of the conveyor component of the CPU architecture made it possible to increase productivity when executing sets and sequences of commands, which, when performing standard calculations in physical engines, removed a significant percentage of the load. Also, the development of multi-core and the accessibility to the masses of consumers of two or more nuclear processors allowed game engine developers to use one core to calculate game logic (game intelligence), and the other to calculate physics (interaction within game objects), which made the issue of external optimization devices even less relevant. A paradoxical fact - in the new versions of the PhysX engine from nVidia and the drivers from video cards in the late 2000s, a special setting appeared that allows you to transfer all PhysX API calculations to the CPU, that is, they will specifically return to what Ageia tried to get away from in the mid-2000s, since the CPUs released at that time no longer had such performance limitations as at the time of PPU development.
However, the legacy of PPU technology has not completely disappeared. The PhysX API game physics engine itself is constantly being developed and updated by nVidia and it is an important component of many popular games today. The idea of a link between hardware acceleration and the associated software element finds its particular application in individual technological solutions. For example, the nVidia HairWorks module, when the creators connect the game to their creation, allows you to use hardware acceleration on modern nVidia video cards to dynamically and realisticly draw the hair and coat of game characters. The most striking rethinking of Ageia PhysX technology today is the RTX technology promoted by nVidia in the latest video card models. PhysX was used to speed up calculations of interactions between solids and liquids,
This model of the accelerator was born in late 2007 - early 2008 at the very turning point. On the one hand, Ageia had a PhysX 200 processor, which had been under development since the beginning of 2007, was fully prepared, drivers were released on it in a general update, and Dell planned to install it in the XPS 400 series of system units. On the other hand, nVidia, the owner of Ageia, did not want to continue to release PPU as a separate device and was preparing to integrate it into its video cards. As a result, the test model of the second generation of PhysX accelerators has a fan in the form of the nVidia logo and textolite, which is characteristic for engineering samples of their products, but with the marking “PhysX by AGEIA”, which serves as a visible reflection of the section of interests between the companies.
The second generation of accelerators compared with the first increased its technical characteristics:
- the new core, codenamed Maplewood, should be able to handle up to 2 times as many objects
- core frequency in different models from 600 to 733MHz instead of 500MHz in the first generation
- memory with 128MB with a frequency of 738MHz in the first generation expanded to 256 / 512MB with a frequency of 850MHz GDDR3 standard with a 128bit bus
- only PCI-E version 1.1 interface instead of PCI 2.2, like most first-generation cards
The informal name for the second generation is “PPU2” (ie Physics Processing Unit version 2).
Based on the general characteristics and analysis of this board, it can be argued that Ageia planned to release a second generation model in several versions with different performance and different memory sizes, similar to how video cards within the same generation (for example, GeForce 700 series) have several different lines (for example, GTX 750, GTX 760, etc.).
The presented model is based on the processor AG1021-A1 P22396.L1 0716-1 and has four memory chips Samsung K4J52324QC-BC14
The card is equipped with a PCI-E 1x interface. Power consumption up to 65W. Power supply is required through a standard 6pin connector, as for a video card.
Turbine type cooling system. The fan is controlled by a temperature sensor - it turns on only when a certain temperature is exceeded, and is turned off the rest of the time.
The presented card is just an example of how the final retail product will look (at the level of layout and performance, rather than appearance), that is, it represents a kind of Relise Candidate product. Differences from the test versions for developers are as follows:
- Reduced number of power phases
- Removed full-size debug COM port DB9
- No DIP switch blocks for setting operating modes
At the same time, the serial debugging interface itself remained in the form of a 3pin connector in the upper left corner of the card and there are two connectors near the interface connector and the power connector for taking energy readings through the corresponding consumption channels.
To test the performance of physics accelerators, the well-known analytical resource Geeks3D, the author of the popular FurMark video card test, released a separate benchmark program called FluidMark. In the pictures you can see the testing passed by the presented instance. Next to the test program window, the PhysX settings window shows that when attempting to reset the PPU state, messages about the impossibility of reset due to the processor being in operation are issued. Another image shows a positive result of the processor passing the built-in tests in the setup program.
To use the card, it is recommended to install the AGEIA PhysX PCI Card Driver driver version 1.1.1.15 and the PhysX SystemSoftware software version 8.09.04.
