what is a physical accelorator?

[quasar923]

im just curious to know what a physical accelerator is. and if it is worth getting one.

[Ben Clarke]

Well, firstly I think you mean physics accelerator... they take the starin off your graphics card for physic calculations, like falling objects, things moving, etc. If you get one, it could considerably speed up your frame rates, then again, it might not. I'd wait until games support this a lot more, spend on a better graphics card instead.

[ktr]

Physical Accelerator...or called Physics card is an expansion card for computers, similar to a graphics card but which is used to process physics interactions as opposed to graphics. By taking over the processing of these effects, the CPU can use more of its power for other tasks. A physics card is centered around a physics processing unit, similar to the graphics processing unit on a graphics card, and also contains RAM for use in its processes. The first physics card created was the PhysX by AGEIA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGEIA)...

Now is it worth it?
depends, at the moment...no. Future, maybe, but its far from now. Physics card actually decreases performance by 5%, because physX doesn't really take off load from the cpu, but adds another graphical enhancement (aka physics).

[tkpenalty]

Its no where near worth it since a Radeon X1050 can be used as one anyway, and it gives equivalent performance >_>.

[Pinchy]

A better CPU/Graphics card will do a lot better for ya :)

[Khriez]

I thought if you had 2 cards running Crossfire or SLI one of the cards can be dedicated to just physics.

[Pinchy]

Thats what they are developing now. SLi, you cant do it. Crossfire you can. Go ATi :)

There is a thread on it here:
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=26175