Another hardware to the list

These days, on a typical home PC, the two main component that decide how fast Gordon Freeman can turn around and blast off and charging alien before being hit in the ass, or in a more simple and less dramatic term, the speed of a 3D game, are the CPU, GPU( graphic card ) and to some extend, the RAM. But one of the main cash sucker is the CPU and GPU. And of course, they provide the processing power mordern games need. But as if these two hardware are not enough to make me loose my hair and burn a large hole in my wallet, comes another new hardware, called Physics Processing Unit PPU.

Before you go ZOMFG, what has physic to do with a computer, well, this is a technology that has been implimented into games since the day mario call it a day and 3D games took over. Physics processing determines how a man head burst when being shot at, how the blood spills on the wall and how his body rolls down the stairs. It helps bounce a car off your opponent car when u hit him, how water flows, how a person hair moves as she moves her head around as if he's on drug, and many other more possibilities.

All along, this physics calculation are being done by the CPU, but there's a problem. CPU has to handle other calculation too, such as the Artificial Inteligence AI, and many other things. So, taking off the physics load from the CPU frees up lots of precessing power for it to do other stuff, such as more complex AI calcultion, while the PPU handles mre complex physics. This will result in much more realistic games in the future.

Here's a picture of the prototype:


Alright, geek stuff aside.

Microsoft has just unveil the next gen console, the xBox 360, which will be available this summer break, while Sony too has shown its Play Station 3 console, due early next year. Kinda exciting, as xBox will have it's one and only worth game, Halo series, while will have it's 3rd installement with this xBox. And for PS3, Gran Tusrismo 5 have been annouce, and more games are expected to be annouce. One can always expect those immortal titles such as Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil and Silent Hill series. Expect Resident Evil heroin looks more sexier than ever, and more macho fatalities from Sub Zero as this new console pack a lightyears more processing power than any PC available in today markets.

So, where does it leave geeks like me who still stick to a PC and will never touch one of those consoles? Well, certainly PC processing power won't be lagging behind for too long. That's where stuff like PPU, mutli-core CPU, and extream powerful GPU comes in.

But heck, it looks like i have to sell a kidney or two if i were to buy those hardware to run Half Life 3 or DOOM 4.