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I've heard that Microsoft is delevopping "Direct Physics"
Where did you hear this? If it is true, I'd like to know more about it.
Some people (me included  ) have talked about DirectPhysics but, AFAIK, Microsoft hasn't done anything.
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I still dont think the future of games/simulations is a specialized hardware for everything.
Neither do I. I've had some wonderful conversations with people about the problems with "AI Hardware".
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I dont see why CPU-based physics isnt good enough for the future... As CPUs get faster, won't physics models improve as well?
True. But why do we still spend $80 to $800 on special video cards? And why is sound still handled by a separate chip (which is now part of the motherboard)? CPUs today could easily handle the graphics you had in Quake 2 but what hardcore gamer would be happy today with that when they could have shaders, mirrors, blur, bump-map, etc. all at 90+ FPS?
If (and this is a big IF) physics can benefit the same way as graphics and sound does by having special hardware, then what hardcore gamer would be happy with HL2 physics when they can have a 1000+ objects on the screen all moving with realist forces; water that can "pour" out of pipes, onto desks, around the player's legs, causing all the objects in the room to float depending on their mass; and car crashes that are not "canned" but actually model the damage to the vehicle (from dents and cracked tail-light up to bending the frame and cracking the engine block). These are the sort of hype that people are saying physics hardware can deliver.
Now we have to see if reality lives up to the hype.
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