Field-Programmable Physics Processor (FP 3 )

We outline the design and implementation of an FPGA-based numerical integrator that will form the basis of our FPGA-based physics engine. Physics engines are considered one of the most important of a multitude of components requesting CPU time in a modern computer game, and so we propose offloading this physics computation to an FPGA-based physics engine. Moreo ver, we suggest inserting FPGAs into PCs, as the FPGAs' reconfig urability could be used to accelerate a wide range of applications; when the user is playing games, the FPGA could be configured to accelerate game physics, as outlined here. Our physics proces sor uses the fourth order Runge-Kutta numerical integration al gorithm to solve the ordinary differential equations used in game physics. Our current analyses indicate that the performance of our physics processor should surpass that of the equivalent soft ware executing on a CPU when several objects are simulated. Ordinary differential equations (ODEs) describe the dynamic behaviour of objects, and so form the basis of game physics. To solve ODEs computationally, a numerical integration algo rithm is typically employed. Due to the essentiality of ODEs to game physics, we began our implementation of the field- programmable physics processor with a numerical integrator. -