So we have new Physics graphics cards to aid in physical collisions, =
ragdolls and objects affected by gravity and other external forces.
I can definitely foresee a future where a Gaming Card will be required. Not =
just for physics but other programming requirements.
Take Pathfinding for example. A memory and resource hog and bottleneck. =
Putting this straight onto a card will free up Processors for other =
work.
A card with A* Pathfinding and other efficient methods has to become a =
reality. We have dedicated soundcards, graphics cards and the =
aforementioned Physics card already. This has to be the next logical step. =
I’ve even heard talk of reintroducing separate Maths Co-processors like we =
had in the old SX vs DX days. Let a separate CPU handle those nasty =
floating point calculations and let the main CPU get on with it’s job. I =
can see more and more there will be a need to break up tasks into =
different, separate parts of a Motherboard or Addon cards to enhance our PC =
experiences. Lord knows Vista’s Aero would benefit from it. How about a =
card or eeprom/flash chip with DirectX on it? Eeprom/Flash, of course to =
make it upgradable. Flash it with the newest capabilities. Hey! Maybe it =
would become easier then for Linux to support DirectX 
The more programming functions get put onto cards, the less bottlenecks =
there are for the main CPU to deal with. In fact, why not integrate this =
with Physics cards and make them even more useful?
April 8th, 2006 at 12:30 pm - Edit
We already have chips with DirectX features built-in, they’re called “graphics cards.” A long time ago they used to optimise for OpenGL, but I’m fairly certain that this is no longer the case, and that the better ones support both with a minimal amount of translation in the actual driver.