[bd]

There is a nice demo in Nvidia's Cuda SDK:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh2q_p6hQEo

[anigbrowl]

Yes, I like that CUDA stuff. However I think you need their Tesla engine for the most impressive eye candy, which runs about $2000 last time I looked. Of course, this time next year etc. etc.

[bd]

This particular demo runs on Macbook Pro with Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uoVRs_zLn8

Not so smooth as on the desktop GPU, but even not top-of-line gaming card for few hundred bucks will give you very impressive performance.

And even with just CPU you can do pretty nice things:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlFAzXeCB80

[anigbrowl]

Sure, but look at that frame rate. Don't get me wrong, I think we're in a golden age of computer graphics, but that last 5% o performance is still pricey.

Maybe it's time to start benchmarking physics simulations though, just like the utah teapot was/is the 'hello world' of the 3d modelling/raytracing world for so long.