DailyTech - AGEIA Continues To Gain PhysX Support

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Software AGEIA Continues To Gain PhysX Support
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - January 19, 2006 2:34 AM

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9 comment(s) - last by lemonadesoda.. on Mar 27 at 8:26 PM

Signing on two major 3D engine developers, AGEIA's physics processing architecture gains momentum

AGEIA, the company famous for launching the world's first PPU, or the physics processing unit, has announced that it has established partnerships with two more industry leaders in game development.

Emergent Game Technologies and Destineer Studios have both announced that AGEIA's PhysX SDK is the cream of the crop when it comes to physics processing. AGEIA says that the use of its PhysX SDK is being recognized by more and more major game studios, and both Emergent and Destineer are saying that we will see more games being developed with AGEIA's processor in mind.

Emergent develops 3D engines for some of today's most popular games. Sid Meier’s Civilization 4, Sid Meier’s Pirates, Dark Age of Camelot, The Elder Scrolls and Freedom Force are just some of the games out there that uses Emergent's Gamebryo engine. The engine has now been programmed to recognize an AGEIA PhysX processor when it sees one and kick into high gear. Emergent says that its Gamebryo engine is also being configured to support the PlayStation 3. With or without AGEIA's PhysX PPU on a system however, Gamebryo also integrates algorithms based on AGEIA's SDK, providing the some of the latest special effects but without the hardware acceleration.

Meanwhile, Destineer Studios has announced that it has outright replaced its physics engine with AGEIA's. Destineer had been designing engines for use in simulation for United States Marines but it too is now using AGEIA's expertise for games.

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It was launched?

By Tanclearas on 1/19/2006 11:47:29 AM , Rating: 2

"AGEIA, the company famous for launching the world's first PPU..."

Umm... what? Did I miss something? I don't even remember a paper-launch of this product. There have been various interviews, demos, and "previews", but now AGEIA is claiming this is a launched product?

IMHO, it is well past the "put up or shut up" timeframe for this product.

RE: It was launched?

By akugami on 1/19/2006 1:09:36 PM , Rating: 2

In interviews, AGEIA has stated that they have cards, they are just waiting for games to actually be available. So they're working with developers to get support in upcoming games. So once there are actually games coming out, or more likely nearly out, you'll see cards that make use of the PhysX cards.

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RE: It was launched?

By BillyBatson on 1/20/2006 3:01:24 AM , Rating: 4

In the newest edition of MaximumPC Magazine they say that the card itself is fully ready and awaiting launch but launch date might be pushed further back to coincide with the launch of games that will be able to take advantage or even use the card.

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RE: It was launched?

By kilkennycat on 1/20/2006 11:03:25 PM , Rating: 2

Er, into which slot do I plug the Ageia PPU card ? Imagine
that I am a SLI or Crossfire extreme gamer with dual high-end video cards and a X-Fi already installed in a PCI slot.
Ageia PPU on anything other than PCIeX1 ( or maybe X4) or integrated on to a video card or motherboard -- better be able to plug it in there -- is a still-born duck. The only genuinely spare space not compromising video-card ventilation or existing PCI peripherals on a typical PCIe SLI or Crossfire motherboard has a PCIe connector. And a X1 or X4 Ageia card can also be plugged readily into an unused X16 slot on a SLI motherboard -- 2 million have already been shipped, of which <20% have (so far) dual video cards installed.

The PhysX PPU has been around so long without a formal launch that the packaging of the product must change if ever offered as a desktop peripheral plug-in. PCI is rapidly dying -- far faster than ISA. Once the hi-fi sound and tv-processing peripherals migrate to PCIe, PCI in the desktop is doomed.

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RE: It was launched?

By lemonadesoda on 3/27/2006 8:26:13 PM , Rating: 2

Shove it in your socket PhysX, soon to be available on premium mainboards...

...watch this space

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Where are the cards?

By DigitalFreak on 1/19/2006 8:28:01 AM , Rating: 2

A lot of software support, but I'm not seeing any of the actual cards. Besides, just because a game supports it it doesn't mean that it will have all the cool physics effects.

By semo on 1/19/2006 8:50:43 AM , Rating: 2

games don't support these high-end physics because there are no physics cards around. it's everyone's favourite catch 22.

i think the reason there are no physics cards out yet is because they cost too much. a graphics card upgrade can get you instant and very obvious visual improvement in many cases. how do you gauge physics performance then?

let's call it the 'wow per buck' factor.

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RE: .

By Araemo on 1/20/2006 8:30:20 AM , Rating: 2

The "wow per buck" factor is important, but I don't really know if 'PPU's will be that usefull. How different are they, really, from GPUs and CPUs?

As GPUs start becoming 'multi-threaded'(And, some technically already are, when it comes to shader programs, right?), and dual-core CPUs become standard, we'll start seeing a physics and AI thread getting spawned for the second CPU. Since more people will have a second CPU than an Aegia PPU, anyone who makes dual-core-optimized physics middleware will probably do better than Aegia will.

I still think Aegia is trying to build a product to license to GPU manufuacturers. If they get enough developers using their middleware, they can just sell the IP and perhaps an IC to ATI/nVidia's AIB partners to stick on their video cards as an added feature.

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