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Ageia PhysX hits the market

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpotPosted Mar 22, 2006 12:55 pm PT

Company announces availability of first physics processor, lists upcoming games lined up to use it.

With the Game Developers Conference (GDC) under way in San Jose, Ageia Technologies has taken the opportunity to trumpet a series of developments regarding its PhysX processor.

First and foremost, as of today, the chip is now available in new systems from Alienware, Falcon Northwest, and Dell. Add-in boards featuring the physics processing unit (PPU) are expected to be widely available starting in May. Ageia has designed the chip to handle complex real-time calculations that will allow games to have more varied and impressive visual effects, from explosions that never blow up the same way twice to environments that react appropriately to the natural physics of force, speed, volume, pressure, and density.

Fancy hardware doesn't mean much without games to play on it, and Ageia also announced a bunch of PhysX-supporting titles across major genres today, including Ubisoft's tactical shooter Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Epic Games' multiplayer first-person shooter Unreal Tournament 2007, and Big Huge Games' real-time strategy Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. Other titles in the works using the PhysX Accelerator include Sigil Games Online's massively multiplayer title Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Black Element Software's space shooter Alpha Prime, and Metropolis Software's third-person action game Infernal.

Console gamers aren't left out in the cold, as Ageia PhysX technology will also be incorporated into Sony's PlayStation 3. The company today announced that the latest version of its PhysX software development kit will be made available to PS3 development teams at the end of the month.

46 Comments

  • pongley

    Posted Dec 31, 2007 1:10 pm PT

    The PhysX PPU and it's SDK was designed to perform as a cinematic expansion to games, much like the GPU. So far no developer has really used it to it's real potential. Cellfactor was released free to promote PhysX but its physics programming is so over the top, it looks ridiculous. What we need is a game that uses PhysX on a massive scale, for all physics in the environment but using realistic values. So when a grenade explodes next to a box it knocks the box, splintering bits off rather than throwing it 200 feet in the air.

  • rokkuman09

    Posted May 15, 2007 5:47 pm PT

    Hey bigfish_ak.. I find it ironic that you say physX are useless.. Yet you support quad SLi, which is also just as useless. 1 8800GTX is better than quad SLI..

  • bigfish_ak

    Posted Feb 26, 2007 12:42 am PT

    Who needs physX with dx10 and sli enabled video cards, seems like a waste of money to buy a physx processor, when there are physics already being incorporated into games that seem to be preforming well enough without a ppu. Anyone out there ever heard of HAVOC??? Save your $$$ and get quad sli. PhysX is going the way of the beta max>

  • f789790

    Posted Dec 19, 2006 3:03 pm PT

    Ageia's physic card is a failure so far. You can get the same results or better just getting a second graphics card. So far all the card can do is basic physics which add scarcely anything to be worth $266.80 or even $100 for me. To me it just sucks up more power that my computer does not need to be using.

  • mxpenguin

    Posted Oct 17, 2006 10:04 am PT

    WTF is an MMO gonna need a PPU for?

  • Lordmack

    Posted Jun 16, 2006 9:50 pm PT

    Well maybe that's why Vanguard will be delayed.

  • importeater22

    Posted Jun 12, 2006 12:03 pm PT

    I bought a BFG PPU for $266.80 and free shipping

  • ChronomasterK

    Posted Jun 6, 2006 9:48 am PT

    Actually, it was suggested (in a Reuters article) that the PPU could handle so many objects and calculations so effortlessly, that the video cards of our current generation can't keep up. That's saying something to it's longevity.

    Unfortunately, I can't find a cite on this. I'll keep looking and get back to this.

  • Jur-B90

    Posted May 14, 2006 5:00 am PT

    So it's gonna be compatible with UT 2K7 aye? Interesting...

  • makjak

    Posted May 10, 2006 3:33 pm PT

    there is a price for it. it starts at $300

  • xxscammersxx

    Posted Apr 16, 2006 6:25 pm PT

    i saw them at alienware for 275...

  • Coillscath

    Posted Apr 16, 2006 5:07 am PT

    To above poster- Well ****ing said.

    And to whoever thought this would increase latency...
    'Ha.'
    That's all I have to say.

  • mach-stem

    Posted Mar 23, 2006 4:15 pm PT

    ...This "piece of hardware" will be dedicated to physical attributes within a game. If you can't comprehend what this little marvel can do, just think of this: In present games like Half Life 2, you can shoot a can and it will "imprint" a hole within the can. This hardware will give you the opportunity to actually destroy the can to the point it may actually be true to real physics. It takes alot of computing power to push this concept, and this is what this little "piece of hardware" has the potential of doing. The code will need to be written specifically to use the hardware, essentially taking a very large load off the videocard and CPU. As is, they are your bottlenecks. This will potentially eliminate it.
    PEACE

  • decebal

    Posted Mar 23, 2006 9:07 am PT

    The only difference is that PS3 puts it in their dev kit, making it more accessible for developers. MS doesn't so any game for 360 that has it, does so because the particular developer went and bought it themselves.

  • NeoJedi

    Posted Mar 23, 2006 7:42 am PT

    This sounds really cool... gonna check out video cards that handle it.

  • neoviper

    Posted Mar 23, 2006 12:27 am PT

    check out the differens between what the ppu card card doo,and cpu can.
    http://physx.ageia.com/footage.html

  • Xrules06

    Posted Mar 22, 2006 7:15 pm PT

    If it's more than $200 they can kiss my ass. What good are dual core CPU's than.

  • nemes1s3000

    Posted Mar 22, 2006 7:11 pm PT

    Can't wait to see it in action.

  • Valen_Ca

    Posted Mar 22, 2006 6:47 pm PT

    I am not very technically savvy when it comes to the internal workings of these cards, but couldn't things like this introduce a higher amount of latency to games ?
    Oh and to those people that think that it's a video card , it isn't ,all it does is solve math problems so the CPU doesn't have to.

  • Jerkov

    Posted Mar 22, 2006 4:48 pm PT

    wow, i wonder what new graphics chip will be coming out next week

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