X-bit labs

Ageia Goes Green: The Future of Ageia PhysX Discussed (page 2)

Category: Editorial

by Anton Shilov

[ 02/05/2008 | 11:38 PM ]

The Future of Ageia PhysX PPUs

Nvidia has a long history of acquisitions, but despite of this the company does not seem to have a strict policy regarding companies it acquires. For example, when it acquired 3dfx, it ceased to sell Voodoo graphics cards almost immediately and there was barely any support for 3dfx graphics cards going forward. On the other hand, when Nvidia took over MediaQ, it re-branded certain products and continued their sales and support.

What will happen to PhysX and the support of its early adopters? Perhaps, there are more dedicated Ageia PhysX physics processing units incoming?

X-bit labs: Does the acquisition mean that there will be no more Ageia PhysX dedicated physics processing units and all the physics acceleration will be carried out by Nvidia GeForce GPUs? Perhaps, future Nvidia GeForce GPUs could integrate certain parts of PPUs?

Michael Steele: As part of Nvidia, we are still committed to hardware-accelerated physics and will support current customer commitments to the PhysX processor, as well as future business, as demand dictates. That being said, we will also begin work in parallel to enable physics on a GeForce processor as soon as possible.  New GeForce processor architectures will definitely be something to be reckoned with and we see PhysX as a great addition to enabling Nvidia to continue driving the game experience.

X-bit labs: Will you continue to support existing PhysX PPU owners? If yes, for how long?

Michael Steele: We are still committed to hardware-accelerated physics and will support existing PPU customer commitments, as well as future business, as demand dictates.

X-bit labs: Can we interpret this claim as an indirect promise to release more Ageia PhysX dedicated PPUs in future, if Nvidia feels there is enough demand for it?

Michael Steele: As long as there is demand, Nvidia will do what’s right to support it. Obviously, all of Ageia’s customers from end-user, to system vendor, to console maker, to developer, are the same as Nvidia’s and we’ll do what’s best to support them in driving physics forward and enabling them to be successful with the technology. I would expect demand to continue growing since the addition of GPU physics will open up a much bigger market for game developers and should lead to many more PhysX-driven games in the future.