AGEIA, a designer of chips that are expected to boost physics processing in future games, has received a wide industry support from game developers. At the E3 show, from where Anna Filatova – X-bit labs’ Editor in Chief – reports, the company has announced a list of games to use the company’s PhysX technology.
So far during the E3 show AGEIA has announced partnerships with 11 game developers, who will include the company’s physics technologies into the forthcoming titles. The list includes such name as Atari’s Shiny Entertainment Studio, Big Huge Games (Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends), Bongfish Interactive Entertainment (Stoked Rider featuring Tommy Brunner), Cryptic Studios (City of Villains and other next-generation titles), PerfectPlay Entertainment: (Metathrone Project), Phantagram, Ritual Entertainment, Spark Unlimited (New Pandora), Ubisoft (Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 3), Game Consulting (Arena Online), YAGER Development (Eye of the Storm). Besides the mentioned developers, AGEIA has relationship with Epic Software, the developer of Unreal Tournament.
Currently Game Consulting and YAGER Development are showcasing their Arena Online and Eye of the Storm titles behind closed doors at E3 to demonstrate the advantages of AGEIA’s PhysX processor.
AGEIA’s PhysX is the world’s first Physics Processing Unit (PPU), which offloads software physics processing from central processing units and graphics processing units to it. The architecture of the PhysX PPU is tailored for multi-threaded processing of vertexes, which allows game creators to develop detailed, soft and precise animation and simulation of movements, hair, clothing, liquids, fluids and other. Currently AGEIA PhysX is the world’s first and only dedicated physics processing unit, but the company expects more startups to offer similar technology.
AGEIA says it seeks to ignite innovation in the games industry by working with leading developers, publishers, add-in board vendors and console manufacturers to “deliver the next generation of physically immersive entertainment”. Consumer add-in boards and systems equipped with the AGEIA PhysX processor and games that take advantage of the technology will be available in late 2005, according to the company.
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Discussion started: 05/25/05 02:45:35 AM
Latest comment: 06/05/05 12:45:33 AM
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From what I understand about a CPU that makes it crunch numbers faster and better is something called instruction sets. And most instruction sets are formed for specific types of scenarios. So this PhysX chip could very well be a chip formed of various instructions sets designed to take advantage of physics specific calculations in an optimized manor. Still a CPU is still a general purpose chip unlike what the PhysX chip claims to be. I believe that this chip will be very seccesful if it is implamented right. I do not believe that a seprate add-on board will be a good idea. But if they integrate it into graphics cards it will hold in this market better of people that don't see the unique capibilites that this piece of hardware will provide. A place to really see the effectivness of this would to place this Chip into a Next-Gen console such as the "PS3" because then if a piece of hardware is there on every machine, developers well use use it and show its worth. Unlike the pc arena where developers cannot always design there games with optimizations for the latest and greatest because not everyone will have it.
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Posted by: Anon
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Date: 05/25/05 02:45:35 AM]
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I think that the cell chip + the new nvidia chip in the ps3 already provides for this kind of graphics power, but when this Ageia chip + Geforce 7 will be avalible for pc a pc will again be at the same performance level as the ps3.
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Posted by: Silver
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Date: 05/28/05 08:25:01 AM]
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i don't really agree with putting the chip with the graphics card.
okay, firstly everything else.
yes, the CPU is a general purpose chip... but do you want your chip to "do the laundry, cook food, clean house, go shopping in one day" or would you rather have the CPU "make sure the laundry is cleaner/fresher, cook better tasting food, maybe healthier, pay closer attention so everything is cleaner, while someone else does the shopping"?
it's kinda like that.
it all boils down to... everything is a set of computations... the less the CPU has to do of one type of computations, the more time it can do OTHER computations.
let's make it really basic. early on the CPU had to handle graphical data ("rendering" it), it has to handle AI data, it has to handle physics data... and a bunch of other things (i'll group this as "other")
so that's what? roughly 25% of the CPU cycles to handle each set of tasks... obviously this is not the actual numbers, it's just making example.
when the GPU was "introduced" (Voodoo1), it handled much of the gracphical data. so although the CPU still has to do a little, it's much less. so now, the CPU does maybe 10% graphics (the GPU handles the rest of the graphics), 30% AI, 30% physics, and 30% other.
with a PPU, it can be similar, with the CPU doing 10% graphics, 40% AI, 40% other, and 10 physics (with the ppu handling the physics).
of course each time a "PU" was introduced, the % of something did get greater, but it meant there's more it can do... meaning that 40% is actually doing more calculations, better AI... more if of "other" etc.
again, these are "made up" numbers, the actual impact will definitely vary, but I'm sure it WILL be noticed...
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Posted by: Goobers
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Date: 06/05/05 12:41:49 AM]
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whoops, forgot about why i don't agree with putting the PPU with the GPU... cause the PPU is different than the GPU.
sure most of the data from the PPU would most likely go to the GPU, enough of it will go back to the CPU. sure the GPU will show where objects are or are moving... but the CPU needs to also know where objects ARE for future reference. so i think instead of adding to the graphics card, or it's own card, it should be seated near the CPU, or at least on the motherboard.
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Posted by: Goobers
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Date: 06/05/05 12:45:33 AM]
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