NVIDIA to acquire Ageia

After months of rumors and speculation, NVIDIA announced today that it's acquiring Ageia and its PhysX tech. There's no word on how much coin NVIDIA is dropping on the deal, but the company says the move makes sense, given the similarities in GPU and PPU designs and the trend towards massively parallel coprocessing units like NVIDIA's CUDA cards. Of course, given the war of words between game devs and hardware manufacturers over the value of PPU units, it'll be interesting to see how the industry reacts to this deal -- come on, John Carmack, we know you've got a statement ready.

[Via FPS Labs; Thanks, Chuck]

[chareman14 @ Feb 4th 2008 5:53PM]

BEAUTIFUL!!!! Only good to come from this! Beat that ATI!!

[John @ Feb 4th 2008 5:52PM]

ATI,

Up yours.

-NVIDIA

[E71 @ Feb 4th 2008 10:35PM]

Guess I won't be buying Nvidia anymore.

- John Carmack

(and me neither)

[Joachim Bengtsson @ Feb 4th 2008 6:00PM]

What they've said is that it doesn't make sense to have a /separate/ PPU card, because you still have to re-fetch all that data to the CPU in order to push it to the GPU.

However, if you combine the PPU with the GPU, suddenly you can render what the PPU just calculated *immediately* with no interaction from the CPU. Moving that data to the CPU more than intermittently (for game logic, etc) suddenly became pointless, and we can see all that absolutely crazy performance boosts we've all been dreaming about.

This is the day game developers and gamers have been dreaming about. I hope. Unless they totally botch it.

[Shawn Miller @ Feb 4th 2008 6:17PM]

It's nVidia and Ageia...they aren't going to botch it. I think it would be really cool to see the cards integrated like the GeForce 9800 series (9800 series, right?). Two cards, one PCI-E x16 slot and the same size as one of their air-cooled GeForce 8-series cards. Can you imagine a card like this, alongside two more 8800 Ultras on the 780i board? Absolutely incredible.

[JAmerican @ Feb 4th 2008 9:39PM]

While I've never used ATI and I've always used Nvidia's cards, I must say at times nVidia's drivers are botched. So lets just hope nVidia's driver team doesn't lead this PPU+GPU section.

[EMoShunz @ Feb 5th 2008 7:49AM]

i agree. too bad it wasn't ati/amd who made the deal though...it truly would bring something special to integrated graphics adding a ppu core to the fusion processor!

[Scott @ Feb 5th 2008 10:15AM]

"I've never used ATI and I've always used Nvidia's cards, I must say at times nVidia's drivers are botched. "

I've used both, and I'll never buy an ATI card again.

[Ryan @ Feb 4th 2008 6:38PM]

Good analysis here: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=515

Talks about how the integrated graphics chipsets take on a new purpose now!!

[diemacht @ Feb 4th 2008 6:49PM]

i dont think that it is good when nvidia beats ati for the long term. monopols arent good there has to be a good competitor to keep the price low and the performance war high.
After i saw the havoc fx engine running on nvidia(and ati) cards over sli (or crossfire)(think this was in 2006) i was more in the mood that nvidia(or ati) would bought havoc. But then intel came and took it away right under the nose of nvidia and since nvidia and intel arent really the best buddies the last days it had to happen something. This is a good step forward but the question is what is ati going to do? After the cpu and graphic cards war i think the (this time for real) physics war is right in front of the door.
Well there will be only one winner in the long term and thats of course the consumer. In short term its going to be a messy "format war" in my opinion.
Well time will tell so there is nothing todo exept for waiting for Half life 3 (not ep3) and think about the awesome superduper physics engine valve is going to use this time

[icingdeath88 @ Feb 4th 2008 7:24PM]

It's not like ati can't develop an equivalent fairly easily. Plus, since ATI and nvidia make hardware for the same programs, they'll be really motivated to keep it even and also make sure that there is only one "format", so that developers can use both sets of hardware interchangeably.

[Skullfighter @ Feb 4th 2008 10:11PM]

Thankfully DirectX 10 means the standards are in place for games. No proprietary crap.

[Charles @ Feb 5th 2008 12:36AM]

So DirectX means no proprietary crap? Try telling that to Mac and Linux users.

[EMoShunz @ Feb 5th 2008 8:37AM]

@Charles: thank you. where's the OpenGL love, baby!

[Skullfighter @ Feb 6th 2008 12:56PM]

@ Charles

I'm not sure if you are trying to be obtuse or not. I was referring to proprietary features from the video card manufacturers. Games can be developed for ATI and Nvidia with a single version.

Now I don't have to worry if Crysis' fog will look like crap on my ATI because it was developed for a proprietary Nvidia shader technology. (The last paragraph is hypothetical)

[Carbonize @ Feb 4th 2008 6:56PM]

I'm clueless about this stuff but surely when playing a game the PPU would still have to tell the CPU what it's doing so the CPU is aware of where objects are in the game. No good the PPU deciding that an object should fall this way if the CPU doesn't know that and thinks the object is still where it was.


Or am I totally wrong?

[RichardBronosky @ Feb 4th 2008 11:37PM]

This is very insightful. However, of the many things that a PPU calculates only the elements that effect game play need to be sent to the CPU. You don't have to communicate the location of every fragment in an explosion. Only the chunks large enough to render damage. Even then, you don't have to communicate its precise shape, but only its centroid and enough shape detail to allow interaction.

I'm not a game developer, so I'm guessing. But, I am a programmer and an engineer. I don't know how "they" do it, but _I could_ get it done that way.

[Thomas Stewart Von Drashek @ Feb 4th 2008 7:49PM]

At Last, this is third or Fouth Physics cards I've seen develope since 1955, always from india & always worthless, except when its done we are in NEW Era of Computing. Hail, NT6.

Signed:PHYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART VON DRASHEK M.D.

[Skullfighter @ Feb 4th 2008 10:13PM]

Wow. That's a mouthful.

[Drew @ Feb 5th 2008 2:29AM]

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Thomas Stewart Von Drashek @ Feb 5th 2008 11:34AM]

To say Hi to me means hi, yet i don't publish my gibberish, you can just enter my name, thomas stewart von drashek in search pane & between hundreds to over thousand investigations will come up.

Worst was Usenet investigation, which came down to hard one on one death match, computers in home investigation is calming down. thanks for quip.

Signed:PHYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART VON DRASHEK M.D.

[michael1138 @ Feb 4th 2008 8:21PM]

Carbonize said:
"I'm clueless about this stuff but surely when playing a game the PPU would still have to tell the CPU what it's doing so the CPU is aware of where objects are in the game. No good the PPU deciding that an object should fall this way if the CPU doesn't know that and thinks the object is still where it was."

Actually, a lot of the reason that the CPU needs frequent updates on the position and orientation of game objects is simply to pass that information to the GPU. Sure, there will be many exceptions, like any interactions that require higher-level intervention, such as bullet collisions or whatnot, but I'm sure that in many of these cases, the physics processor could simply alert the CPU to the event, and let the CPU direct from there. Anyway, it looks promising.

[erhan @ Feb 4th 2008 8:21PM]

if ( nVidia + Ageia);
{ ATI = !ATI };
//death to ATI
else ();
{GPU.war = continue};

[TheWakeUpCall @ Feb 4th 2008 8:38PM]

That's some weird syntax you've got going on there, what language are you basing that on?

[Carbonize @ Feb 4th 2008 10:01PM]

Makes no sense to me in any language I know. Let's break it down.

if ( nVidia + Ageia);

If nVidia + Ageia is true but then the statement is terminated with the ; before telling it what to do if this statement is true.

{ ATI = !ATI };

I think this was supposed to be what happens if the if was true. Ati does not equal ati ?

//death to ATI

That's just a comment.

else ();

That's saying else if the if is not true but I've never seen a language that required a () with an else and again they have terminated it before saying what to do.

{GPU.war = continue};

Carry on the war. I think it should of been more like

if ($nVidia + $Ageia)
{
$ATI = 0; //death to ATI
$GPU.war = 0;
}
else
{
$ATI = 0; //death to ATI
$GPU.war = 0;
}


Ok it's 3am in the morning and I'm tired and typing stupid code into a blogs commenting system :|

[Carbonize @ Feb 4th 2008 10:02PM]

Crap supposed to have put = 1 to both statements in the else :|

[k @ Feb 5th 2008 6:13AM]

btw those "nVidia" guys really prefer it to be "NVIDIA".

[Magius @ Feb 4th 2008 9:29PM]

Ageia should have had licensed their technology from the start. At least then the market would have been homogeneous, because once one company licensed the tech, the other would follow suit. Even better, they still would have been their own company and reaping the benefits.

Now Nvidia will own them, Intel owns Havok, and AMD/ATI owns the bed where they sleep, maybe. However the market fragments just a bit more unless MS creates a common interface for both havok and Age... Nvidia's physics solutions. Unless they do (new D3D module) it will be a nightmare for developers and we won't see the technology fully exploited for a long time.

[iofthestorm @ Feb 4th 2008 10:08PM]

Yeah, I think the only good that would be possible to come out of this mess would be MS adding DirectPhysics or something to DX11 or 10.2 or whatever they want to call it, but I don't know if they would be able to support earlier cards like Ageia's beyond an abstraction layer over Ageia's own API. Otherwise, in-house custom physics engines and Havok will probably continue to rule the market, as apparently UT3's Ageia only maps really sucked and actually decreased FPS. The physics in many games are already great, and we really don't need another card to buy and upgrade, especially since they only come in PCI right now and newer motherboards might lack PCI altogether.

[NineT9 @ Feb 4th 2008 8:39PM]

I'm not sure why people would say this is bad as far as a monopoly is concerned? You say competition is good, so

This means ATI needs to step up and compete

[NineT9 @ Feb 4th 2008 8:42PM]

I'm not sure why people would say this is bad as far as a monopoly is concerned? You say competition is good, so

This means ATI needs to step up and compete

[Pro7 @ Feb 4th 2008 8:54PM]

Monopoly sux. RIP Hercules, 3DFX. Look what intel did with laptop CPUs. A year ago, you could get for the same amount of money a notebook with a Nvidia 7600, 120GB hdd, 1 GB DDR2 and a C2D 2.0 T7200. Today you get in a notebook for the same money, a NV 8600GT, 2 or 3GB ddr2, 160GB and a T7300 2GHZ C2D. A year has passed, intel didn't do anything (in the notebook business) when you compare to the GPU. No comptetition, no progress.

[RichardBronosky @ Feb 4th 2008 11:51PM]

Intel has been focusing its video efforts on Open Source support, or so it would seem. I predict that they will be rewarded handsomely for it. You should go to any one of these internet technology conferences and count how many windows machine you see people carrying. It's shocking that Apple is the most popular of any other hardware brand. And of the PCs that are left windows is a small minority.

It's no wonder that microsoft wants to buy Yahoo! They do not use microsoft products for operating systems, databases, web servers, app servers, email servers, etc. This has given them the upper hand and they have done amazing things. Would microsoft prefer to buy an internet company that was doing something amazing with windows servers, MSSQL databases, IIS web servers, and ASP.NET? Sure they would, but there is nobody to buy.

[Skullfighter @ Feb 4th 2008 10:12PM]

Wow. That's a mouthful.

[MagusDF @ Feb 5th 2008 9:06AM]

I think its a fitting boost to nvidia. Its a nice way for them to keep ground or even lead in developing and expanding without forming a stronger alliance with intel.
I'm sure AMD and ATI already started working on some sort of a similar solution, but its more likly to be code that utilizes a core of a cpu. Where physix cards on their own never made enough penetration into the market but integration into a single gpu/ppu solution would give them a much bigger chance.

[Ted @ Feb 5th 2008 2:27PM]

Wow.

There are some seriously eccentric comments in reply to this post.

O_O

[Arsenic0 @ Feb 5th 2008 3:40PM]

You guys do realize why Nvidia bought AGEIA right?

Because Intel bought Havok and is making a run at the graphics card business with the Larrabee project.

Their idea is to take 24 or more of their Pentium MMX chips which can do all of the math functions at lightning speed, slam them all together onto one board and have it do graphics. From all the info i have heard from people @ Intel it is supposed to crush an 8800GTX in terms of performance, in theory atleast i dont know if they have a working sample in the lab yet or not, although i am sure they do.

Intel hired away many of Nvidia's senior engineers for the project so it shows that they are really serious about making this thing big...with the purchase of Havok the implications of doing physics entirely on the GPU become obvious, they have the code, they have the technology, and they now have the people...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_%28GPU%29

So keep an eye out for Intel, as you may be putting one of their graphics cards in your next system upgrade in a few years...

[ether @ Feb 6th 2008 5:58PM]

Yep, I think this is correct.

If everyone is worrying about a monopoly by ATI going down, they should be more worried about a monopoly happening when Intel creates a 7 core CPU that incorporates a quad core processor, a GPU and a PPU in 1 chip and hits performance you can only dream of in a non integrated chip, with full next generation DirectX support.

Traditionally Intel hasn't ever entered this market and usually doesn't care about gaming but that's not to say they couldn't use these chips for plenty of other uses commercially. On the same token gaming hasn't generated the kind of revenue it has in the last year or two in the last 20. By purchasing this company NVIDIA is essentially trying to stay high in the game until they have to decide what they're going to do when this happens and AMD does the same (Possibly by buying ATI, that'd be interesting).

That's of course all personal speculation but it seems to be the par of the course with companies going leveraging to go more integrated on the hardware and software side of things by the types of purchasing companies have been doing this year and last.

[fuzi @ Feb 6th 2008 9:58PM]

and it probably still won't run crysis smoothly.

[The douche! @ Feb 7th 2008 8:20PM]

lol VERY true. I hate crysis for its demonic lag lol. It sucks how crytek could make a game thats so ahead of its time that no one can run it. That, my friends, is total bullshit. Yeah fuzi, crysis wont run smoothly within the next couple of years. Until a 6 core processor and a 3 gb video card is invented, we're screwed beyond belief in terms of crysis and any other next-gen pc games. GO INTEL!!!