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GDC09: Massively's Fallen Earth interview
We had a chance to sit down with the Fallen Earth guys yesterday at GDC 2009 and came away from the experience very ready to roll deep into our post apocalyptic futures of 2156.What can we say? A dynamic mission system that reacts not only to faction alignment, but also storyline choices made by the player is probably what began our newly formed obsession. Although, an open class system emphasizing player choice certainly added to our excitement.Watch out, because when you see an avatar gardening in Fallen Earth? That could be us, packing a basket of flowers and herb. And a flame thrower... and sniper rifle... and... well, probably a revolver, too. Did we also mention the horses, ATVs, trucks, dune buggies and muscle cars as mounts? All this, and much more can be found just beyond the hyperlink precipice.%Gallery-48606%
NVIDIA uncorking PhysX support for GeForce cards on August 12th
It's arriving a month later than anticipated, but at least it's arriving (we hope). According to a first look at PhysX on NVIDIA's GeForce cards, The Tech Report is reporting (ahem) that the graphical outfit will dish out new drivers that add PhysX support on August 12th. The new software will allow owners of GeForce 8, GeForce 9 and GeForce GTX 200-series cards to use PhysX acceleration without shelling out any additional coinage, which means that you all will surely be giving it a shot just for kicks, right? Keep next Tuesday clear -- you and Unreal Tournament 3 have a date, like it or not.[Via UberReview]
NVIDIA / Ageia deal gets officially official
Well that was fast -- just nine days after announcing plans to acquire PhysX maker Ageia, NVIDIA said today that the deal is done. Still no word on when we might see NVIDIA cards with Ageia tech in them, but we'll let these two enjoy their first Valentine's day as a happy couple merged corporate entity before we start asking the hard questions.[Thanks, Ryan]
Nvidia to acquire Ageia Technologies
Graphics whiz buys physics boffin news now, with the announcement of graphics card designer Nvidia's "definitive agreement" to purchase Ageia, developer of the PhysX middleware and corresponding PPU (physics processing unit) hardware accelerators. Ageia's PhysX solution is reportedly in use by over 140 shipping or in-development games across a range of platforms, including the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and PC. The purchase reflects both companies' shared goal of "creating the most amazing and captivating game experiences," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of Nvidia. "By combining the teams that created the world's most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForce-accelerated PhysX to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world."The press release makes no mention of the acquisition cost nor specific products those millions of gamers around the world can expect in the future, but the first benefits of the agreement are sure to be seen in precariously stacked, stunningly rendered crates.[Via Engadget]
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]
AGEIA to give UT3 modders a physical with PhysX mod kit
With consoles constantly encroaching on what used to be exclusively PC territory, it's refreshing to know that there are some things, such as mods, that remain the domain of those who prefer keyboard and mouse over thumbsticks. For example, while Epic's Unreal Tournament III will eventually find its way to gamers of both persuasions, it will be PC enthusiasts who enjoy the added benefit of mods, though word is that players will somehow be able to share mods between platforms. The latest mod tools for the game come from physics moguls AGEIA, who have announced plans to release a mod kit designed around the company's PhysX GPU processor, promising modders "everything they need to easily add PhysX-powered content into the UT3 universe." The kit, which will be available in December, will include additional tools, guides, tutorials and documentation and assets and examples on top of the game's existing mod tools.In addition, to show that it's serious AGEIA has also released a collection of "Extreme PhysX Mod Levels," which are now available and aim to demonstrate why we should all care about the PhysX processor. This collection includes the LightHouse and Tornado mod levels, the latter of which can be seen in video form here. More levels are promised, and while we can't say that this has driven us to brave the Black Friday crowds to lay down the geld for one of those cards, AGEIA no doubt hopes that players include PhysX cards on their shopping lists this holiday season.
AMD tosses around the idea of acquiring Ageia
While it's apparently still quite a ways beyond the realm of possibility, Custom PC is reporting that AMD has at least tossed around the idea of acquiring Ageia, which makes the PhysX physics processing unit and corresponding PhysX software. That doesn't seem to be an entirely new development, however, with AMD's Richard Huddy saying, 'we've had that discussion, yes. It's a discussion that goes round every three months – someone turns to me and says 'why don't we buy Ageia?' and I go through the arguments about why we should and why we shouldn't.' The biggest stumbling block, not surprisingly, is price, with Intel's recent acquisition of Havok weighing heavily into the equation. That, Huddy says, gave Ageia a roughly equivalent value of $100 million, a value Huddy says is about $90 million too much. He still doesn't rule out an acquisition altogether, however, although it seems that there'll have to be a pretty big shift in valuations before AMD's interest is really piqued.
Ageia's mobile PhysX PPU headed for Dell's laptop line
John Carmack may not believe in dedicated PPUs, but it seems that Dell certainly does, as IGN recently reported that the company is set to add Ageia's new mobile PhysX PPU to its laptop line, a move that now appears to be all but confirmed by the above image residing on Ageia's press site. The mobile PhysX PPU itself was announced just ahead of the recent Leipzig Games Convention, and promises to offer many of the same benefits as its desktop counterpart while keeping power consumption to a minimum (10W during gameplay, according to Ageia). While there still doesn't seem to be any official word from Dell, as IGN points out, the company's top-end XPS M1710 (or forthcoming M1730) would seem to be the most likely to get the new upgrade.[Thanks, Mack S]
Ageia announces PhysX 100M processor for gaming laptops
Although it's been well over a year since the Ageia PhysX processor made any noise at all over on the desktop front, the firm is taking full advantage of the exposure provided at the Games Convention in Germany to unveil the PhysX 100M processor for "high-performance" gaming lappies. According to the company, this new device aims to provide "the most intensely realistic gaming and entertainment experience to PC gamers" on-the-go, but the nitty-gritty we were hoping for simply hasn't been divulged just yet. Of course, it's fairly safe to assume that we'll only be seeing this unit packed within beastly gaming laptops that can't stray far from an AC outlet, but only time will tell which manufacturer takes the bait first.[Via ExtremeTech]
John Carmack doesn't believe in PPUs? Fine, then PPUs don't believe in John Carmack
We wouldn't go so as far to say that developers in the dedicated PPU world are "firing back" over John Carmack's statement last week that he is "not a believer in dedicated PPUs," but we would at least say that they're offering alternative opinions. In a recent Bit-tech article, Ageia's Dan Forster tackles concerns over the need for PPUs, and (in)directly addresses Carmack's statement that "multiple CPU cores will be much more useful in general," by suggesting that no matter how many cores are involved, there are timing issues between them when being distributed to separate tasks. Forster claims "At the moment, there's not a single game that supports multi-threading even at a basic level..." Leaving some of us to wonder just what Carmack is on about -- but do you really want to question the man who created Doom? Didn't think so.
John Carmack doesn't believe in dedicated PPUs
John Carmack has always been vocally opposed to the concept of dedicated Physics processors for gaming PCs, but his latest statement on the topic really hammers the nail in. Talking to Boot Daily on the topic of Intel's QX6850 CPU, Carmack states that future multiple core CPUs will be able to take the strain of physics processing. Carmack does have a fair degree of interest in this area, with Ageia's PhysX card being supported on the Unreal Engine 3 platform, which happens to be developed by iD software's rival, Epic Games. If there's one thing we can be sure to garner out of this statement, it's that iD software's new gaming platform iD Tech 5 won't be one that favors dedicated physics processors.[Via Digg]
Ageia building PCI Express version of PhysX card
Nothing much to see here, but Ageia is apparently prepping a PCI Express version of their PhysX card -- which is currently only available in PCI form. The new card boasts of zero performance improvements, since the original isn't even close to maxing out a PCI bus, but doesn't PCI Express just sound more exciting? We suppose if you've got all your PCI slots full-up with a sound card, Killer NIC and some AI Processing, a free PCI-E x1 slot might be your only option, but otherwise we can't imagine a huge demand for this card when this starts shipping sometime October-ish. Ageia also launched a new version of the PhysX SDK today, with Vista 64-bit and Linux support, along with a new "Realitymark" benchmark system to convince the unwashed masses that buying a PCI E dedicated physics card with near zero game support is a decent value proposition.
Havok vs AGEIA: the physics/PhysX showdown
We recently covered the hot topic of physics acceleration, and FiringSquad has gone one further, pitting AGEIA and Havok against each other in an interesting debate. As competitors are wont to do, the companies directly attack each other to a certain extent, but in other ways the arguments exemplify the CPU-GPU/PPU battle.A user comment sums it up: "Developers are unlikely to make gameplay dependent on the presence of a PPU until it's widely adopted. Until then it'll probably be limited to effects (and taking the gameplay physics load off the CPU)." As PPU adoption becomes more widespread, developers may embrace it, but we need developer support to make the case for adoption -- it's a vicious circle that AGEIA will have to break.To further fan the flames around physics acceleration, a source close to the DirectX steering committee has told Joystiq that Microsoft's DirectPhysics API may not be going ahead after all. Instead, Microsoft may approach a laissez-faire attitude and snap up whichever acceleration solution emerges as the winner.[Thanks, John]
Physics acceleration: hot or not?
Physics is becoming the new buzzword when it comes to hyped-up hardware. Ageia's PhysX processor has been touted as an important step forward -- the add-in card, which is already available in Alienware's machines, goes on sale this month, though it will be some time before the games which support it are released.However, Ageia hasn't sewn up the market. NVidia is also getting on the bandwagon by supporting Havok (as announced at GDC). Ageia claim that their card can generate more objects than a high-end graphics rig can cope with, so it will be interesting to see how a dedicated graphics card handles the task of physics too. Microsoft is jumping in the fray as well -- not much is known about DirectPhysics, but if history repeats itself then a firm hand from Microsoft could do the hyperbolic world of physics accelerators a world of good. Ultimately, physics acceleration has a lot of potential, but the cost of an additional card is off-putting; as more emerges about the alternatives to PhysX, it'll be easier to make an informed decision.
Ageia PhysX card makes explosions look pretty
Ageia has posted two videos comparing an explosion in the PC version of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter on machines with and without the company's $300 hardware PhysX physics card. It's clear to see that the explosion is much more impressive on the PC with a PhysX card--the shrapnel and massive smoke cloud is entirely absent on the normal machine. However, there's some inconsistency in terms of the explosion's effect on the gameplay. In the video without the PhysX card the screen doesn't shake and a nearby soldier is unaffected by the blast. In the video with the PhysX card the screen shakes relatively violently and the soldier dies (although he's slightly closer to the blast). Of course its possible that the second video could have been tweaked to further differentiate the two machines' explosions, but if simple effects like a screen shake requires $250-300 worth of hardware it's not hard to envision a lot of pissed off gamers.[Update: fixed grammar error (moved over an apostrophe, added an "s")]
