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EVGA GeForce GTX 275 co-opts a GTS 250 for PhysX duties
Ready for some more dual-GPU madness, only this time in the resplendent green of NVIDIA? EVGA has gone and concocted a special Halloween edition of the GTX 275, which has sprouted an entire GTS 250 appendage solely for PhysX gruntwork. Dubbed a new form of Hybrid SLI, EVGA's latest combines -- for the first time, from what we can tell -- two different GPUs and assigns them with specific and mutually exclusive tasks. Whether this concept takes off will depend to a large extent on the effectiveness of PhysX acceleration and whether it can show more efficient scaling than regular old SLI with two boards or more conventional dual-GPU setups like the GTX 295. Color us intrigued, either way. P.S. - That's what the actual card will look like, we're not making it up.%Gallery-77092%
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'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]
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.
Ageia PhysX processor review roundup
There's been plenty of hubbub surrounding the release of Ageia's dedicated PhysX "PPU" board, with Epic Games pledging extensive "Unreal Tournament 2007" support and around 20 titles in the works. Unfortunately, the launch support is pretty weak, and since the whole point of the tech is the gaming joy that it enables, there doesn't seem much point to get a card at this point. Just "Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter" is available with PhysX at launch, and the effects that are turned on in the game with the PhysX card enabled are not only not fully realized, but cause a decent hit to frame rates. Games built from the ground up to use the PhysX card, such as the forthcoming "Cell Factor" which claims to be the the first title to require the card, look quite good and frankly do things with physics that just aren't possible with the traditional CPU / GPU combo. With that said, major titles built in such a way around the PhysX hardware will be few and far between for a while, giving few reasons to spring for the $300 card until the kinks are worked out and the special effects it enables are more than tacked on -- if flashy -- extras. Anywho, for the curious here are a few reviews we found, anyone else got one? Leave it in comments and we'll tack it on.Read - Hexus.netRead - AnandTechRead - Pc Perspective
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]
