

BFG AGEIA PhysX Accelerator
The physics battle heats up






Updated 2/4/2008



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Hopes for benefits
By Xodus Maximus on 2/4/2008 5:48:57 PM , Rating: 3
Intel has Havok and they did nothing new with them, so I am really hopeful that NVidia might do something that moves the field forward. Im sure that the AGEIA PhysX API will be accelerated by drivers from Nvidia in the future, but NVidia tried something similar with Cg, and that received almost no industry backing, except for some books being written about it.

This might actually kill PhysX, because AMD will make their own product, and with all three companies having competing products and having no standard, games will be forced to have their own solution that doesn't take advantage of these great techs, and eventually it will be some obscure feature on NVidia's SDK that 1% of people use...

RE: Hopes for benefits
By togaman5000 on 2/4/2008 6:07:15 PM , Rating: 4
The different standards may very well hurt overall adoption, but if nVidia takes the smart route and integrates the technology directly into their cards, then developers would have a guaranteed user base.

If it were up to me, then I'd integrate the technology into all future GPUs. I'd also release a software version. Not only would any user be able to use Ageia's physics engine, regardless of GPU brand, but nVidia GPUs would be faster and include more features. Kind of like how EAX is available up to 2.0 for most licensed hardware based sound companies, but Creative can use it up to 5.0. All games support it now, despite the fact that only a certain percentage of the population can use it to the fullest.

RE: Hopes for benefits



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