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NVIDIA To Buy AGEIA
The two companies announced today that NVIDIA will acquire PhysX maker AGEIA; terms were not disclosed. The Daily Tech is one of the few covering the news to go much beyond the press release, mentioning that AMD considered buying AGEIA last November but passed, and that the combination positions NVIDIA to compete with Intel on a second front, beyond the GPU — as Intel purchased AGEIA competitor Havok last September. While NVIDIA talked about supporting the PhysX engine on their GPUs, it's not clear whether AGEIA's hardware-based physics accelerator will play any part in that. AMD declared GPU physics dead last year, but NVIDIA at least presumably begs to differ. The coverage over at PC Perspectives goes into more depth on what the acquisition portends for the future of physics, on the GPU or elsewhere.
I always thought that GPU + physics engine would be a perfect combination. Ultimately, the AGEIA card is just a DSP + software driver for calculating physics. A GPU is... also a DSP + software driver for calculating graphics. It wouldn't be too hard to write a driver that does both: some of the pipelines could be allocated to graphics, and some to physics. Might even make a software-configurable to dedicate more/less units to physics.
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_processing_unit#Cell_Processor_vs_PPUs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_processing_unit#GPUs_vs_PPUs
There are differences. Otherwise Sony wouldn't have wet themselves when they announced Cell technology in the PS3 or Microsoft could of countered their ATI GPU was pretty much the same thing or more powerful or however the market types would of spun it if that was the case
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
Unless something's changed in the past year or two it's been since I stopped using Nvidia, their drivers always tended to be quite good.
They were Binary-only, but they were good in that they were fast, stable, and supported all the major functions of their cards. Hardly half-assed if you ask me.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
except Intel doesn't think they need Nvidia... that's why they've got nearly all the notebook vendors pumping out crappy built-in graphics that just barely run Windows Vista. ATI saw the writing on the wall and got themselves bought by AMD. Now AMD battles on CPUs, integrated graphics, and high end graphics... Intel can never buy Nvidia because they'd be instantly sued. Nvidia overpriced themselves, even with all the work they did for AMD, and the matching logos... stock holders were just too rich for AMD.
This makes Nvidia the "odd man out" because they don't make processors. Both Intel and AMD have integrated solutions and obviously want physics processing on the CPU so that they can sell 7 core 3.21GHz processors. NVidia has to break the mold if they want sales... they got shunned the last round of consoles for IBM and ATI, and Microsoft pretty much let ATI write the book for DX10 this round. NVidia + Ageia only makes sense if they'll make an open source console that runs either AMD or Intel CPUs. Games would need to run flawlessly, without "installing" just like a console. There's a hole for PC gaming right now... Apple's not filling it (they think it's stupid) Wintel is not helping (Microsoft only wants Vista gaming, and Intel wants to sell integrated graphics) so a well done Linux console could help... but there's too much IP in the way to make it happen.
But Sun doesn't have an x86 processor, and this is the key.
Nvidia needs a an x86 processor to compete. Sure, Nvidia could just adapt their GPU architecture and expand the language to make a general-purpose VLIW processor. They could package it and sell it as an Itanium competitor. But nobody wants to use a non-x86 chip in mainstream markets, and that's where the long-term money is.
This is why Windows, Linux, Solaris, BSD, and now even OS X run on x86: if your OS has redeeming or unique qualities, more people will buy based on OS features alone if your hardware platform is agnostic.
And herein lies two problems: one, while you can make x86 processors without a license, you are constantly in danger of litigation from Intel's massive patent portfolio. In the last two decades, every x86 chipmaker has eventually negotiated a cross-license agreement with Intel. The other problem is, it is hard to build a new x86 processor from-scratch. Thus, a takeover bid for an x86 processor manufacturer is likely the best way to solve Nvidia's problem; they get a license to keep Intel at-bay, and a solid starting point.
I'm thinking Via, personally. Their sales have slumped in the last year, and they've stopped making Intel chipsets. In fact, Intel has been bullying poor Via for the last year, offering a new Intel chipset license if they just stop manufacturing CPUs. Either Nvidia will buy Via, or Via will spin-off their processor division for some cash. Thanks to the Intel cross-license Via purchased along with IDT, their processor arm is a goldmine in the long-run.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.