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.

Comments

Must bundle with GPU

[Macfox]

This won't float unless they bundle it with the next generation GPU. AGEIA haven't been able to get traction with a dedicated card and neither will nVidia, unless a heap of games support it overnight.

Re:Must bundle with GPU

[Kyrubas]

It might be that nVidia doesn't even intend to use the overall PhysX stuff at all, but instead wants to tear it apart for the patents on specific design patents further optimization of their GPUs.

Re:Must bundle with GPU

[RelliK]

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.

Re:Must bundle with GPU

[Rival]

Games are great at motivating the development of better video cards, and to some extent bus speeds, processors and other non-gaming-specific components. This is a good thing, though I have some old-man opinions on how Moore's Law is spoiling many developers.

That being said, I don't believe games drive the adoption of hardware as much as you might be thinking. As a case in point, look at Vista. Ugly and bloated, yes, but perforce nearly everywhere. And the minimum requirements for Aero (which is the one feature your average user is going to jump on -- ooh, it's pretty!) are going to do more to push the next large jump in base video card standards than any given game.

Retailers don't have enough fiscal incentives to stop pushing Vista, even if they do try to gain positive PR by selling Ubuntu or XP on a few low-end models. And if they're pushing Vista, they want to support the pretty interface the public expects. By making hardware-accelerated rendering a practical requirement of the OS, Microsoft has raised the bar of the "minimum acceptable" video card.

Right now we see physics cards as a niche product, barely supported. It has been the same with all technical developments. But if we're heading toward 3D interfaces (which I believe we are,)then physics can only play an increasing roll in such an environment. If that should become the case, then a dedicated processor will be much more valuable then assigning a generic CPU core to try and handle the calculations.

Re:Must bundle with GPU

[milsoRgen]

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

Re:Must bundle with GPU

[644bd346996]

Don't forget that PhysX has software out there, too. It hasn't been doing well against Havok, but it's obviously in NVidia's best interests to promote the use of physics engines in games, seeing as they could provide the hardware acceleration for them. I expect the PhysX engine will soon have the ability to use NVidia GPUs, and it will pushed as a more viable competitor to Havok, especially since Intel cancelled Havok FX.

The Future of Physics

[calebt3]

the future of physics I am personally hoping that the future of physics leads to warp engines.

Re:The Future of Physics

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be satisfied with socks that stay up by themselves.

Whither Nvidia/PhysX?

[Crypto Gnome]

1. Purchase Aegia
2. Continue selling dedicated Physics addon-cards
3. Integrate PPU onto Graphics Cards
4. (somewhere along the line, get full Microsoft Direct-Something endorsement/support of dedicated physics processing)
   • possibly by licensing to AMD "PPU included on Graphics Card" rights, thusly invoking the power of Least Common Denominator
5. Integrate PPU circuitry/logics into GPU (making it faster/more efficient/cheaper than equivalent solution licensed to AMD)
6. ?? Profit ??

In the end, for this to *really* succeed, it needs to be a "Least Common Denominator" factor. So it *requires* full support by Microsoft and Direct-X (them being The Big Factors in the games industry). And in order to get full support from The Windows Monopolist, you'll probably (not absolutely necessary, mut it'd make it much easier to convince Microsoft) need to enable AMD/ATI to leverage this technology, to some degree.

Remember folks, Nvidia don't need to *kill* AMD/ATI, they only need to stay one or two generations ahead of them in technology. So they *could* license them "last years tech" for use on their cards, to make "Least Common Denominator" not a factor which excludes their latest-get tech implementations.

Re:off on a tangent

[ma1wrbu5tr]

Here's a strange tangent... or two

It's almost like some bizarre comic.

Lets imagine that AMD and ATI teamed to to be the Super Friends.

And Intel and nVidia are the Legion of Doom.

Now, let the battle for the universe begin.


At least that's how I feel when I read ./ers comments sometimes.
We geeks tend to take ourselves entirely too seriously,

Grammatical and spelling errors are bonuses.

Re:off on a tangent

[mabhatter654]

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.

Re:Why do we need physics cards?

[NeMon'ess]

With physics acceleration, the little things that don't feel real could be done.

Running through grass could cause it to deform and brush the character, and some of it gets stepped on and stays bent down. Or in sports games, each limb could have a better defined clipping box and rules for how it can flex.

Then when two players collide going for a ball, they hit more realistically and don't clip through each other. Especially on the slow motion replays it would look nice.

Or in a racing game, when cars crash, they could really crash. Imagine bodywork deforming and "real" parts going flying, instead of only a flash of sparks.

Also, it would be cool for grenades and other explosives to properly damage the room and buildings in games that want realism. Walls that crumble into rubble. Tables that break into chunks and splinters. Ceilings that collapse when the supports are destroyed or weakened too much.

Then outside, no more indestructible walls. When I ram a truck or tank into an unreinforced building, something actually happens. As in the vehicle crashes through the wall, or continues through the building with momentum.