San Jose (CA) - Ageia has pocketed a huge deal for its physics engine that promises to make video games more realistic. Sony will integrate the technology in its upcoming game console Playstation 3 (PS3) and help to push Ageia's technology quickly into the gaming market. The fastest graphics processor may not be enough anymore to achieve the best graphics performance in next generation video games after all. At least Sony believes that it needs to push the envelope even further in its next Playstation 3 console that is expected to be available in May of 2006. According to an announcement made on Thursday, Sony entered a "strategic licensing agreement" with Ageia, and fabless chip developer that developed the "PhysX" processor. PhysX is a physics chip that is designed to aid the graphics processor in darwing realistic graphics on a screen. According to its developer, the device can simulate thousands of interacting fragments, which could create a greater illusion of reality. The behavior of 40,000 to 50,000 particles can be simulated per screen allowing the display of disintegrating walls, gelatinous characters, windswept hair, loose flowing clothing, or realistic display of damage in car racing games. The license agreement includes Ageia's PhysX SDK that previously has been adopted for example for the Unreal Engine 3 by Epic Games. According to Ageia, the PhysX is multithreading capable and therefore a nice fit for the PS3's multi-core Cell processor. With the help of Sony, Ageia will be able to collect royalties for every Playstation 3 sold. This pushes the company way ahead of its marketing schedule. The chip was announced first in March of this year and market experts expected the company to need at least two to three years to gain the credibility for wide market adoption. The fact that Sony is integrating the technology into its PS3 will push Ageia's technology into millions of systems very quickly and may also convince add-in card and system builders to have a closer look at Ageia. Market watchers also consider today's announcement as indication that Ageia could become a takeover target, for example for Nvidia or ATI. Both companies declined to comment on possible interest in Ageia technologies, but industry sources recently indicated that Ageia in fact may be up for sale - for about $2 billion. Source: Tom's Hardware
Very exciting. I think that the PhysX had great potential. Seems a bit late to be making central changes to the hardware but as long as it works well then it doens't matter. Now, if the PhysX is going to handle physics processing, better than the CPU, what becomes of the Cell's 12 SPEs? No more specific jobs for them. I wouldn't be surprised of AGEIA was bought by nVidia with their power or maybe even Intel.
