Date:
Sunday , May 07, 2006
Author:
Kyle Bennett
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Ageia PhysX & You

Lost in arguing press releases and rhetoric spewed forth about Ageia's new PhysX PPU cards? We cut to the chase and tell you what you really need to know about PhysX and your money.

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Pandora’s Box O Physics

Ageia has forever changed the 3D gaming landscape in the last year. They have more than once compared themselves to 3dfx and the pioneering of 3D graphics in the mainstream. ATI and NVIDIA have taken huge notice of Ageia and see the physics market as very real and both companies see themselves as being in a position to dominate Ageia. I do not know if Ageia has the right business model and liquidity to hang on through the fight they have created with ATI and NVIDIA, not to mention rival physics engine builder Havoc. I do know however that Ageia is to be credited with bringing “the next big thing” in gaming to the forefront of a quickly moving industry. Ageia has created and fueled an infant market that it is likely not strong enough to survive in. We might be making another Ageia comparison to 3dfx soon.

The Bottom Line

There are some sites that are having big discussions about whether PhysX is better than Havoc or if a GPU can do better physics than an Ageia PPU. People are discussing whether or not a PhysX card negatively impacts frame rates because it overloads the GPU. Our PPU forums are chock full of people talking about PhysX and its abilities and inabilities. These discussions may have technical relevancy, but they are missing the true mark.

With the current titles available, PhysX delivers nothing worth the purchase price and PhysX has to be solely valued by the gaming content that it supports. Sites that are dragging the framerate wars into this are not telling the gamers what they need to know. Sadly this is exactly what I expected. PhysX is not about framerates, synthetic benchmarks, or PR catfights; PhysX is about the gaming immersion and experience it provides you.

PhysX will live to be judged again another day as we hopefully see games that truly take advantage of the promises that Ageia makes about their hardware. Until then, save your PhysX pennies because the cards are not going to be getting any more expensive, unless of course they go the way of the Dodo. We will be exploring this topic more as PhysX content is released.

Discussion

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