GeForce 8 Cards to Gain PhysX Engine Support

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Hardware manufacturer Nvidia, which just purchased physics technology developer AGEIA, is porting AGEIA's PhysX engine software to run on its GeForce 8 cards, according to The Tech Report.

During a financial call, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hseun Huang revealed that the ported engine will bring enhanced physics capabilities to all of the company's existing GeForce 8 cards, as it will be programmed in CUDA.

"Finally [developers are] able to get a physics engine accelerated into a very large population of gamers," explained Huang. "[It's] just gonna be a software download. Every single GPU that is CUDA-enabled will be able to run the physics engine when it comes...Every one of our GeForce 8-series GPUs runs CUDA."

At the time of the AGEIA purchase, Nvidia noted its intent to integrate PhysX support into its products, but did not specify any details. In light of today's revelation, Huang expects to see increased sales of the Nvidia cards, especially to those equipped with SLI slots.

"It might, and probably will, encourage people to buy a second GPU for their SLI slot," he said. "And for the highest-end gamer, it will encourage them to buy three GPUs. Potentially two for graphics and one for physics, or one for graphics and two for physics."

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    February 14, 2008 9:09 AM

    When is the 9-series coming? Will they have hardware-based PhysX?

    • reply
      February 14, 2008 9:35 AM

      If it does it better not cost $250 more.

      • reply
        February 14, 2008 9:37 AM

        Go ahead, no one will buy it. Nvidia can't expect to get more money due to this. Especially since practically no games even use PhysX to it's full extent. It would be shooting themselves in the foot if they sold cards that were more expensive than ATI at the same speed.

        • reply
          February 14, 2008 9:42 AM

          Why?

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          February 14, 2008 10:33 AM

          The fact they are implementing them as a software solution for the current 8 series means ANY 8 series is a PPU. This means it is now in the mainstream rather than a niche product and any NVidia development partner could implement PhysX for free and have it work if you have a (second) NVidia card.

          If they make the 9 series with an integrated PhysX chip that runs simultaneously with the GPU, it will be a win for NVidia in the next generation display of graphics AND realtime realistic physics simulations of water, cloth and destructible anything.

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            February 14, 2008 10:38 AM

            What about ATI? Do you truly want a one-GPU world? You want Nvidia to be able to sit on their asses while ATI takes years to develop a counter-chip?

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              February 14, 2008 2:17 PM

              I don't see anywhere in my post advocating a one-GPU world, only merely a prediction of a winner. To think that Nvidia would sit on their asses instead of developing a counterchip or new way of processing would also be naive.

              ATI is already implementing HAVOK into their Crossfire configurations:
              http://ati.amd.com/technology/crossfire/physics/index.html

              Their solution seems the same as NVidia's however, where you must have the same graphics card to run it either as a GPU or a PPU and not both.



            • reply
              February 14, 2008 2:22 PM

              It doesn't matter what we 'want.' Nvidia is making all the right movies and ATI/AMD continues to shoot themselves in the foot and release products which performance worse with little cost benefit to the consumer for that reduced performance.

    • reply
      February 14, 2008 9:38 AM

      From what I understand, the 9 series cards will have a GPU and a PPU so that the load can be balanced more easily. Also with that in mind the PPU will be utilizing PCI-E 2.0 therefore improving system performance as the old PhysX cards were PCI 2.2 which we all know has shit bandwitdth compared to PCI-E 1.0 and even shittier than PCI-E 2.0

      • reply
        February 14, 2008 10:55 PM

        I call shenanigans on your post, the 9600GT is almost out with no mention of this, are you sure you're talking about the 9 series? any sources?

        • reply
          February 15, 2008 5:23 AM

          I saw it on a post somewhere, it was a few weeks ago.

          To me it would make logical sense to keep it on a second processing unit to take load of the GPU and allow it to do what it was intended to do.

          If I remembered that post link I would put it in. Sorry.

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