So AGEIA has their PhysX chip, NVidia is in bed with Havok for Havok FX, where does that leave ATI when it comes to phsyics acceleration? PC Perspective sat down with ATI people at GDC to find out.

At the Game Developers Conference in San Jose today, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios president Phil Harrison delivered a keynote address focusing around Sony's hardware and video game strategy for the coming year. Fitting in with the keynote's title, "PlayStation 3: Beyond the Box," the main topic at hand was Sony's upcoming next-gen console. Harrison reconfirmed several details announced at Sony's Japanese PS3 event last week, announced some new details, and invited a variety of developers to the stage to show off tech demos of their work in progress.

UPDATE: Sony just concluded a brief press Q&A followup to the keynote. The following issues were addressed:
- Sony does not expect the Xbox 360's first to market advantage to affect its strategy. "Throughout our history, we have never been the first platform to market in terms of a generational shift," Harrison stated.
- Sony will be ensuring that any user-created content or purchasable content falls within the standards of ratings organizations worldwide, but there will be no other restrictions. For example, there is the possibility of full-budget games being distributed online in markets with wide broadband penetration.
- There is no reason PS3 will be limited to game content; other downloadable content (music, movies, etc.) will be supported by its online service.
- Harrison acknowledged that PS2 was "difficult to program" due to proprietary design, but PS3 SPUs are general purpose and targeted towards high-level languages such as C++, allowing developers to easily understand the dev environment.
- Software will be region free by default. Publishers can choose to restrict their own software to specific display standards.
- The Immersion force feedback lawsuit has had "no bearing" on Sony's failure to show a finalized controller design. It will be shown at E3.

I'll get a fuller summary up later, but for now, here are the major points:

PS3:
- The system will have a full worldwide launch in all major territories: Japan, North America, Europe, Australia. It will roll out in early November.
- To facilitate the launch, the PS3 will have the highest production capacity of any Sony product yet brought to market, including its past consoles.
- PS3 will support every display standard, including regional standard defitition settings including PAL and NTSC as well as all high-def standards up to 1080p Full HD
- Integrated ethernet and wireless networking
- Hard drive included, though Harrison skipped past mentioning the hard drive other than with a bullet point
- Middleware providers such as Epic (Unreal Engine 3), AGEIA (PhysX 2.4), and HAVOK (HAVOK Complete XS 3.3) will tune their products to take full advantage of the Cell's SPU and GPU
- Final development environments will ship to developers in June. Partially complete tools will be available in April for E3.
- Sony is launching the SCE Worldwide Studios e-Distribution intitiative, intended to attract developers with innovative ideas, who will then be contacated by Sony regional offices. Games created through this initiative will be distributed online.
- The system will have full backwards compatibility with PS1 and PS2. Every PS1 and PS2 game that properly observed its system's TRC

Online service: PlayStation Network Platform
- Name is an internal codename, and not the final consumer label.
- Four Cs: Content, Communication, Community, Commerce
- Basic service free of charge, includes all gameplay features: matchmaking, online video and voice chat, email integration, community features; all of these are processed by the PS3's operating system and accessible at the API level
- Games can be downloaded and run from hard drive; Sony envisions episodic gaming and digital distribution taking off on PS3
- "Open internet" business philosophy allowing developers to add their own servers for MMOs or other network-intensive games
- Next week, initial server/client SDKs will be sent to developers. By July, the service will be in testing, and by September it will be complete, in time for launch.

Tech demos:
- "Sequel" to last year's duck tech demo. The new demo was an underwater scene showing thousands of fish of different species, each with unique behavior and patterns.
- Two demos from Insomniac: futuristic first person shooter (Resistance: Fall of Man), and new Ratchet & Clank game. The R&C demo was set in a futuristic city with bright colors, and hundreds of flying cars.
- Singstar video showing the possibility of buying new songs for the game through Sony's Connect service
- MotorStorm from Evolution studios, showed dune buggy causing geometric deformation in mud as it drives. Mud particles being sprayed mapped persistently onto nearby geometry.
- Warhawk from SCE Incognito, showed dogfighting in the vicinity of huge capital ships, tons of firepower across the screen, ocean modeled with realtime wave simulator
- Realtime render of city streets in the UK, with ambient sound, car noises, high-def textures, etc.
- Ragdoll demo with about 1000 fully modeled and skinned soldiers, exploding in realtime with ragdoll and physics

AGEIA sent out several press releases today, announcing availability of their PhysX PPU card. People ordering select Dell, Alienware or Falcon Northwest Gaming PCs will be able to add a AGEIA PhysX Accelerator to their system as of today while ASUS and BFG will be shipping their own stand-alone cards this May. The company also says that over a hundred games from sixty different companies including Epic Games, Ubisoft, SEGA and NCSoft will be supporting the AGEIA PhysX processor. Specific games announced as supporting the PPU include City of Villains, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter for the PC, Unreal Tournament 2007, Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Here's how the PhysX PPU will help G.R.A.W.

- Explosions are physically simulated with a combination of rigid-body and particle behaviors. Fragments bounce off the surroundings, damaging other game objects and the environment with spontaneous realism.
- Generic effects such a bullet impacts and grenade explosions are drastically improved by burst of debris flying from the impact, increasing the tension and feeling of power of the weapons.
- Objects in the game blow apart with a cloud of realistic dust and smoke that drifts with the force of the explosion.
- Other particle behaviors in the game are physically simulated, such as trash and grit blowing in the street.

PC Perspective has a new AGEIA PhysX physics processor technology preview, offering an overview of what the PPU can do. On FileShack you can find three demonstration videos (if you check out just one check Cell Factor). FiringSquad also has a writeup on the press conference.

AGEIA today announced that Cryptic Studios will update City of Villains to make use of the PhysX physics accelerator cards that are coming out soon. The PPU support will mainly help with the game's particle effects, with the press release listing a few examples.

Back in the early 90s, dedicated sound cards began popping up on the market, offering better sound quality and MIDI synthesis than existing integrated sound solutions. In the late 90s, similar progress was made with standalone graphics accelerator cards. These days, every dedicated gamer has a video accelerator and most have sound cards. Recently, AGEIA announced that it is developing the first standalone physics accelerator card, the PhysX chip. Early footage and claims regarding the PhysX chip have been attractive to many gamers, but many also question how it's going to affect PC gaming--certainly not the cheapest hobby--to be expected to buy so many separate cards. Now, startup Bigfoot Networks has just announced that it has obtained $4M in funding to release its first standalone network accelerator card.

The company will bring to market the world's first Gaming Network Accelerator card, which will allow online gamers to play their favorite games with less lag. Lag is the number one problem in online video games today, and Bigfoot Networks is the only company in the world whose sole mission is to fight lag.

"Bigfoot Networks products will infuse online gaming with blazing speed, making them a ton more fun," says Harlan Beverly, inventor, co-Founder, and CEO of the company. "We are to online games what 3D video cards are to graphics: essential. Eventually, we plan to completely eliminate the dreaded lag monster."

Bigfoot plans to announce more details about its card at conferences such as E3 in coming months, with the first product being brought to market this summer. The company's website also has a whitepaper on the causes of lag (PDF link), arguing that in today's world of broadband connections, latency itself is not the primary, or even a significant, cause of lag.

Gamerati has a short interview about Bigfoot with company CEO Harland Beverly.

Xzentech has posted a new Q&A with Manju Hegde of AGEIA, asking him about the PhysX phsyics processing unit coming later this year. Thanks GameCloud.

Futuremark has released their latest benchmarking tool, 3DMark 06, which you can download from FileShack. The 577mb benchmark program includes new Shader Model 2 tests, new CPU tests and HDR Shader Model 3 tests for system-wide gaming performance measurement. More info can be found at the Futuremark website.

3DMark06 is the first product from Futuremark using the AGEIA(tm) PhysX software physics library in two very complex, game-like threaded CPU tests conceived to measure properly performances of single processor, multi-core and multiple processor systems in next generation of games. In addition to using real-time physics, both CPU tests also employ multi-threaded artificial intelligence algorithms. By combining the results of the two CPU tests and four graphics tests, 3DMark06 enables users to get a 3DMark score which reflects the overall gaming performance of their PC. Futuremark and their industry partners anticipate that CPU performance promises to be increasingly important in next generation PC games as new titles increase their use of artificial intelligence and complex physics and their reliance on multithreaded processing.

Cool Tech Zone is reporting on ASUS AGEIA PhysX Expansion Card, mentioning that the card has actually been ready for a while now but has not yet been released due to the lack of game support. ASUS expects that several games will be out by February of next year, which is when it will start mass production of the physics accelerator card.

The World-Gaming Network has posted the latest AGEIA Q&A, asking company CEO Manju Hegde about the upcoming PhysX PPU. Thanks Josh.

New on GameCloud this morning is this AGEIA Q&A, asking company CEO Manju Hegde for an update on his company's PhysX chip and SDK. As for the launch date for the first set of add-on boards: "We are in the process of evaluating PhysX processor optimized games and are assessing our launch plans at this time".

Elite Bastards is the latest site with an Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Q&A, asking Bethesda producer Gavin Carter about the upcoming RPG sequel. Topics include the game engine, PhysX support, elements they wanted to improve on from Morrowind, the economy, dungeons and more. Thanks Blues News.

This press release announces that Ageia, of the PhysX chip and SDK, has bought Swedish physics middleware developer Meqon. Technology by Meqon was being used in Duke Nukem Forever and TimeShift. In this post on the 3D Realms forums George Broussard comments he hadn't heard this would happen, and also mentions he's not looking forward to changing to a different SDK if it comes to that.

GameSpot has an intervew up with Manju Hedge, CEO of PhysX developer Ageia. He discusses concerns about dedicated physics processing, Sony's adoption of the PhysX SDK, and the short-term goals of his company.

While we were off goofing around with Shackers Scott Wasson over at TR was taking crazy notes at the John Carmack keynote. He's got a pretty good summary of what went down and where our 3D messiah is leading us. A quick bit on PhysX too:

Carmack said he considers the prospects for the upcoming physics acceleration chip on the PC iffy, because physics presents a very fundamental problem that graphics doesn't have: it isn't easily scalable for level of detail. Either an object in the game is a true physics object with which other objects can interact, or it isn't. Carmack predicted this constraint would lead to a number of physics-accelerated titles where acceleration affects only elements, such as flowing water, that are peripheral to the core gameplay experience.

Over at Gaming Nexus you can find the latest AGEIA Q&A, makers of the PhysX physics chip and NovodeX SDK. VP Andy Keane answers questions about development time required, platform support, pricing, comparisons to the Havok engine, PCI-Express support and more.

Xbits reports that AEGIA has determined the price of the physx cards, those funky new physics-engine accelerators. They will cost between $249 and $299, about the price of a new Xbox 360. More @ Xbits

TeamXbox has a lengthy interview with the CEO of AGEIA Technologies, Manju Hegde, whose company is building the first dedicated Physics Processing Unit (PPU) called the PhysX chip. This technology is being touted as the next big thing in gaming, almost as important as the first 3D card.

AGEIA's PhysX chip is the world's first dedicated PPU. With AGEIA's groundbreaking new technology, developers can now create scenes using the same laws of physics that govern the physical universe, enabling players to interact with any object in any scene at any time, providing pervasive interactive reality. In concert with the CPU and GPU, the PhysX chip will allow game developers to create characters, backgrounds and effects that rival those of Hollywood movies, but with interactivity.

The company already has the backing of Ubisoft, Epic Games, and Microsoft. When asked if we'd see this in a next-gen console, Hedge said, "On this one, you will have to wait."

Computer Games Magazine has a new Q&A with AGEIA President and COO Curtis Davis, asking him about the PhysX chip which we heard about yesterday. Topics include the formation of the company, features possible due to the PhysX PPU, and getting the product to market.

Fabless semiconductor company Ageia has announced their plans to release PhysX, a dedicated physics processor designed to co-exist with existing GPU and CPU chips. With PhysX, games can go from having a few dozen physics objects to 30,000 to 40,000 of them. Gamers Depot talks why and how with Ageia CEO Manju Hegde and COO Curtis Davis and on GameSpot you can find a Q&A with Tim Sweeney, as Epic will be supporting the PhysX PPU.

GS: Can you give examples of how a game might be able to increase realism with the help of a PPU?
TS: When people talk about physics in recent games, they mostly think of Unreal Tournament 2004's vehicles or Half Life 2's dynamic objects. There, you have tens or perhaps 100 big objects interacting physically in an otherwise static environment. Knocking chairs and tables around is fun, but that's hardly the apex of physics simulation! The next steps are realistic dynamic environments, fluid simulation, large-scale particle simulation, and other very large-scale physical phenomenon. If you look at a modern action or sci-fi movie, and what's possible with the non-realtime computer graphics effects there, it's clear that major new physics innovations will be introduced into gaming as hardware performance increases 10X, 100X, and more.

Ageia is still working out deals with add-in board partners, but hopes to have various PPU solutions out this Christmas.