Nvidia Readies Open Standard for GPU Physics?

Perhaps, the main reason why Ageia could not make its PhysX PPU exceptionally popular is because it could not manage to sell many add-on boards. It is indisputable fact that Nvidia has much broader install base with its GeForce graphics processors, hence, allowing them to compute physics effects will catalyze game developers to implement better quality physics effects.

The question, however, is whether Ageia’s PhysX technology will be able to take advantage of GPUs in general, which means that ATI Radeon, Intel Corp.’s graphics cores and S3 Graphics’ graphics chips, besides Nvidia’s own GeForce will be supported; or Nvidia will only let game developers to compute physics on the GeForce. In the former case Nvidia will enable an open standard to develop physics effects that rely on graphics chips, thus, PhysX will eventually compete against Microsoft’s Direct Physics. In the latter case Nvidia will only allow physics to be computed on GeForce graphics processing units, hence, far not all game developers will make use of it.

We do not know many open or industry-standard technologies developed by Nvidia and used by other companies, which may compete against the Santa Clara, California-based graphics firm, except MXM standards for mobile graphics sub-systems and extreme memory profiles (XMP). Virtually all technologies that the company develops remain proprietary. Nevertheless, Nvidia should understand quite well that without contributing to the industry, some of its efforts will never turn out to be popular.

Keeping in mind that GPU physics is about increasing importance of graphics processing units in general, it may be possible that GPU PhysX technology by Ageia will become, maybe, to some degree, open to companies outside Nvidia. Another option would be to increase importance of Nvidia GeForce and close the platform for other GPU vendors. In that case far not all games even among them that belong to The Way It’s Meant To Be Played program will utilize PhysX GPU physics effects technology.

: Will Ageia PhysX SDK will be able to take advantage only of PhysX PPUs and GeForce GPUs? Or it will be able to use x86 CPUs and ATI Radeon GPUs?

Michael Steele: We’ll continue to support the current SDK and will immediately begin the work to accelerate PhysX with our GPUs. We’ll also continue to support CPUs in keeping with the heterogeneous compute model that Nvidia has been extending with its increasingly flexible and powerful GPUs and CUDA programming environment.

Nvidia is committed to creating a development environment that enables the pervasive use of PhysX technology and innovative implementations of physics in gaming on today’s PPU, CPU and in the future, the GPU. Of course, we’ll also continue to provide the best complete platform of both software and hardware to developers and gamers.

: Will “GeForce-accelerated PhysX”require a standalone GeForce board, or physics processing will rely on a single GPU with graphics?

Michael Steele: It’s too early to comment on how this will be rolled out.  But we expect it to happen as soon as possible. Consider that Ageia designed its multithreaded PhysX software specifically for hardware acceleration in massively parallel environments. Nvidia’s GPUs are well-suited to take advantage of PhysX software and Ageia’s expertise in that environment. Also, it is clear that Nvidia is committed to enabling pervasive physics through open platform initiatives.

: What do you actually mean by open platform initiatives here? Does it mean that Nvidia will keep developing PhysX SDK and it will support x86 microprocessors, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3? Or does it mean that PhysX SDK will be compatible with all of the above as well as DirectX 10 GPUs in general?

Michael Steele: It means that Nvidia wants to be open in its further development of PhysX software in order to enable as many platforms as possible on both PC and console. Nvidia understands better than anyone the need to enable a large and unrestricted market for game developers.  I don’t think anyone will question their unique capabilities to support the development community.  Enabling a physics eco-system and then delivering the best hardware for that environment is good for gaming.

: Thank you very much for your detailed and first-hand answers! We wish Ageia all the best as a part of Nvidia Corp. and good luck with new challenges!