Ageia announces PhysX for laptops

Posted at: 11:37am 23rd August 2007 by Ben Hardwidge

PhysX 100M processor promises to take laptops ‘to a stunning new level of excitement,’ but only if you really like CellFactor: Revolution

Considering that you could probably list all the games that support Ageia’s PhysX chip on a Post-It note with a chunky crayon, we’re amazed that the company is still in business. However, Ageia has proved that it still thinks hardware-accelerated physics is the way forward by announcing a new power-efficient PhysX chip for laptops.

According to Ageia, the PhysX 100M ‘offers an unmatched combination of power, efficiency and design flexibility enabling innovative hardware designers to take PC notebooks to a stunning new level of excitement.’ The chip apparently only needs to dissipate 10W when gaming, and the chip can also drop to a lower clock speed when it’s idle, or if it starts to overheat.

Ageia’s CEO, Manju Hegde, said that the chip ‘further expands our position in the gaming market and we look forward to seeing new laptops bring gamers the freedom to enjoy incredible physics action on the go.’ Meanwhile, Dr Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research also endorsed the new chip, saying: ‘mobile computers today are indeed fully qualified gaming machines, so it's only natural that we should be able to enjoy the extra dimension of real-time physics and destructible environments.’

Of course, this is all very well in theory, but a mobile PhysX chip isn’t a lot of use without some decent supporting games. With any luck, Unreal 3 and the associated titles using its engine will give Ageia the boost that it needs, but if it doesn’t then Ageia could be in big trouble.

The Ageia PhysX 100M is already available, and Ageia claims that ‘exciting gaming notebooks’ featuring the chip ‘are expected to hit the market very soon.’