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AMD considers buying Ageia
Following Intel’s purchase of Havok, AMD says it wouldn’t rule out buying Ageia if the price was right
Now that communications between AMD and Havok have broken down, AMD has admitted that it’s considering buying Ageia, if the price is right. AMD’s head of developer relations, Richard Huddy, told Custom PC that ‘we’ve had that discussion, yes. It’s a discussion that goes round every three months – someone turns to me and says ‘why don’t we buy Ageia?’ and I go through the arguments about why we should and why we shouldn’t.’
Despite, Ageia’s disappointing games-support for its PhysX chip, the company's PhysX software is free, and has accordingly been used widely, even if the PhysX hardware itself isn’t supported. As such, buying Ageia could give AMD a chance to continue to compete in the gaming physics arena now that Intel has bought Havok.
The main problem, according to Huddy, is the price. ‘Our biggest problem is that Havok reputedly cost in excess of $100 million,’ says Huddy. ‘If I’d been valuing Havok, I’d have valued it at probably something like 10 per cent of that because they were in so much trouble in the marketplace, but realistically they did have some valuable IP, and you really can capitalise on that if you’re Intel in this situation.’
‘If Ageia want to command a comparable price,’ said Huddy, ‘then that’s a pretty significant problem for AMD. No one would think of us as cash rich at the moment, so splashing an extra $100 million just to get physics, which is a niche market, is quite an issue for us.’
Why would a company such as Ageia cost so much? Well, now that Intel has bought Havok, Huddy reckons that AMD isn’t the only company thinking of buying Ageia, and this would push up the price. ‘I bet that the same thing has gone through the minds of Nvidia,’ said Huddy, ‘and the other companies that play in this marketplace.’
Huddy even said that ‘someone like Sony or Nintendo might think about doing it to acquire the IP and the hardware for the next generation of technologies. There are a number of players who would be interested – if there was only one then the price would plummet, but unfortunately it’s one of those situations where getting that unique advantage genuinely raises the price for Ageia.’
In a bizarre twist of events, it looks as though Intel’s purchase of Havok could have actually put Havok’s competitor, Ageia, in a better position. As Huddy says, ‘if I was predicting [previously] I would say that they [Ageia] would probably grind themselves out of business in a year or so, but now they have an opportunity to sell themselves for a lot of money instead, I suspect.’
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"Games like UT3 have show improved running speeds with physics cards, I think it would be a good buy if the market the cards properly. However I doubt it will happen..." I just read a UT3 review that mentioned the performance hit that UT takes with PhysX, not to mention poorly executed rendering and "eye-clutter". I think buying ATI was a monetary stretch, and I am afraid AMD will eventually try to buy PhysX IP, not because it improves their positioning, but because they are afraid to not buy it. Intel has the cash to blow and is forcing AMD into more and more of these scenarios... and that makes me less and less confident of AMD's future.
Comment by tannji at 3:46pm 23rd November 2007
"Games like UT3 have show improved running speeds with physics cards, I think it would be a good buy if the market the cards properly. However I doubt it will happen..." I just read a UT3 review that mentioned the performance hit that UT takes with PhysX, not to mention poorly executed rendering and "eye-clutter". I think buying ATI was a monetary stretch, and I am afraid AMD will eventually try to buy PhysX IP, not because it improves their positioning, but because they are afraid to not buy it. Intel has the cash to blow and is forcing AMD into more and more of these scenarios... and that makes me less and less confident of AMD's future.
Comment by tannji at 3:46pm 23rd November 2007
real time ray-tracing is quite the alternative for video and is completely CPU. we may be looking at a CPU revolution in long term... but i guess AMD is right, the damn physics steam engine really is slowing down coz of the Havok buy-out and Ageia's lack of real world use. i really was looking forward into using my x1950 as a physics card -- and i even convinced a ton of people to treat the crossfire and SLI boards in that way... and then WHAM! intel buys fnacking HavokFX. lets just hope some hackers get into having an open source Havok-alike and we might just be singing/... dont hold your breath...
Comment by thegreat0mi at 10:46am 22nd November 2007
i'm sorry that it's like that, the comment box gets rid of my whitespace that formatted it.
Comment by wegreenall at 9:18am 22nd November 2007
It basically is the worst decision ever. I basically wrote an essay about it yesterday as a pair of comments on the news about GPU physics. AMD's leadership clearly knows nothing. i think laurels are being rested on much more than they really ought. Or Phenom is a core 2 quad/duo killuh and we're all sitting here fretting while they're laughing. However, that's a big gamble. Also it doesn't bode well for the management structure if "every three months" someone can jsut "turn around" and say "why don't we buy ageia". with three people saying that and coming up with a plan for it the MD could be pressured! what a crap way to run a company. especially a potentially huge moneymaking company like AMD (instead of loss-making). what a joke. Why don't CPC sitie readers just go and do his job for him. FFS. Also, a joint venture would be horrible. Nvidia is their competition against ATI (and don't forget, it's now merely branding that make the difference in terms of capital etc. between AMD and ATI) Microsoft can already just pressure them into using it probably, because they are already paying them a lot to do XBOX 360 graphics (or, they did). i think that's probably ATI's lifeline, i don't see why MS would let AMD pressure them when they're already paying out for Radeon etc. I knwo that business shouldn't be done like that but there's nothing really stopping MS going to Nvidia. perhaps the PS3 but i don't think they've got much to worry about from that. And Nvidia would uuite happily take business of ATI.
Comment by wegreenall at 9:11am 22nd November 2007
intel are taking over and if intel bought out ageia just to take over even more then AMD would be well and truly stuck. why do you have a separate GPU or sound card cause the job better. lots of potential, Ageia's physx may only be eye candy at this moment in time as company's do not want to base the game fully on the card. they need to create a game that takes advantage of the card to show off its full potential.
Comment by dmc_dc at 8:46am 22nd November 2007
I'd like to see AMD, Nvidia, and Microsoft jointly purchase Ageia, with each partner having full access to the IP. Then Microsoft gets to use Ageia in its Xbox and AMD and Nvidia partners can provide physics cards and/or provide special edition gaming cards that also incorporate the Ageia chip. If Microsoft, AMD, and Nvidia all use Ageia physics acceleration then game developers would embrace it.
Comment by sgrady at 1:54am 22nd November 2007
Stop buying companies left and right, you simply do not have the financial backing for it at the moment. And not only do you buy a company, you buy a company that's renowned for it's utterly failing product, because only few developers are known and are planning to support it in the future. Use the 600 mil dollar investment to improve your processor technology to 45nm, not go wander around making integrated graphics/physics/processor solutions. Who needs integrated garbage, when it's performance is going to be half of the separate parts system?
Comment by Irenics at 12:18am 22nd November 2007
The Ageia PhysX SDK is not only used in UE3 but has also been adopted by hundreds of other developers. The SDK itself is what is amazing value; taking into account how heavily it has been adopted by the development community. Where the PhysX card shines is on high-end effects like fluids, cloth, and soft bodies; as well as new technologies in development. Add to that the fact that Ageia has a number of key patents related to physics software and hardware and the valuation goes up even more.
Comment by usernamerequired at 8:50pm 21st November 2007
UT3 runs a dream even on mid range hardware anyways. If a game like say, Crysis, had a noticeable FPS boost from a PhysX card, then maybe. But for games that already run well, theres little point.
Comment by D_Cypher at 8:24pm 21st November 2007
Games like UT3 have show improved running speeds with physics cards, I think it would be a good buy if the market the cards properly. However I doubt it will happen...
Comment by TheHobgob at 7:51pm 21st November 2007
AMD just dont have the money to be forking out for such a useless company (a bit harsh maybe, but lets face it, PhysX cards are useless). If (IF) they do, it'll be as big a cock up as them buying ATI was.
Comment by D_Cypher at 6:09pm 21st November 2007
i like the sound of this i cant see anything bad coming out of it.
Comment by megapig at 5:48pm 21st November 2007
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