Nvidia completes Ageia purchase - locks out ATI

Sounds like an AMD fanboy thats spat out the dummy, INTEL AND NVIDIA all the way home, if they compete, even better, because... these babies didnt sit back on their arses and buy out Ati - an already in trouble company... Business is Business, Let the ComputerWarz Commence :)

Comment by Lightning_Pete at 7:47pm 18th February 2008

"Intel now owns Havok and Nvidia owns Ageia. Where does that leave AMD in the world of physics?" There is no "world of physics". Nobody gives a singular shit about hardware physics, and it becomes less relevant by the day with increasingly powerful multicore CPUs.

Comment by MetaCatastrophe at 8:55pm 17th February 2008

Everyone & Nvidia PPU exists (Dont go back I want to get Real PhysX) phase out CUDA with the 9 series and bring out the hardware, what gen physX do you want slow GPU doing both or dedicated Hardware, Release at 50 notes Im there. (I would not buy two GPUs, id rather buy a Console at that price.)

Comment by moose19721 at 7:28pm 15th February 2008

OK, when i'm playing games such as counter strike I am now looking at the late 200 fps mark with my GTX. This in itself is completely pointless and I often turn the frame limiter down to between 60 and 80 fps just to keep the GTX cool. Instead of wasting those cycles why shouldnt the card be allowed to do extra processing. Such as Physics. TBH even crysis doesnt completely kill a GTX and often dual card setups result in overly high FPS. Ignoring the which is best 30 or 60 fps mark. It is true anything above 60fps is pointless. And I know if I were to play crysis to a SLI GTX setup on my 20" monitor I would easily be breaking the 20 fps mark. So why should my hard earned and spent cash not be doing other work. The dedicated API would be useful if it did not require an additional card, but instead utilised the power of your current single card setup. Even if you do have to bring you framrate down from it lofty 120+ fps.

Comment by reashlin at 1:58pm 15th February 2008

physx was going down the pan, and whilst we all thought "god it looks good, wish it wasn't so expensive and only for ghost recon AW1 and 2!" and how many games do you play that come up with the "The way its' meant to be played" logo? don't be surprised if ALL of the games with taht logo in the future will have awesome physics. Stop complaining you dummies. intel will provide the competition against nvidia we need for low prices (and oh will they compete, they're just as ruthless as nvidia when it comes to getting told off by the competition commission or similar, they'll be lowering prices left and right) so don't worry about it.

Comment by wegreenall at 11:06am 15th February 2008

ive just thort amd have quietly been talking about making there own physx api... so thats why nvidia have bought these out lol... now it all makes sense... shame it looks like price may be going up... but trusty old AMD should at least hold the prices down a little bit (they managed to make nvidia release the 8800GT after all)

Comment by smiler_16 at 10:24am 15th February 2008

as i said gpu's are dying down this year which is the only explanation i can think of for such perthetic plans really... if it was shared which it was before then it would be ok because everyone could use it and devs would create games for it... but its not shared so probably ubisoft would work on it but no one else and we need to look at the bigger picture like rockstar games (because its obvious they are bringing gta iv out on pc in october) and rockstar games are like some of the biggest devs out there... oh and look at crysis that works perfectly now without physx api on it so why dont they do what they have done with that (it works under DX9 too so why pretend it dont)

Comment by smiler_16 at 10:16am 15th February 2008

I'll really love buying my triple SLI setup with an extra card for physics in the off chance that a) I'll need that much power because I also bought a few 70" screens and I'm running Crysis and watching super duper high res even more blu-ray DVDs. 2)I want to warm my patio/conservatory, whilst playing games. 3)I've just moved to Monaco...enough said I think. On a small note: Nvidia, if you're reading this (and of course you are) to make a 'non-proprietary, free API', you probably shouldn't be using your own 8800 only compiler

Comment by DudQuitter at 9:56am 15th February 2008

if a technology is dedicated to one brand then no one will even think of developing games for it.... so lets just pretend physx would take off buying 2 or 3 cards is just rediculous and if we have to start doing that then ill quit my hobby of building computers because its just getting totally rediculous and if intel and nvidia keep on buying compamies out to kill each other off im gonna try my hardest to get them both in big trouble because they are ruining the hobby of building computers for everyone... because when there is no competition they can charge 1000's of pounds for a small item like a gpu heatsink that comes with there gpu as standard and i think the world of IT might be over soon so guys... it was fun but now lets watch the world of computing sink like the titanic.... but hey maybe youtube will move over to the bbc andi bet it'll cost a bomb to text them a video lol

Comment by smiler_16 at 9:19am 15th February 2008

If you have the same res and same detail settings it should fair better on your 7950, it's a better card than the one in the 360. I always find it amusing to see performance compared, the problem is we just don't know what detail settings are being used for console titles compared to their pc counterparts, we know resolution (and I think 360's AA is 4x max, but not whether it's the standard for it's games), but what about texture level, lighting, no. of dynamic light sources, AF, etc, etc, etc.... Anyway back on subject, until physics becomes better integrated and more necessary to the whole experience I think seperate physics processing cards will struggle to find a market, whether its a dedicated card or an extra g.card.

Comment by NewParadigm at 8:27am 15th February 2008

So i need SLi for the graphics and another for the physics. Still wont play Crysis on full though ;) On a serious note though this is getting silly and very VERY expensive. For the average gamer (i.e. doesnt want to spend 3 months salary on a rig) I still think the latest-gen consoles offer better value. My 360/Sammy HD/Sony 5.1 play COD4 a treat yet I wonder how I would fare on my 7950GT?

Comment by pveater at 7:37am 15th February 2008

Its not about having seperate cards to do different jobs. Current GPU's can and have been handling Physics for a long time. Just like CPU's used to handle Graphics (and still do) on onboard systems. The issue then was with resources and bandwidth for cross comunication which bottlenecked the system and so Graphics cards were introduced as they could be used along a different bus... PCI/AGP. Now with multicore technologies and faster interfaces (PCIe 2.0) coming to the fore, the race is on to find things for extra cores to actually work on and Physics would be a great use for a single core while another worked on Graphics data. To think that this is all going to be included in the architecture of the next gen cards (9000) is again silly. Architecture plans are laid out years in advance. I think we are at least looking at the 10k or even 11k series cards. As for AMD/ATI, they will work out something and maybe setup their own department. After all, that is all this is to the big boys. they have just saved time and money by just going out and buying someone who knows what they are doing already. Intel/NVidia will just refer to Havok/Ageia as the 'Physics Department' respective in the future.

Comment by PokerMuppet at 6:41am 15th February 2008

I bet nVidia will make some option available to people who buy their new 9 series X2 card, so you can have one core working on standard gpu protocols and another working on physics. Other than that, we might be looking at dual core gpus. Perhaps Intel will share their 45nm tech with nVidia??

Comment by TWeaKoR at 2:35am 15th February 2008

Physics doesnt really appeal to me and Im sure to most other people as well ... Why would you need a seperate card to do something your GFX card can do albeit a little slower... dont really see the logic... if they combine in to one card that was a little more expensive then fine ... but I wont be looking at buying a 8800GTX Ultra (x2) and a Physics card .. Just so I can play Crysis on ultra !! Think I would rather jst drop the resolution slightly .... still looks just as good to me ..

Comment by akoli at 2:08am 15th February 2008

Nobody bought Ageia cards anyway, nobody is going to buy extra nvidia cards to turn one into a dedecated physics card, as suggested. This possibly has some merit if the physics is done on the same card as the graphics, combining the two chips onto one card. PPU physics was supposed ot be the next huge thing but never got anywhere, then the Source engine turned up and made them look silly by doing physics beautifully in software.

Comment by NotFred at 11:41pm 14th February 2008

ouch. looks like amd/ati need to get some help from some where. i realli hope they are designing their own physics cards. good luck to them. going to be one long year for ati again :(

Comment by Fearron at 11:31pm 14th February 2008

I knew it. But amd/ati will get past this down set i think.

Comment by megapig at 8:54pm 14th February 2008

• BFG unveils hand built Phobos gaming PCs
• UPDATED: LiveJournal announces mass layoffs
• Top 10 PC games chart
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 gets 500GB on single platter
• Creative reveals new Zii processor
• Happy Christmas from Custom PC
• Intel might buy Imagination Technologies
• First Blu-Ray and DVD hybrid disc announced
• Abit denies closure rumours
• Download ‘AAA’ games in a few minutes with AWOMO

These are the most popular news articles over the past seven days.

• Phenom II overclocked to 6GHz
• GeIL unveils Cyclone RAM cooler
• Rumour control: GeForce GTX 260 GX2 in January
• Nvidia cuts price of 216 SP GeForce GTX 260
• VIDEO: PC version of Mirror’s Edge features hardware PhysX
• Get Half-Life for less than a dollar on Steam
• IBM plans to build virtual human brain
• RivaTuner 2.20 adds SLI and CrossFire support
• VIDEO: ArmA II trailer released