Nvidia snaps up PhysX with Ageia buy

[Keyboard Cowboy]

Nvidia snaps up PhysX with Ageia buy - Deal Makers - CRN Australia

Nvidia snaps up PhysX with Ageia buy

Graphics firm Nvidia has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Ageia Technologies, a privately held gaming physics technology developer based in California.

Ageia is best known for its PhysX software, which is shipping or in development with more than 140 PhysX-based games on Sony's PlayStation 3, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Nintendo's Wii and gaming PCs.

Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive at Nvidia, said that the combined firms could bring GeForce-accelerated PhysX software to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world.

"The computer industry is moving towards a heterogeneous computing model, combining a flexible CPU and a massively parallel processor like the GPU to perform computationally intensive applications like real-time computer graphics, " he said.

Manju Hegde, co-founder and chief executive at Ageia, added: "Nvidia is the perfect fit for us. They have the world's best parallel computing technology."

However, some commentators believe that the acquisition could be bad news for AMD.

Intel acquired game developer Havok in September 2007 when Havok was working with AMD and Nvidia on the Havok FX physics engine which ceased following the buyout.

This means that AMD's two biggest competitors, Intel and Nvidia, now have strong physics development platforms, while AMD does not appear to have a competing technology.

The situation could be problematic for AMD if Intel and Nvidia push the integration of more complicated physics into video games.

The acquisition remains subject to customary closing conditions

YUMMMY!
A win for nVidia and another nail in the coffin for AMD/ATi.
It's going to be very interesting ot see what is going to come in nVidia next generation of GPUs.

[Saxon]

I just hope they opensource the drivers in the future. Despite in the past being a bit of a AMD fan boy I have always prefared nvidia an i am starting to like intel more an more.

[Keyboard Cowboy]

Originally Posted by Chris Chadwick

I just hope they opensource the drivers in the future. Despite in the past being a bit of a AMD fan boy I have always prefared nvidia an i am starting to like intel more an more.

AMD has not been much great shakes for me in the past few years, unless AMD can pull a benchmarking bunny out of their hat and get up to speed with Intel, I think my next computer will be intel based.

As for GPUs, the other real reason why I would remotely consider ATi is bang for buck value when I finally move over to PCI-E some time this year. However with Nvidia now working closer with Ageia, I am having some second thoughts about considering ATi.

[vernong1992]

there are two other threads like this you know

but nice find, and love the flashing sig

[backup287]

I think amd is just dumb, they buy Ati and start going into the Gpu business when they are having problems beating intel with cpu? they should just concentrate on one thing instead of stepping into another ball park IMO

[coldcheeks]

When your a big corporation you can do that

[Apokalipse]

I think I remember ATI developing their own Physics technology a while back. I believe it's actually used for folding@home.

Originally Posted by backup287

I think amd is just dumb, they buy Ati and start going into the Gpu business when they are having problems beating intel with cpu?

It was far from dumb. Now that they have ATI, they can actually make their own chipsets. They have never been able to do that before.
In fact, that was one of AMD's biggest problems in the past.

Secondly, being able to make GPU's as well gives them the ability to make a full system platform for desktops (with either integrated, or dedicated graphics cards) and laptops. This can give them a lot of market penetration.

Not only that, but they have released some very competitive high-end graphics cards (3850, 3870, 3870 X2), and they also have strong mainstream graphics cards (2400's and 2600's) with UVD decoders. perfect for media centre's, and light gamers