The Future Of PhysX

With three plausible ways of implementing physics in the future, where will it lead us. Taking a look at today's market one thing becomes apparent: only one of three is currently delivering. While AMD and NVIDIA have outlined plans to offer dedicated physics processing in the near or far future, these are nothing more than plans so far. Everyone with nForce 680i based mainboards has at least that one bottom PCIe slot available, waiting to see what will be offered, while AMD is releasing the RD790 in the near future, with three cards up and running in Crossfire already.

This means that by the time all players have an implementation in the market, PhysX has been out and about for well over a year if not more. By the time NVIDIA or AMD implementations see the light of day, we may be into 3rd generation PPU enabled games, so the two graphic firms need to either come out guns blazing or have some serious catching up to do.

2007 can be considered the year of Ageia. A long list of notable OEMs are placing the PhysX PPU inside their systems. Some of these are Medion, Acer, Dell and HP. You will see a much greater acceptance for the device within the next 12 months. They just announced a mobile variant, called the PhysX 100M to bring the same effects to the mobile gamer, which will make the PhysX processor even more attractive for some. Dell is the first out the door and has already launched its XPS 1730 laptop with an integrated PhysX processor.
One could say that the next year will make or break the PPU. Time will tell how it will end up, but things are looking grand so far. The limited amount of games available, which utilize the hardware has been a big worry for most, as they are not willing to invest in such hardware for a handful of titles. The embedded physics in the Unreal 3 Engine will broaden the range of games that offer greater special effects when coupled with the PhysX PPU by a large margin. The engine has been licenced well over 100 times so far, with more to come. To further increase awarness, Ageia will be releasing "Warmonger" which utilizes the Unreal 3 engine with all its effects for free in mid October.

The greater acceptance by OEMs and game developers should make for a great combination and may even lead to a widespread market acceptance of the PhysX card, which would also mean that the cards may even become cheaper and more manufacturers may start to offer them in the future.