AGEIA PhysX SDK has been around for some time now and its first first dedicated physics processor for computer games (PPU, Physics Processing Unit). We are still waiting for the first expansion cards with AGEIA’s PhysX processor, that according to the initial plans should have arrived by now. However it has said that the hardware will not arrive until there is decent software support. PhysX has not been forgotten though and it seems Sony will be pushing for physics acceleration with PlayStation 3. AGEIA has now released information that states that it will make an optimized version of PhysX SDK v2.4 for Playstation3’s Cell processor that will be sent to registered PS3 game developers.
“In the 2.4 release, several components of the AGEIA PhysX pipeline have been offloaded from the PPU of the PLAYSTATION®3 to the SPUs; developers can fully control the component deployment. This has resulted in a 50% reduction in maximum PPU load, leaving more room for game code and smooth frame rates.”
Sony will not use a dedicated circuit for physics acceleration but instead use the Cell processor’s rumored parallel power.
That also NVIDIA recently decided to venture for physics acceleration with its support for Havok FX hopefully will increase the interest among game developers.
