Games Convention 2005 Teil 4: AGEIA

Q: In a long-term, how do you see the PPU establishing itself as a must have feature along with GPU and CPU?

EM: As the game designers absorb what’s possible with physics, the bar will be raised on what gamers expect. The same process took place with 3D. As games included filtering and high resolution textures, games that did not support 3D hardware gradually fell away. Games simply looked better and played better. Physics gives motion and feel to games. Since we all live in a physical world, the experience we aim for is for the gamer to feel that objects in the game are real. This experience requires as many processor cycles as we’ll be able to cram on a chip. There really isn’t a limit.

Q: What sort of tools are you supplying to the devs to make the development for the PhysX chip easy?

EM: We provide our PhysX SDK that is a physics middleware solution. The physics middleware contains a software physics engine and an API that provides standard access to the software engine and PhysX processor. In addition, we have developed tools in conjunction with 3D modelling applications like 3ds Max, Maya and XSI to develop art assets that include physics.

Q: Can you tell us something about the development? For example how long did it take to develop the PhysX and what kind of resources had been used?

EM: The PhysX processor and software have taken about 2 years of active development. The engineering group has three main components. The hardware group designed the PhysX processor. The middleware group designed the software PhysX engine. This engine is then ported to the PhysX processor so that the software engine runs on the PhysX processor instead of the Pentium. This was quite an undertaking for a startup engineering group.

Q: Do you see any limitations in what a PPU can accomplish due to overhead issues?

EM: No, not at this time. The first PhysX processor is just the tip of the iceberg for both effects and game-play physics. Just as the first GPU, the PhysX processor has a great deal of headroom.

Q: How long do you think it will take for a developer to release a game that will look and play better on a PPU-enabled system?

EM: The success of the PhysX processor is dependant upon the titles that run on it.
If a game is designed from the ground up using the PhysX SDK, our experience has shown that it doesn’t add significantly to design time. But that also is subjective to the amount of effects they choose to add to the game. As with any new technology, there is a ramp up time for the developer. By having hardware physics acceleration, the sky is now the limit on physics within their title. That presents exciting design challenges and opportunities.

Q: According to the last question. We understand that you needed the Novodex physics engine to use the PhysX. There are some titles that are using the engine right now. Do they support the PhysX from the beginning or do they need an upgrade?

EM: Most developers that we work with have chosen to use the PhysX SDK (formerly called NovodeX) from the ground up on new games. However, for those who have not, we’ve provided a simple transition path.

Q: What are the current bus implementations you have on your roadmap?

EM: The first PhysX processor will be on a PCI implementation. We’ll be moving to PCI Express next year mainly due to the migration of motherboards to PCI Express. For the current generation of titles, PCI provides ample bandwidth for the data we exchange with the CPU.

zurück|weiter