PhysX

Developer(s)	Nvidia Corporation
Stable release	9.09.0814 (as of August 14, 2009)
Operating system	Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OS X, Linux (32-bit, not GPU accelerated), Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Type	Physics simulation
License	Proprietary, Freeware, Commercial
Website	Nvidia PhysX developer site

PhysX is a proprietary realtime physics engine middleware SDK acquired by Ageia (which itself was acquired by Nvidia in February 2008^[1]) with the purchase of ETH Zurich spin-off NovodeX in 2004. The term PhysX can also refer to the PPU add-in card designed by Ageia to accelerate PhysX-enabled video games. Video games supporting hardware acceleration by PhysX can be accelerated by either a PhysX PPU or a CUDA-enabled GeForce GPU, thus offloading physics calculations from the CPU, allowing it to perform other tasks instead—potentially resulting in a smoother gaming experience.

Middleware physics engines allow game developers to avoid writing their own code to handle the complex physics interactions possible in modern games.

The PhysX engine and SDK are available for the following platforms:

• Windows
• Linux (32-bit)
• Nintendo Wii^[2]
• Sony Playstation 3^[3][4]
• Microsoft Xbox 360^[5]

Nvidia provides both the engine and SDK for free to Windows and Linux users and developers^[6]. The PlayStation 3 SDK is also freely available due to Sony's blanket purchase agreement.

Contents 1 Nvidia acquisition 2 Hardware 2.1 PPU 2.2 GPU 2.3 PhysX P1 (PPU) hardware specifications 3 Title support 3.1 Games 3.2 Other software 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Nvidia acquisition

In February 2008, Nvidia bought Ageia and the PhysX engine and has begun integrating it into its CUDA framework, effectively rendering the PhysX add-in card redundant.^[7] With Intel's cancellation of Havok FX, PhysX is currently the only available solution for physics hardware acceleration.^[8]

In August 2008, Nvidia released drivers that allow GeForce 8 series and above video cards to implement PhysX processing.^[9]

In September 2009 Nvidia came under heavy criticism when end-users discovered that their latest drivers disabled all PhysX hardware-acceleration for configurations containing any non-Nvidia graphics card including even original AGEIA PhysX cards if they run along a non-Nvidia graphics cards.

[edit] Hardware

[edit] PPU

A physics processing unit (PPU) is a processor specially designed to alleviate calculations from the CPU, specifically calculations involving physics. Soon after the release of Ageia's PPU, graphics card manufacturers announced plans to implement similar functionality via the GPU. Support for the Ageia PPU solution was dropped for Windows 7.^[10]

[edit] GPU

A graphics processing unit or GPU (also occasionally called visual processing unit or VPU) is a dedicated graphics rendering device for a personal computer, workstation, or game console. Modern GPUs are very efficient at manipulating and displaying computer graphics, and their highly parallel structure makes them more effective than general-purpose CPUs for a range of complex algorithms such as accelerating physics using PhysX. A GPU can sit on top of a video card, or it can be integrated directly into the motherboard. More than 90%^{[citation needed]} of new desktop and notebook computers have integrated GPUs, which are usually far less powerful than their add-in counterparts.

Any CUDA ready GeForce graphics cards, GeForce series 8 and newer with 32 cores or more with 256MB or more of Video Memory ^[11], can take advantage of PhysX without the need to install a dedicated PhysX card.

Since the release of the 186 ForceWare drivers it's no longer possible to use a CUDA enabled card for PhysX hardware acceleration when the main GPU is of another brand, such as AMD.^[12] The decision was taken due to development expenses, quality assurance and business reasons.^[10][13] This decision has caused a backlash from the community that lead to the creation of a community patch for Windows 7 circumventing the Nvidia main GPU check in their updated drivers. Currently this patch only works on GPUs and not PPUs. ^[14]

[edit] PhysX P1 (PPU) hardware specifications

ASUS and BFG Technologies bought licenses to manufacture AGEIA's only hardware PPU—the PhysX P1 w/ 128MB GDDR3.

• Multi-core MIPS architecture-based device with integrated physics acceleration hardware and memory subsystem with "tons of cores"^[15]
• 125 million transistors^[16]
• 182 mm² die size
• Memory: 128 MB GDDR3 RAM on 128-bit interface
• Interface: 32-bit PCI 3.0
• Sphere collision tests: 530 million per second (maximum capability)
• Convex collision tests: 530,000 per second (maximum capability)
• Peak Instruction Bandwidth: 20 billion per second
• Peak Power Consumption: 30 W
• Fabrication Process: 130 nm
• Price: Between $100–250 in the USA, £75–145 (inc VAT) in the UK

[edit] Title support

There are many titles that use the PhysX SDK, but not all include support for PhysX hardware and instead only support Nvidia based GPUs.^[17][18]

[edit] Games

The following games feature PhysX support (list may be incomplete):^[19]

[edit] Other software

• Futuremark's 3DMark benchmark is able to take advantage of PhysX.^[22]
• DarkBASIC Professional, a BASIC-like game building language, uses the PhysX SDK.^[23]
• DX Studio, an integrated development environment for creating interactive 3D graphics.^[24]
• Esenthel Engine, an advanced game engine
• PhysX is integrated into Emergent's Gamebryo engine.^[25][26]
• The popular open source rendering engine OGRE can use Ageia PhysX through the NxOgre wrapper.^[27]
• The Physics Abstraction Layer can use PhysX,^[28] and provides COLLADA and Scythe Physics Editor support for PhysX.
• Microsoft Robotics Studio^[29]
• Unity Technologies' Unity, an integrated 3D authoring tool^[30]
• Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 uses PhysX.^[31] This may offer physics that are not possible on a normal CPU core in real time.

[edit] See also

• Havok
• Bullet
• Open Dynamics Engine
• OpenGL

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Product Site
• Projects using PhysX SDK
• "PS Meeting 2005: Sony Hooks Up with AGEIA" – IGN News Story
• The Unofficial PhysX Links & Info Page
• List of PhysX supporting titles with comments
• PC Perspective: BFG AGEIA PhysX Card Review
• Techgage: AGEIA PhysX.. First Impressions
• Tom's Hardware: Is AGEIA's PhysX failing?
• PC Perspective: AGEIA Spring 2007 Update
• Techgage: NVIDIA's PhysX: Performance and Status Report
• Techgage: NVIDIA's PhysX: Performance and Status Report - Part 2

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