EA's Games to Get Really Physical

News
By Marcus Yam
published

Nvidia today announced what some of the gaming tech savvy have known for some time now, that is, Electronic Arts has licensed Nvidia’s PhysX technology.

Judging from the press announcement, it appears as though the agreement between the two companies will allow the use of PhysX across all of the EA studios worldwide.

“PhysX is a great physics solution for the most popular platforms, and we’re happy to make it available for EA’s development teams worldwide,” said Tim Wilson, Chief Technology Officer of EA’s Redwood Shores Studio. “Gameplay remains our number one goal, with character, vehicle and environmental interactivity a critical part of the gameplay experience for our titles, and we look forward to partnering with Nvidia to reach this goal.”

Last month we found out from EA-owned studio DICE, best known for the Battlefield series, that the recently released console free-running game Mirror’s Edge will hit the PC with PhysX acceleration. The PhysX technology will aid in-game physics effects—including wind, weapons impact, and movement.

“PhysX offers tremendous benefits to developers and gamers and we are thrilled Electronic Arts has chosen PhysX to bring new levels of realism in their games,” said Ujesh Desai, vice president of GeForce desktop business at Nvidia.

The extent of the agreement between EA and Nvidia isn’t clear, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see Need for Speed or Madden with the PhysX stamp in the future.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
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14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • great... something else for the big green to make it look better than it actually is O_O
    Reply
  • rocky1234
    More like great something else to make EA games more unstable than they already are & run slower than ever.
    Reply
  • I imagine many readers of THG no longer care about EA releases since their last 4 have been packed with DRM and SecuRom. Titles that I may have picked up but never will because of DRM and installation problems.

    The most I may do is play it at a Net Cafe.
    Reply
  • Not buying any SecureROM EA loaded game. Same with other EA /Take2 titles I was going to buy. Bioshock, GTA4, Crysis Warfair and of course Mirror’s Edge. Hmmm... that's 4 games I was going to buy.

    That is also 4 games that ANYONE can already pirate download and play without ANY SecureROM DRM crap that can mess up their computers, slow down the PC and even prevent the game its supposed to protect from working properly. Yeah, that's my first experince with SecureROM - the BioShock Demo... refused to work on my PC because SecureROM and I couldn't remove it. Had to rebuild Windows. Screw you EA. I've bought your games for years, back when it was ECA on Commodore64s.

    I'm not a big fan of Microsoft, but I STILL bought and enjoyed Gears of War on my PC. As well as UT3 - both use the same Unreal3 engine used in BioShock.
    Reply
  • jools33
    More physical as all users will be throwing their pcs out of the window cos of all EA's wonderful DRM that all of their customers really love. This company is so far out of touch with their customer base it beggars belief.
    Reply
  • hemelskonijn
    hmm ... i wonder how this will work out for all of us ATi users
    Reply
  • giovanni86
    All my EA games run 100% fine. Just wish i had more installs on RA3... Oh well. I still love EA, just wish they would stop this BS with DRM n shit... I will still buy there games. CNC!!!! All the way!
    Reply
  • hemelskonijn
    imho we should drop the drm crap talk for a bit here, there are enough places to wine about it and well if you dont like it dont buy it.

    Still the technology is fairly cool so there should be enough to discuss without spamming mindlessly about the injustice in the world i mean common we all know kids in 3th world country's dont have clean water and are forced in to prostitution ... why not crap on EA for spending money on needless stuff like this license while they could have used the money to feed and educate a small nation for at least 2 years ?

    Tom's sucks now days not just because there texts sound more like guesses and advertising every day but mostly because the comments are non related and for the most part from winers.
    Reply
  • neiroatopelcc
    SecuROM should be removedI imagine many readers of THG no longer care about EA releases since their last 4 have been packed with DRM and SecuRom. Titles that I may have picked up but never will because of DRM and installation problems. The most I may do is play it at a Net Cafe.
    I'm not most THG readers, I'm just me. But I still care about EA games. I have to admit that I'm not fond of the copy protection. But then I haven't actually used the original dvd for any of the games I've bought recently. I'm still downloading images on dc and cracks on gamecopyworld even if I buy the original. No way I'm going to spoil my system with copy protection.
    Anyhow - to sum it up - I still care about ea games. I've never liked their sports games (I don't like sports), and since the first undergroup I've been disappointed with nfs games - but I'm still hoping for another porche-like game, or another of nfs6. Also I am secretly hoping they'll revive some of the ip they've let die when the companies they assimilated ceased to exist.
    Reply
  • neiroatopelcc
    first undergroup = first underground

    Sorry.
    Reply