Nvidia Announces Tons of New PhysX Friends

By Marcus Yam
published

Game companies getting phyxical

Nvidia went on a tear and announced a ton of new supporters of its PhysX technology.

The biggest new partner is Sega, which has licensed both PhysX and APEX (opens in new tab) technologies to serve as the development platform for all Sega studios. Whether or not this means that all Sega-developed games from this point on will feature the technology remains to be seen.

Nvidia says that APEX “elevates PhysX technology content authoring from physics programmers to artists without sacrificing any of the highly desired control within the PhysX engine.”

Capcom’s also using PhysX and APEX for its upcoming game Dark Void, developed by Airtight Games. The press release (opens in new tab) claims that, when it ships in the fall of 2009 (for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the PC), Dark Void will be the first game to use dynamic, accurate smoke effects and smoke trails hardware-accelerated by GeForce GPUs when played on compatible desktop PCs.

While most of us are already sick of World War II shooters, another one is coming, but this time with PhysX (opens in new tab). Darkest of Days will be released in fall 2009 for the Xbox 360 and Windows-based PCs

The final PhysX announcement (opens in new tab) of the day is that Swedish developers GRIN are using the physics tech in the Terminator Salvation video game that will be released in conjunction with the highly-anticipated film, which opens nationwide in the U.S. on May 21, 2009. Terminator Salvation is set for release for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, but only the PC version will feature GPU-accelerated PhysX effects.

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.
18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • theuerkorn
    I wonder if the actual PhysX hardware is working with any of that?
    Reply
  • mojito_619
    Does this mean that the ATI cards that use that HAVOK stuff will have a hard time using physiques in those games?
    Reply
  • Kill@dor
    How much more realistic can you get than Mirror's Edge? Dark Space?
    Reply
  • tipoo
    Are the actual Physx cards still supported?
    Reply
  • The Schnoz
    Yes, yes, much more, and yes.
    Reply
  • scook9
    music to my ears...makes me more right for buying a PhyxS card haha.
    Reply
  • Kill@dor
    Pretty soon humans will be respawning everywhere...ZOMG!
    Reply
  • lire210
    darn it i am going to buy a phyx card. dam you amd fanboyishness of me.
    Reply
  • LATTEH
    if these games are good im gonna get a Physx card or and old 8 series card
    Reply
  • brisingamen
    i am running all amd hardware with a 4870 1gb, ive pretty much bounced back and forth between ati and nvidia over the years depending on the model and price at the time,

    some of the recent articles ive read interviewing ati peoples
    seem to be saying that by the time dx10.1 and dx11 codepath becomes standardized and streamlined it will more or less incorperate these physx type graphics with a lower performance hit than they do now, atleast thats the "gist" ive interpereted and gotten when reading interviews with ati people. im skeptical but i know ati likes suprising people. thier last few driver updates have been solid, i know hardware is only as good as the software that runs it.

    does it all boil down to open cl? with that more or less incorperate and swallow all these things in the future?

    sure the aquisition of aegia? or whatever gave nvidia the lead out of the gate with physx type stuff, wondering if any programmers have any insight into this.
    current physx cards are super expensive and show little benefit, im personally more exited about an add in caustic card, to think i might be buying 3 types of video cards in a year or two is kind of crazy, not to mention the crossfire and sli setups growing in number by the generation, can you imagine a tri sli or crossfire setup with two extra cards, it seems like madness. 5-6 video cards for an uber machine?

    maybe an article breaking down the differences between ati and nvidia's programming philosophy more in depth would be a great read and help people decide on what to buy for the future, encompassing as a whole the industry more indepth, the technologies and where things are going, i think this is a great site, and ive been a reader for ten years, alot of the readers seem smart too, wondering what everyone elses thoughts are.

    its just hard to peice toghether how the new vpu/gpu's, caustic cards, physx cards and the like will really work, or not work toghether.

    all of these promising technologies are great but, again where do they really meet? weve come along way since 3dfx and it seems like were almost thier in terms of cinematic gaming. lots of exiting stuff, just hard to sift through it all if your not a software or hardware engineer.
    Reply