I wonder if Intel will make it possible to use their IGP's for physics in the future? Then it won't be wasted if people buy a separate graphics card. Sort of a 'free' feature.

Intel know that AMD do graphics, and they know that they were using Havok to do this physics on GPU thing, so it strikes me that buying up the company AMD is working with might just count as an attempt to prevent a competitor bringing a product to market. That sounds like anti-trust-invoking behaviour to me...

Shurely there was no good reason for Intel to buy Havoc other than to remove the physics ability.. I met one of the blocks who setup havoc last week.. should have slapped him.. then mugged him..

They can't make good cards cheap or on time. They will license their tech to ATI and Nvidia or disappear.

That means AGEIA PhysX is the winner for that matter, or not?

These Physics & Clear Things are NOT In first Generation of Intro, About lots o' times from late 50s'Colour its Physics gonna Save D' World. What ever it did/does gets incorporated & GONE With WIND.Nemo Stuff. thomas vondrashek

smelled this one coming for miles.

Most people thought Physics would emerge when Microsoft put something like Direct Physics into Direct-X or simply became part of the rendering pipeline. I suppose the multi-core war reduces the immeadiate need for a 3rd party accellerator... I think it's a shame that this kind of fallout is taking place due to Intel sabotaging AMD & nVidia's GPGPU plans... not only for gamers, but for computer enthusiasts in general. Waiting for Intel to exhibit the amount of parallelism offered by GPU's will take ages. In the most ideal situation, Microsoft would buy Ageia, built it's API into Vista SP2 and position itself as the easiest platform to program physics on when it's 3rd Xbox comes around.

As if there is only one company on the world that could possibly do it.

This might mean great news for Ageia Physx, after all its closest competitor was GPU Physics which had the advantage of a much more scalable market. So now, it all depends on wheter they make physx interesting or not.

This means that finally Ageia might actually become truly profitable...heck Intel might buy them next cause AMD don't have a dime. But perhaps it will be Nvidia that will make that move?

I don't think anyone can convince me of that.

So, is that dodo as in scat? Or, dodo as in the bird? Both fit I think

AGEIA PhysX cards will likely be the next to fall down this cavernous pit of death. With dual cores being widely present in the current gaming market, developers can offload many of the physics calculations onto the available CPU(s) that remains generally unused. While the initial enthusiasm and optimism of increasing game physics through additional hardware seemed like a good idea, the market has swung entirely away from it leaving the additional hardware as just that; optional.

the only victims here are ______________, ____________, _________________.

is this meant that physx is the way to the future? or does intel have something else up in their mind? I bet this is some kind of revenge from intel to Nvidia for keeping SLI to themself.

Now all we need is for that other stupid physics accelerator to disappear and everything will be good. We don't need extra cards and gimmicks, just help us take advantage of the multi cores we already own!

what the human race could achieve if money wasn't in the way...

Havok FX isn't the only physics engine relying on the GPU. It might be the only known one but in case you haven't noticed, NVIDIA have a developer site telling people many things about their GPGPU capabilities, and the lack of support from Havok FX isn't going to stop developers from making their own physics solutions...

damn. phys x better come down in price or I quit gaming.

Now if only Ageia would release a cheaper, possibly more powerful version of its PhysX card, (on a smaller process technology probably) PPU boards might actually catch on. Dell seems to think there is some hope for them at least.

umm, if Intel has Havok FX and AMD and NVidia don't, do you think that is going to stop AMD or NVidia? Do you think they are going to simply give the market to Intel? "GPU Physics is dead" ... how so? The hardware is already there, it just needs an API for game developers to access it. I'm a software guy and I'm thinking "why are you not making a competitive API to Havok FX? AMD and NVidia busting down your door, AND you get to put the screws to Intel. Does it get any better? What are you waiting for?"

TheInquirer Answered itself in mid 2006 ... Microsoft set to produce its own Physics API - The INQUIRER http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2006/06/21/microsoft-set-to-produce-its-own-physics-api See Also http://www.google.com.pk/search?hl=en&q=Microsoft+Physics+APIs&btnG=Google+Search&meta= Muhamamd Imran Islamabad, Pakistan

TheInquirer Answered itself in mid 2006 ... Microsoft set to produce its own Physics API - The INQUIRER http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2006/06/21/microsoft-set-to-produce-its-own-physics-api Even the google ranks Theinquirer's news top in sech results... :) See Also http://www.google.com.pk/search?hl=en&q=Microsoft+Physics+APIs&btnG=Google+Search&meta= Muhamamd Imran Islamabad, Pakistan

Isn't there another solution called PhysX ? Don't they even have a hardware add-on ? And so what if Intel bought it. Intel is just like any other company : it won't go spending money if there is no return in sight. So I think Intel is going to integrate physics commands in its future chip generations - meaning that it will have to publish said commands, otherwise no one will use them. It'll be like SS3, or the MME commands of Pentium lore. Those instructions will have to show up somewhere to validate the buy. And if Intel doesn't do anything obvious, well that other company is still there and they are working pretty hard - even though there isn't much to show for it at this point. I don't think this physics hoopla is dying out, but it certainly is going to go in a new direction.