Now that many of us have experienced Batman: Arkham Asylum on the console, let’s see if it was worth delaying the PC version to add support for NVIDIA’s PhysX technology.

The verdict? While it certainly doesn’t seem to effect the gameplay, little touches like the flowing of his cape, the swirling of debris, and the way those banners flutter when you toss a batarang through them should help make the experience just a bit more immersive. Is it worth a three week delay? I’ve a feeling that once PC gamers have the game in their hands the delay will be completely forgotten.

At the forefront of their four press release rampage is the announcement that Sega has licensed both the PhysX technology and NVIDIA’s APEX technology to serve as a development platform across all Sega studios.

“Sega has been using PhysX technology for several years, but this new agreement enables our studios to take advantage of the full portfolio of cross-platform PhysX engines,” said Takashi Shoji, Department Manager, Consumer Software R&D Support Dept., Consumer R&D Division, SEGA Corporation. “APEX was an important factor in our decision because it enables us to create high quality physics content in an easier and more productive manner.”

Basically taking away a great deal of the workload so Sega’s programmers can concentrate on slowly killing Sonic.

Along with the Sega announcement, NVIDIA also revealed that Capcom’s Dark Void uses PhysX to render weapons, smoke, and debris; GRIN used it in Terminator Salvation for weapon effects and destructible environments; and 8monkey Labs has an amazing name.

Oh, and 8monkey used PhysX in Darkest of Days to help create interactive, expressive, and natural environments.

In short, NVIDIA’s PhysX technology is slowly taking over the world, and the company’s public relations team has far too much time on their hands.

Game developers may find PlayStation 3 development a bit more attractive today, thanks to the generosity of Nvidia. The graphics chip manufacturer is offering its PhysX tech to developers as a free download.

Nvidia, which also happens to be responsible for the PS3’s RSX ‘Reality Synthesizer’ graphics chip, has inked a deal with Sony Computer Entertainment to provide the software development kit to PlayStation developers. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to see above and beyond physics engine support on par with PhysX hardware acceleration, as in the Games For Windows version of Mirror’s Edge, it may mean better things bouncing off other things in your PS3 library.

Or, in Tony Tamasi, senior vice president of content and technology at NVIDIA’s words, “offer a more realistic and lifelike interaction between the games characters and other objects within the game.”

Remember that fantastic Mirror’s Edge trailer dripping with snazzy PhysX eye-candy? The differences, with or without, may not have been clear enough to the casual observer, something DICE, EA, and NVIDIA hope to change.

They want to drill realistic banner waving and glass shattering directly into your retinas, with a side-by-side comparison of what PC gamers with PhysX abilities will get when Mirror’s Edge ships in January for Windows.

DICE are retooling the PC version with enhanced graphics and – video card permitting – the NVIDIA PhysX engine to allow more accurate physics modelling of the virtual cityscape and the many, many things that can realistically fall off it.

As you can see in the trailer (after the jump) it does look rather lovely. Suitably equipped PC owners will be able to realistically fall off things in January.

DICE Puts Faith in NVIDIA PhysX Technology for Mirror’s Edge [Game Info Wire]

Included in the first Power Pack is a complete version of Warmonger, one of the original showcases for the PhysX technology, an Unreal Tournament 3 PhysX Mod Pack with three maps, sneak peeks at Unreal Engine 3 powered social networking service Nurien, a couple of tech demos, and the drivers to make the whole thing go. Hit the jump for more info on this rather impressive update.

“We’re deeply impressed by NVIDIA’s commitment to push physics to new levels of fidelity and performance, and their investment in development and support infrastructure across all platforms,” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. “NVIDIA’s PhysX technology provides a robust, high-fidelity foundation for our advanced character animation algorithms and tools. Through our close collaboration, we will help game developers bring fully interactive and believable characters to a wide range of games.”

It’s two great tastes that taste real together! Hit the jump for more details on the partnership between physics powerhouses.

NaturalMotion and NVIDIA Bring a New Level of Realism to Games

Companies Team Up to Integrate Animation, AI and Physics Technologies

SANTA CLARA, CA and OXFORD, U.K. – June 11, 2008 NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, and NaturalMotion Ltd., the developers behind the highly acclaimed euphoria motion synthesis technology, today announced that the companies have teamed up to offer game developers and publishers easy-to-use, highly integrated solutions for adding animation and physics in next-generation games.

Starting with the upcoming release of NaturalMotion’s morpheme animation engine, NVIDIA’s PhysX technology will provide rigid body dynamics functionality across its product portfolio, supporting both console (PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii) and PC platforms. In addition, PC titles will benefit from GeForce GPU acceleration for both PhysX and future versions of morpheme, bringing additional motion fidelity to the PC game experience.

“We’re deeply impressed by NVIDIA’s commitment to push physics to new levels of fidelity and performance, and their investment in development and support infrastructure across all platforms,” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion. “NVIDIA’s PhysX technology provides a robust, high-fidelity foundation for our advanced character animation algorithms and tools. Through our close collaboration, we will help game developers bring fully interactive and believable characters to a wide range of games.”

“The introduction of NaturalMotion’s AI and Adaptive Behaviours is the next big breakthrough in gaming,” said Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA. “This technology takes us into a new level of immersion as characters roll, jump, duck and react to the players’ actions and the environments around them. We are delighted to be working with NaturalMotion to bring this new level of character animation to the world.”
For more information, visit www.naturalmotion.com.

But it won’t be doing it in hardware. It doesn’t need to. The massively parallel nature of the GPU is already designed to handle the type of processing required for hardware physics. All it takes is a bit of software magic, and PhysX will run happily on GPUs that support CUDA.

What’s CUDA? It stands for Compute Unified Device Architecture, and put simply, it’s a tech included in the GeForce 8 range that allows the GPU to run general purpose code. According to the TR article, NVIDIA will port the PhysX middleware to a variant of the C programming language that can run on GPUs. Then it’s just a matter of executing the code on the video card and voila – hardware PhysX support without the need for a PhysX card.

If anything’s going to help the adoption of the PhysX middleware, it’s knowing you only need one piece of hardware to take advantage of it. Note that PhysX is free, while Havok is not, so the latter will undoubtedly be keeping a close eye on this development.

Huang didn’t put a date on support, but I suspect it’ll come in the form of a driver update in the not-too-distant future.

GeForce 8 graphics processors to gain PhysX support [Tech Report, via Blue's News]

Now it looks like NVIDIA’s plans for AGEIA’s technology aren’t just games-related.

You can head on over to FiringSquad for the entire interview, however, here’s the meatiest part of the short talk:

Second, the computer industry is moving towards a heterogeneous computing model, combining a flexible CPU and a massively parallel processor like the GPU to perform computationally intensive applications like real-time computer graphics. Physics is a natural for processing on the GPU because, like graphics, it is made up of thousands of parallel computations, and with our CUDA technology, which is rapidly becoming one of the most pervasive parallel computing programming environments in history, we can open this exciting parallel processing world to applications desperate for a giant step in computing performance—such as physics processing, computer vision, video/image processing, and a world of exciting applications we’ve not yet imagined.

What I’m getting from this is that NVIDIA isn’t so much interested in AGEIA for hardware-accelerated physics in games, but more what the massively parallel design of the hardware can be used for in certain general processing tasks. This is something AGEIA’s PPU and the GPU have in common.

Is NVIDIA looking to take on Intel and AMD? There’s definitely a place for this sort of hardware in specialised markets.

NVIDIA AGEIA PhysX Acquisition Interview [FiringSquad]

More details about the deal will shake out during NVIDIA’s upcoming quarterly conference call, set for Feb. 13.

While AGEIA appears to continue to struggle breaking into the mainstream PC market, they’ve made significant in-roads into the console market with 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and PC. The company has more than 10,000 registered and active users of their PhysX software development kit as well.

“NVIDIA is the perfect fit for us. They have the world’s best parallel computing technology and are the thought leaders in GPUs and gaming. We are united by a common culture based on a passion for innovating and driving the consumer experience,” said Manju Hegde, co-founder and CEO of AGEIA.

Full release on the jump. I wonder if NVIDIA would try to come up with a way to incorporate the PhysX engine into a graphics card, instead of requiring two pieces of hardware? Maybe that’s not possible, actually.

SANTA CLARA, CA — FEBRUARY 4, 2008–NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA), the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AGEIA Technologies, Inc., the industry leader in gaming physics technology. AGEIA’s PhysX software is widely adopted with more than 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on Sony Playstation3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii and Gaming PCs. AGEIA physics software is pervasive with over 10,000 registered and active users of the PhysX SDK.

“The AGEIA team is world class, and is passionate about the same thing we are–creating the most amazing and captivating game experiences,” stated Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. “By combining the teams that created the world’s most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForce®-accelerated PhysX to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world.”

“NVIDIA is the perfect fit for us. They have the world’s best parallel computing technology and are the thought leaders in GPUs and gaming. We are united by a common culture based on a passion for innovating and driving the consumer experience,” said Manju Hegde, co-founder and CEO of AGEIA.

Like graphics, physics processing is made up of millions of parallel computations. The NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800GT GPU, with its 128 processors, can process parallel applications up to two orders of magnitude faster than a dual or quad-core CPU.

“The computer industry is moving towards a heterogeneous computing model, combining a flexible CPU and a massively parallel processor like the GPU to perform computationally intensive applications like real-time computer graphics,” continued Mr. Huang. “NVIDIA’s CUDA™ technology, which is rapidly becoming the most pervasive parallel programming environment in history, broadens the parallel processing world to hundreds of applications desperate for a giant step in computational performance. Applications such as physics, computer vision, and video/image processing are enabled through CUDA and heterogeneous computing.”

AGEIA was founded in 2002 and has offices in Santa Clara, CA; St. Louis, MO; Zurich, Switzerland; and Beijing, China.

The acquisition remains subject to customary closing conditions.

More details about the acquisition will be provided during NVIDIA’s quarterly conference call, to be held on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pacific Time. The Company’s prepared remarks will be followed by a question and answer period, which will be limited to questions from financial analysts and institutional investors. To listen to the conference call, please dial 212-231-2901; no password is required. The conference call will also be webcast live (listen-only mode) at the following Web sites: www.nvidia.com and www.streetevents.com.

Replay of the conference call will be available via telephone by calling 800-633-8284 (or 402-977-9140), passcode 21354792, until February 20, 2008. The webcast will be recorded and available for replay until the company’s conference call to discuss its financial results for its first quarter, fiscal 2009.

About AGEIA