Nvidia offers 'PhysX' for Sony PlayStation 3

Updated on March 18 at 8:00 p.m. PST with additional information throughout.

Nvidia on Tuesday said it has signed a license agreement with Sony to provide PhysX technology for the PlayStation 3, whereby Nvidia becomes the official tools and middleware provider for Sony PS3.

Nvidia's PhysX technology--based on the laws of physics--enables game objects to respond in a realistic way to physical events. More conventional technology uses a canned response, in which the same response is repeated over and over.

For example, a window breaks, or a person falls the same way every time. In a PhysX-enabled football sports game, however, the angle and velocity of the impact is calculated by the graphics processor to generate a real-time response that is different practically every time.

The agreement with Sony Computer Entertainment covers tools and middleware for the PlayStation 3. Nvidia is now an official Tools and Middleware provider for Sony PS3, according to Bryan Del Rizzo, an Nvidia spokesman. "This new relationship means a couple of changes in how the PhysX SDK for PS3 is managed. As a Sony Computer Entertainment Tools and Middleware provider, Nvidia will now be exclusively responsible for maintaining and enhancing the PS3 PhysX SDK," he said.

Rizzo continued: "Additionally, while Sony has a license to distribute and support users of the binary version of the PhysX PS3 SDK, Nvidia will now be responsible for licensing the source code PhysX SDK for PS3 as well providing direct support to all source code-licensed PhysX PS3 developers," he said. "This newly announced tools and middleware relationship with Sony closely mirrors the licensing and support model that has existed for years with Microsoft and its Xbox 360 platform and complements our plans to support future console platforms."

Nvidia described the SDK as "a full-featured (application programming interface) and robust physics engine, designed to give developers, animators, level designers, and artists unprecedented creative control over character and object physical interactions by allowing them to author and preview physics effects in real time."

In December, Electronic Arts and Take-Two Interactive Software adopted Nvidia's PhysX technology.

[shootthecops]

patenting nature, who'd a thunk it?

[Relonar]

well, no-one said anything about patents...but anyway the ip would be on the way that nature is calculated.
a problem that is very parallel, very computationally intensive, and gets very complicated very fast.
Adding realistic physical simulations to a game starting from the ground up takes a lot of effort, and effort usually translates to time and money.
nvidia has a very rich library already built and tested that it acquired a few years ago from aigea. they have since built this into cuda allowing it to run on their consumer gpu's and continue to maintain it.
Licensing PhysX to sony creates a huge incentive for developers since the hard work has already been done. All they need to do is use it, instead of investing the resources to rebuild it.
again, the way things act wasn't licensed, the code that makes it happen was.

[assman]

Wow.. Brooke Crothers (CNET reporter) really doesn't understand what he's writing about. The first paragraph was really embarrassing.

[forever4now]

Cool! I wonder if this technology is supported by Tegra. This could result in some cool game effects on handheld devices with accelerometers, etc.

[pjhenry1216]

I'm guessing its probably unlikely. The PS3 processing power dwarfs that of a handheld device. Replicating physics in a realistic way requires a lot of that processing power. I don't think a handheld would be able to do that AND produce pretty pictures at the same time. This is one of the reasons LITTLEbigPLANET was only on the PS3. They said it'd be virtually impossible to get the same results on the 360. The processing power that the PS3 is capable of is ridiculous. Hopefully this will allow developers to take better advantage of it.

[Tod Smith]

Doing this means Sony doesn't plan on a NEW PS4 anytime soon.

I suspect if MS plans to stay with the 360, they will do the SAME with ATI's ATI Stream SDK.

[pjhenry1216]

They've called the PS3 a 10 year machine. I don't think anyone ever thought a ps3 was coming soon. They lost a lot of money on the PS3 due to a rushed launch (their hand was kinda forced with the blu-ray/hd-dvd war) that hurt their overall sales. No games were out at the time, so no one bought it. No one owned it, so no one made any games for it. So the 360 with its superior online play and bigger library got all the users. So, while the PS3 as a console itself was amazing, circumstances kept it back a bit. They'll need to recoup for awhile to make up for their losses.

[jcurrin]

Tod Microsoft already has an agreement almost identical to the one Sony has with Nvidia..why would a deal with ati be in the future?

[Maarek Stele]

The response is calculated by the PhyX card or chip added onto the graphics card slowing the system down. We don't see it because it still needs imporvements.

[jsmpsn]

This is another attempt for Sony to push among the general population that better games are going to be created. This isn't the case necessarily. There are already games on the Xbox 360 that use Physx technology. The key is that there are is an actual Physx chip that can be inserted or embedded into computers etc that are not included in the PS3 or xbox 360. Therefore everything will have to be dependant upon the CPU or GPU. So its going to be hard to say what benefit this will actually give the PS3. This may result in easier development for the PS3, but will it be enough. I highly doubt it. By the time everyone unlocks whats underneath the Cell Processor PS3 will be a thing of the past. I'm not saying that PS3 is dead, but just look at the sales of games on the Xbox 360. It is significantly higher than the PS3.

[Pointedly]

Other game console owners are likely to develop a good case of jealousy when they see how PhysX-enabled games run on the PlayStation 3 platform.

[man_w_balls]

PhysX is good - once Nvidia enabled physics acceleration on 8800 cards and up with their recent drivers, I noticed that I was suddenly a lot better at UT3 in online matches. The game itself seems little different visually, but my higher win ability proved that something was indeed going on - more realistic physics, and therefore more easily predictable physical results to a human brain used to predicting physical events in reality.

[deanbvfx]

Anyone who read into it would know PS3 has had PhysX from the start.
The new license deal basically allows Dev's to get the PhysX SDK for free with the PS3 SDK.

So this isn't going to make any games better because, well they've already being able to use it. Though I suppose you may see a few PSN games employ it now its free.
And for those who want to know, the PS3 version of the PhysX API runs off the Cell.

http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/050721be.pdf