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The release of the Physics Processor was a rough one because before Ageia even released the product there was already a rumor. ATI and NVIDIA obviously won't let such an opportunity pass. Both nVIDIA and ATI were looking to games middleware developer Havok to connect game code to its GPUs. The Havok FX API runs physics-based special-effects algorithms through pixel shader pipelines rather than the host CPU. And how do you accomplish that ? Indeed .. most graphics cores can be called a GPGPU .. a generic purpose GPU, meaning that with the proper driver support you simply drop another Radeon or Geforce videocard into your system which will function as a Physics accelerator, and not a graphics accelerator. Guru3D has seen this demonstrated several times now and you have all seen some fantastic press-releases and even movies. The fact remains though that to date neither NVIDIA or ATI released this as a viable product onto the market. I have a gut feeling it'll stay that way for a while. The idea is enticing though... once you upgrade to a newer graphics cards you could use your old one for Physics functions. But talk is cheap, we need to see this actually released before we can cast an opinion about it.

Ageia - exceptionally shocking marketing ..

There was more bad news for Ageia .. I was at the E3 in LA this year where there was a rumor that several websites confirmed a small trick with the game "Cell Factor", which is supposed to not run at all without a Ageia PhysX card. Well, it can run just fine without one.
Install the demo, install the latest physx drivers from their site and add EnablePhysX=false to the CF shortcut and voila, no physx hardware but fully playable game and most importantly most physics candy is enabled with hardly any performance loss. This raised many questions.

After numerous email inquiries over the past year I literally gave up on Ageia. However, at the E3 Ageia was present where I figured it would be good to have a chat with them. I personally tried to talk to the PR staff at E3 yet none of them had or wanted to make time for Guru3D.com. It was clear that they already pre-selected a small group of press who were to be supported in their marketing plan leaving the rest uncovered. Way before that yours truly tried to contact technical staff at Ageia many many times, yet we never get further than their PR agency who is very good at sending press-releases but they don't have a clue what press-relations are actually about. Here we have Europe's biggest 3D website yet we were and are completely ignored.

Once the Physx cards were released, ASUS could not send out a board. Then we tried board partner Galaxy, responsible for parts in Europe, to have a unit shipped to Guru3d.com. Galaxy literally told us that they were not allowed by Ageia to send out a board to Guru3d.com (this was in May) after which I decided to give up my efforts and dedicate my time to something more resourceful.

It's now September, and I figured that either a board partner should send us a card  or I'd pick one up myself to get you guys some sort of a review. Luckily when I requested it a few weeks ago BFG had no problem to have a unit shipped to us.

Including names like ASUS and BFG as board partners was probably one of the best things to do for Ageia. They make excellent and reliable products. Today we'll look at the BFG card.

The one thing that Ageia has been doing well was to seek broad industry support for this product, and although that support is limited right now, in the near future we'll see a lot of games supporting the technology. In short Ageia has been approaching the gaming industry by having them implementing the PhysX SDK (formerly named Novodex). Remarkable titles like for example Unreal Engine 3 will be utilizing Ageia's API and fully support PhysX hardware. We are not going to bore you with the technical aspects of the technology as you by now understand what the card can do.

What is Physics all about ?

phys¡Eics / the science that deals with matter, energy, motion, and force.

So how does that relate to gaming you ask ? Ageia explains this extremely well in one line. Physics is all about how objects in your game move and react. And with that line in mind we immediately see a big difference between a PPU and the GPU. Because the GPU renders that gaming experience of yours while the PPU will not render graphics, yet the step before it. Until Ageia released the PhysX PPU, software physics was utilized in games. Common physics computations are handled by the general purpose CPU, your processor, which is already loaded with the ever increasing demands of today's advanced games including game logic and AI. BTW if you have followed the news lately there is an AI processor in the makings also. In short Physics calculations are responsible for more dynamic eye candy on that screen of yours. The AGEIA PhysX processor is a dedicated accelerator targeted solely to delivering physical gaming environments. Some of the features it's capable of doing are:

• Explosions that cause dust and collateral debris
• Characters with complex, jointed geometries for more life-like motion and interaction
• Spectacular new weapons with incredible effects
• Cloth that drapes and tears the way you would expect it to
• Dense smoke & fog that billow around objects in motion

The current list of to be games to be supported is big, have a browse here for the latest update.

Right... let's have a quick peek at the bundle.