INFORMATION
PhysX is a proprietary realtime physics engine middleware SDK. PhysX was authored at NovodeX, an ETH Zurich spin-off. In 2004 NovodeX was acquired by Ageia, and in February 2008 Ageia was acquired by Nvidia.
The term PhysX can also refer to the PPU expansion card designed by Ageia to accelerate PhysX-enabled video games.
Video games supporting hardware acceleration by PhysX can be accelerated by either a PhysX PPU or a CUDA-enabled GeForce GPU (if it has at least 256MB of dedicated VRAM), thus offloading physics calculations from the CPU, allowing it to perform other tasks instead.
Middleware physics engines free game developers from writing own code which implements classical mechanics (Newtonian physics) to do e.g. soft body dynamics. PhysX is one of the handful of physics engines used in the large majority of today's games.
What is known today as PhysX originated as a physics simulation engine called NovodeX. The multi-threaded engine was developed by Swiss company NovodeX AG. In 2004, Ageia acquired NovodeX AG and began developing a hardware technology that could accelerate physics calculations, aiding the CPU. Ageia called the technology PhysX PPU (physics processing unit), and the SDK was renamed from NovodeX to PhysX.
PhysX is a multi-threaded physics simulation SDK available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii. It supports rigid body dynamics, soft body dynamics, ragdolls and character controllers, vehicle dynamics, particles, volumetric fluid simulation and cloth simulation including tearing and pressurized cloth.
The term PhysX can also refer to the PPU expansion card designed by Ageia to accelerate PhysX-enabled video games.
Video games supporting hardware acceleration by PhysX can be accelerated by either a PhysX PPU or a CUDA-enabled GeForce GPU (if it has at least 256MB of dedicated VRAM), thus offloading physics calculations from the CPU, allowing it to perform other tasks instead.
Middleware physics engines free game developers from writing own code which implements classical mechanics (Newtonian physics) to do e.g. soft body dynamics. PhysX is one of the handful of physics engines used in the large majority of today's games.
What is known today as PhysX originated as a physics simulation engine called NovodeX. The multi-threaded engine was developed by Swiss company NovodeX AG. In 2004, Ageia acquired NovodeX AG and began developing a hardware technology that could accelerate physics calculations, aiding the CPU. Ageia called the technology PhysX PPU (physics processing unit), and the SDK was renamed from NovodeX to PhysX.
PhysX is a multi-threaded physics simulation SDK available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii. It supports rigid body dynamics, soft body dynamics, ragdolls and character controllers, vehicle dynamics, particles, volumetric fluid simulation and cloth simulation including tearing and pressurized cloth.
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