NVIDIA to Acquire AGEIA Technologies

[vhx]

http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1202161567170.html

Straight from the horses mouth.

 

[Schadenfroh]

And there was much rejoicing (from AGEIA investors).




Would have preferred AMD buy them (since Intel owns Havok), but given their current financial situation (AMD), I can understand why.

 

[Soulkeeper]

might be better for amd to let the competition divert resources toward an all out battle in this niche market
then they can quietly better their core products

 

[ja1484]

Nvidia's been making good business decisions for a while now. Guess it was high time for a screw up.

 

[shabby]

Originally posted by: ja1484

Nvidia's been making good business decisions for a while now. Guess it was high time for a screw up.

Heh possibly

If nvidia can manage to sucker developers to code ageia physics into their game and then license the tech to amd, then maybe just maybe it'll be a good decision.

 

[ja1484]

I have a hard time believing Ageia could do it better than Nvidia could with their own proprietary technology if they really wanted to. Then again, NV's proprietary moves have never shaken the industry up much either. I think they need to stick to what they do well: Build a kickass processor for an application already in wide use. I think Nvidia could do very very well if they got into discrete sound cards, for example. God knows Creative needs some competition in that area.

Besides, Nvidia already bought Ageia once before. It was called 3DFX then, and the core "talent" of engineering they acquired from that merger was responsible for NV30. Not exactly Nvidia's brightest moment.

I think the big mistake here is Nvidia assuming there's a market for hardware physics processing. Maybe, but not at the prices Ageia has been asking, especially not for the pathetic results all that money gets you.

 

[thilanliyan]

What's really going to change? Physx procs on graphics cards? Nvidia partners were already selling PPU cards anyway.

 

[postmortemIA]

Fudo was right.

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: ja1484

Nvidia's been making good business decisions for a while now. Guess it was high time for a screw up.

I doubt they bought it because they wanted the market strategy AGEIA had to offer, instead they bought it so competitors will have limited alternatives to Nvidia's GPU physics. This is one of those offensive acquisitions, rather than constructive. AGEIA is something Intel and AMD were looking at purchasing, this is just limiting their options. Physics is going to be big, just not on dedicated hardware. Justified purchase if you have the cash, which AMD in particular did not.

Perhaps they did have some useful patents on physics processing, obviously Nvidia's intention isn't to sell PhysX cards.

 

[Cookie Monster]

This is what happens when you have too much cash left lying around. ($1.5~2 billion to be exact according to one of nVIDIA's Conference Calls in 07)

People are blind if they are led to believe that nVIDIA's intention to acquire Ageia was to take advantage of what Physx cards offer.

First off, this would pretty much be the end of the "PPU". Ive always thought the idea of Physics Processing Unit was quite unpractical because with the introduction of dual/quad and later octo core CPUs, not to mention GPUs could also do the same tasks as the PPU, its future has always been bleak.

We all know that nVIDIA roadmap for physics development in the form of "SLi Physics" and HavokFX lay dormant/daed after intel bought out nVIDIA physics software partner Havok. Now since nVIDIA had lots of spare cash to spare acquiring not VIA but Ageia has allowed nVIDIA to nab lots of engineers essential to the physics development both new and old and even contributing to DX11.

Hardware physics maybe dead, but id think nVIDIA will benefit much more from Ageia's engineers than keeping its PhysX cards alive. This also creates some problems for AMD/ATi since this will give nVIDIA a lead in this field. Although i doubt all these "physics" will become a standard anytime soon though.

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
Although i doubt all these "physics" will become a standard anytime soon though.

It will simply be part of DirectX. No one wants a hodge podge of API's again like in ye olden days of 3D.

 

[Aberforth]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
First off, this would pretty much be the end of the "PPU". Ive always thought the idea of Physics Processing Unit was quite unpractical because with the introduction of dual/quad and later octo core CPUs, not to mention GPUs could also do the same tasks as the PPU, its future has always been bleak.

You are 100% right, I always thought the same thing too... but the question is for how long? for how long the cpu cores can be utilized to simulate physics of a game? you think the moore's law can be applied forever? No. The 45 nm fabrication itself is the biggest step by intel, for how long do you think Intel can reduce the size of a chip? Let's assume if they fitted 16 cores one day...then we'd have global warming protesters stamping on it. There comes a point where technology cannot advance further without more advanced alternatives. I think this move is Nvidia's strategy to stay in the business for a looong time because their technology is starting to show it's true colors already and they have to make a decision.

 

[Crystallas]

Originally posted by: Aberforth

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
First off, this would pretty much be the end of the "PPU". Ive always thought the idea of Physics Processing Unit was quite unpractical because with the introduction of dual/quad and later octo core CPUs, not to mention GPUs could also do the same tasks as the PPU, its future has always been bleak.

You are 100% right, I always thought the same thing too... but the question is for how long? for how long the cpu cores can be utilized to simulate physics of a game? you think the moore's law can be applied forever? No. The 45 nm fabrication itself is the biggest step by intel, for how long do you think Intel can reduce the size of a chip? Let's assume if they fitted 16 cores one day...then we'd have global warming protesters stamping on it. There comes a point where technology cannot advance further without more advanced alternatives. I think this move is Nvidia's strategy to stay in the business for a looong time because their technology is starting to show it's true colors already and they have to make a decision.

Agreed. This is Glide all over again.

 

[SunnyD]

Well, this IS a good thing for AGEIA. Now they no longer have to try to make dedicated hardware, they can focus on the software side and let NVIDIA do everything for them. This is also a good thing for NVIDIA customers, as it "should" bring hardware accelerated PhysX with a driver update instead of an add-in card.

 

[Modelworks]

Its interesting.
The Ageia chips are essentially doing fpu calculations and nvidia has lately been pushing using the gpu as a fpu.

I think instead of a dedicated chip produced by nvidia your going to see extensions added to the current and future chips to allow the fpu in the gpu to do the calculations. They could even do that with just software and sending the calculations to the current nvidia gpu's.

That would give them quite a boost over ati. Buy an nvidia card and get physics processing too.

 

[Munky]

Great. I think this will provide another bullet point on the marketing slides for all the reasons to adopt triple SLI and all that. But in practical terms, I don't see this technology going anywhere.

 

[Nemesis 1]

This is great news ? Whys that Because KYLE got owned by FUD.

http://hardocp.com/news.html?n...IwMDgsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=

Seems everybody owns Kyle. BUT FUD come on Kyle your the big NV fanboy.

 

[aka1nas]

Nvidia pretty much had to do this now that Havok has been acquired by Intel.

Most people here are getting too hung up on the PPU, when the real asset Ageia has is the PhysX API. PhysX already can simulate everything in software and supports multi-threading.

Havok and Ageia differed more in business models than in actual technology. Havok wanted to make money off developers licensing the API while Ageia tried to give away the API and sell gamers a widget to make it faster.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: munky
Great. I think this will provide another bullet point on the marketing slides for all the reasons to adopt triple SLI and all that. But in practical terms, I don't see this technology going anywhere.

Nah, we're seeing the very early seeds of Nvidia's upcoming SLI-2 architecture, as seen here:

NVIDIA to Launch SLI² in 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CLARA, CA ? FEBRUARY 5, 2008?NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA), the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, today announced it's SLI-2 initiative, to come to market in early 2009. SLI² (Selling Lotsa Inventory²) is a new gaming system standard designed around multiple add-in cards required to do just one job.

"We realized that enthusiasts are some really gullible creatures after we launched SLI" stated Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. "Why create new chips when you can sell twice as many boards? Then, even better, put two chips on the same PCB, and sell them that a couple months later. These people don't have girlfriends to spend money on, so we fill the gap with graphics processors, physics processors...pretty much anything that creates more realistic boobs in the next Tomb Raider game."

"NVIDIA is the perfect fit for us. We aren't really selling a damn thing right now." said Manju Hedge, co founder and CEO of AGEIA. "Jen-Hsun came to us and said 'How would you like to actually make some money, you failures at life?' It sounded like a really good strategy to us." said Hedge. "We like money. And Lattes."

Nvidia's recent acquisition of AGEIA was the first step in laying the groundwork for their new SLI² standard. The design of the new protocol calls for a massive number of add-in card based processors to enhance gaming on the PC.

"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 goal is to further this aim. Hell, pretty soon we're going to have the market wired to where you need two graphics cards to play Solitaire. Our goal for Q1 2010 is a hojillion-smillion units moved."

"Graphics? You need two cards. At least." Said Derek Perez, head of Nvidia's US Public Relations Dept. "Physics? Another card. Sound? Card. We actually have some partners in the 'The Way It's Meant To Be Played' program creating some Nvidia-exclusive titles that will require an add-in board for each key of the keyboard you want to bind to a control." He continued. "Bend over and lube up."


More details about SLI² 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.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: ja1484
I have a hard time believing Ageia could do it better than Nvidia could with their own proprietary technology if they really wanted to. Then again, NV's proprietary moves have never shaken the industry up much either. I think they need to stick to what they do well: Build a kickass processor for an application already in wide use. I think Nvidia could do very very well if they got into discrete sound cards, for example. God knows Creative needs some competition in that area.

Besides, Nvidia already bought Ageia once before. It was called 3DFX then, and the core "talent" of engineering they acquired from that merger was responsible for NV30. Not exactly Nvidia's brightest moment.

I think the big mistake here is Nvidia assuming there's a market for hardware physics processing. Maybe, but not at the prices Ageia has been asking, especially not for the pathetic results all that money gets you.

A lot of the technology from the last 3dFX project ended up in NV40.
There will be a market for hardware physics, I think there is one right now. The problem is Ageia had a bad implementation. Nvidia buying them seals up any patents Ageia holds and keeps the competition from being able to use them.

You put Ageias processor right on the PCB with direct access to the GPU and its memory space and it should see a huge increase in performance. Forcing it to run through a 33Mhz PCI slot was foolish.

Nvidia has been wanting to add true Physics functionality to their GPUs for a few years. The problem obviously is forcing the GPU to do this reduces the cycles available for the GPU to render a scene. I wont be surprised if we see parts of the silicon from Ageia on an Nvidia GPU or the PCB within 2 generations.

 

[Lazlo Panaflex]

Originally posted by: ja1484

Originally posted by: munky
Great. I think this will provide another bullet point on the marketing slides for all the reasons to adopt triple SLI and all that. But in practical terms, I don't see this technology going anywhere.

Nah, we're seeing the very early seeds of Nvidia's upcoming SLI-2 architecture, as seen here:

NVIDIA to Launch SLI² in 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CLARA, CA ? FEBRUARY 5, 2008?NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA), the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, today announced it's SLI-2 initiative, to come to market in early 2009. SLI² (Selling Lotsa Inventory²) is a new gaming system standard designed around multiple add-in cards required to do just one job.

"We realized that enthusiasts are some really gullible creatures after we launched SLI" stated Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. "Why create new chips when you can sell twice as many boards? Then, even better, put two chips on the same PCB, and sell them that a couple months later. These people don't have girlfriends to spend money on, so we fill the gap with graphics processors, physics processors...pretty much anything that creates more realistic boobs in the next Tomb Raider game."

"NVIDIA is the perfect fit for us. We aren't really selling a damn thing right now." said Manju Hedge, co founder and CEO of AGEIA. "Jen-Hsun came to us and said 'How would you like to actually make some money, you failures at life?' It sounded like a really good strategy to us." said Hedge. "We like money. And Lattes."

Nvidia's recent acquisition of AGEIA was the first step in laying the groundwork for their new SLI² standard. The design of the new protocol calls for a massive number of add-in card based processors to enhance gaming on the PC.

"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 goal is to further this aim. Hell, pretty soon we're going to have the market wired to where you need two graphics cards to play Solitaire. Our goal for Q1 2010 is a hojillion-smillion units moved."

"Graphics? You need two cards. At least." Said Derek Perez, head of Nvidia's US Public Relations Dept. "Physics? Another card. Sound? Card. We actually have some partners in the 'The Way It's Meant To Be Played' program creating some Nvidia-exclusive titles that will require an add-in board for each key of the keyboard you want to bind to a control." He continued. "Bend over and lube up."


More details about SLI² 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.

LOL! :beer::thumbsup:

 

[lopri]

LMAO

 

[Chosonman]

That was funny.

 

[Munky]

LOL... that was a good one.

 

[biostud]

What if nvidia decides to move physX into the chipset? creating a MCP chipset that could be used as a integrated videocard or PPU. Also it could be used as a powersaving videochip combined with a videocard.
So that when gaming the Videocard(s) handles graphics, the MCP work as a PPU and when you don't game the videocard go to standby, and the MCP does the video.