Ageia Physx Press Release

[EURO_Snoopy]

AGEIA Inks Publisher-Wide Agreement with Major Russian Publisher 1C Company

Largest Publisher in Eastern and Central Europe to Drive Support for AGEIA PhysX Processor in Region


MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – June 27, 2006 - AGEIA™ Technologies, Inc., the pioneer in hardware-accelerated physics for games, today announced that Russian publisher 1C Company has signed a publisher-wide licensing agreement for AGEIA PhysX™ technology. The leading publisher and distributor of computer games in Eastern and Central Europe, 1C Company publishes and distributes titles from leading Eastern European developers, as well as titles of international publishers for the local market.

1C Company also has internal game development studios and a variety of external developers that will benefit from 1C Company’s license for AGEIA PhysX technology. As a result, gamers in the Russian market will soon have access to a broad selection of physics-optimized games that support the AGEIA PhysX processor, the industry’s first and only dedicated physics processing unit. 1C Company developers are currently incorporating the AGEIA PhysX SDK into several new games, with the first titles supporting the AGEIA PhysX Processor scheduled to be released later this year.

AGEIA PhysX Accelerator cards are available now from ASUS and BFG Technologies and in game PCs from Dell, Alienware, Falcon Northwestand others.

“AGEIA PhysX technology gives our development studios access to features that they could only dream about a short while ago,” said Nikolay Baryshnikov, International Sales Director of 1C Company. “Our agreement with AGEIA marks a new era in games, and we hope this is only the beginning of a long and successful relationship between the two companies.”

“As the largest publisher in in Eastern and Central Europe, 1C Company is a valuable strategic partner in expanding our presence in this important market for games,” said Kathy Schoback, vice president of content acquisition at AGEIA. “With more and more games integrating AGEIA PhysX technology, it won’t be long before the AGEIA PhysX processor is standard equipment for gaming rigs in Russia.”

About 1C Company
1C Company specializes in distribution, publishing and development of interactive entertainment products and business software. Founded in 1991, 1C has become the leading publisher and distributor of computer games in Eastern and Central Europe. 1C Company is widely acknowledged as a game developer and has several internal studios. Internal developments of 1C include IL-2 Sturmovik, IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles, Aces Expansion Pack and Pacific Fighters. 1C Company works as a publisher and producer with over 30 independent development studios and has produced over 100 projects for PC and consoles. More information about the company is available at http://int.games.1c.ru


About AGEIA
AGEIA™ Technologies, Inc., is the pioneer of hardware-accelerated physics for PC games and has developed the world’s first dedicated physics processor, the AGEIA PhysX™ processor. The AGEIA PhysX processor powers massive and pervasive real-time interactive worlds that for the first time obey the laws of classical physics. AGEIA provides a world-class cross platform software development kit to simplify advanced physics programming for the PhysX processor, as well next-generation gaming consoles. AGEIA is changing the face of gaming by working with more than sixty leading developers and publishers to deliver the next generation of physically immersive entertainment. The company, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is privately-held. For more information visit http://www.ageia.com.

[MudPuppy]

Snoopy, what do you think this means for the SOW: BoB release? Does this just represent a third option for graphics processing units, with nVidia & ATI being the other two?

Or is this a substantial increase in graphics capabilities for your PC with the AGEIA card and flight sims? That would likely equate to a substantial investment of hard earned cash as well.

When it comes to complex technology issues I rely heavily on my uber-geek friends and this forum for advice. I know you'll keep us up to date on any significant tech advances for the flight sim community but a quick review of what the AGEIA PhysX may offer would be appreciated.

And now I'm off to set mouse traps. Three days of rain have driven a few rodent scouts into my old farmhouse. My wife and mice..not good.
MudPuppy

[MaXMhZ]

lol MudPuppy those poor mice will be deaf in no time I bet...

This PhysX news is great for my aging system - and for BoB. I bet we'll have a lot more secondary explosions and better damage models soon

[EURO_Snoopy]

As 1c have only just got the licence and SOWs release is 5 months away I doubt we'll see it implemented in BOB. Perhaps later editions will include it.
As far as I know it only involves particle physics, dust, smoke and flying bricks(not P47), so it wouldn't be any use for damage models.

[MaXMhZ]

only particle systems... didn't know that but hmmm - real weather - lots of air molecules can be seen as a particle system... Maybe after my retirement
when I'm 105 or something lol. My first ever working program was a particle system simulator 2 mass objects in space (Newton's law) on an Apple ][ PC that was fun. A couple of years back I did a 6 body sim - nice slideshow on my PC... untill I translated all time intensive stuff to assembly, then it was ok to watch. Mostly the trigonometry calculations have a big impact on performance. I'm hoping they give some low level access to the card - could be interesting.we could have some real nice "Tiger go boom!" effects like in one of the early patches when you exceeded max speed

[IV/JG1_Oesau]

Well remember that in the SIMHQ interview Oleg stated that the weather system would be a particle system. Something like the PPU would be a great addition to BoB, though I think this would be an addition later on in the SOW series. Of course first gen PPU’s will be something that I will be staying clear of, though it will be hard to resist something that when I hear about close to 2 years ago I was very excited about (the potential for flight sims is huge).

I still do not believe that the Nov date is going to be anything near the real release date. 5 months to get to Aplha, then Beta, and finally release candidate code is pushing it to the extreme with a simulator. Look how long it has taken for 4.06 to go through testing and that’s only a minor (very minor) patch.

[MaXMhZ]

I totaly agree I'm not expecting BoB till last quarter 2007, and I won't be disappointed if it's later still. The PPU's are very interesting.I had great fun when the first math co-processors appeared The PPU's will be far more interesting, I hope they will be programmable like the OpenGL programmable shader models. We're in for interesting times

[CrazySchmidt]

This sounds very cool. Who knows when we may see it in our favourite sim, but from how it reads I say the sooner the better.

Fingers crossed for SOW.

CS.