NVIDIA and Sony Sign Agreement over PhysX-Support on PS3

Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA has just announced that it has signed an agreement with Sony Computer Entertainment in regard to the famous PlayStation 3 gaming console and NVIDIA's own PhysX technology. According to the agreement between the two companies, the binary version of the PhysX software development kit (SDK) has been made available to PS3 developers and is free for download and use on the SCEI Developer Network.

“NVIDIA is proud to support PLAYSTATION 3 as an approved middleware provider,” said Tony Tamasi, senior vice president of content and technology at NVIDIA. “Games developed for the PLAYSTATION 3 using PhysX technology offer a more realistic and lifelike interaction between the games characters and other objects within the game. We look forward to the new games that will redefine reality for a new generation of gamers.”

The NVIDIA PhysX SDK consists of a full-featured API that enables developers, animators, level designers and artists to significantly increase the visual experience of the gaming application by offering creative control over character and object physical interactions. The agreement between the companies marks another successful adoption of NVIDIA's PhysX technology, which has been enabled by a number of PC gaming applications. Fans of the PS3 will now be able to take full advantage of the graphics capabilities of Sony's high-end gaming console with PhsyX-enabled gaming titles.

NVIDIA got the PhysX technology when it acquired Ageia, a company known for its PhysX graphics accelerator, which was provided in the form of a PCI-Express card that handled the physics calculations for a gaming application, faster than a general purpose CPU. As of February 2008, the PhysX engine has been developed by NVIDIA, which has acquired Ageia and gained access to the NovodeX SDK. Almost all of NVIDIA's new graphics cards provide support for PhysX-enabled software, offering users a more realistic gaming experience.