Q&A from the Gaming Niche Webcast! (Windows Vista and the AGEIA physx processor)

Hello All,

Here is the Q&A from the Gaming Niche webcast we did with AGEIA.

Question: The CPU's stepping level should be the same if I use 2 CPUs?
Answer: yes

Question: Will Microsoft adjust the scale for the Windows Experience Index as games become more advanced?
Answer: yes

Question: Will Physx work wiith SLi and Crossfire?
Answer: Yes. We calculate the physics simulation and then the results are pushed to rendering by the application. We support SLi and Crossfire and in fact since there are more physics objects generated due to the physics, having SLi or Crossfire has added value. (So we give more reason to enhance your graphics hardware too.)

Question: How do you see the battle between Havok FX and PhysX playing out?
Answer: There are two ways to look at this. You can certainly do some level of physics on a GPU, just like you can do some graphics on integrated solutions or CPUs. But for users who want the full level of physics, you need dedicated hardware and we're the only dedicated hw solution out there. We also have a product on the market, mature drivers and titles available today. HavokFX has none of those. Finally, we are supported by the top game engines: Unreal, Gamebryo, Artificial, etc. and major publisher deals. None of that support exists for HavokFX.

Question: This card installs into a PCI slot?
Answer: We have PCI available today for AIBs, and PCIe available for OEMs

Question: will an xbox game play on a pc with a physx card?
Answer: Not directly, but for cross-platform games, developers tend to do the console version first and port to the PC. A PC with a PhysX card will give you the same level of experience as the XBox360 version, rather than scaling it down to the lesser capabilities of a PC without our dedicated HW

Question: so this is a pci card? does it work independently of the graphics card? will future graphics card integrate physx?
Answer: We have PCI and PCIe options. It is independent of the GPU. It offloads CPU load and the extra complexity of the scene then adds to an improvement in the visuals which the GPU will process. There are no plans today for integrating graphics and PhysX on a single card, due to power and cost primarily, but it may be possible to do combo cards in the future

Question: How does this card install in to your system?
Answer: It's a standard PCI slot, so as long as you have a free PCI slot available, you drop it in as with any other PCI card.

Question: What about dedicating extra cpu cores to physx? With 4 or 8 or however many cpu cores will that negate the need for a physx processor?
Answer: Adding CPU cores adds a linear increase in the physics you can do. For example on single-core systems you might be able to do a couple of hundred objects. Even with a quad or octo core, that will only be a few thousand. The PhysX Processor can handle thousands of rigid body objects, plus tens of thousands of fluid particles, plus cloth, plus hair, etc. all at the same time. This level of complexity, quality of simulation and all these features running concurrently at a large scale is impossible with CPUs alone. You can actually go to ageia.com to run a benchmark called "RealityMark" with and without our card installed. Even on high-end dual-cores, we're typically about 10x faster.

Question: Does the PCIe card run better than the PCI slot card?
Answer: There is no performance difference. We just understand some folks have free PCI slots, others have free PCIe slots. Over time as PCI phases out, we'll move to PCIe completely, but for now we see the GPUs taking up the 1-2 PCIe slots on typical systems today, so PCI was free to drop into

Question: when will physX3 come out?
Answer: Not sure what you're referring to? Do you mean our v3.0 SDK? That will be coming next year, but meanwhile we have added significant features to our v2.x SDK from when we launched the hardware, so for example, we included additional cloth, metallic deformation, hair, etc. to the feature set using the same hardware someone bought six months ago. This way the value to the user comes from buying now and getting free upgrades to the capabilities through software that installs with the games or from our driver download site

Question: What is the price point for this board? How many titles actually support it? I think i read somewhere that there's a competing standard that would just use "extra" GPU capability to do something similar - how are these different?
Answer: By the end of 2006, we will have about 10 commercial titles available. There are over 120 other titles in development currently for the next 12 months. Since we're also the exclusive physics solution for the Unreal Engine and other major engines, we get all their licensee titles coming in 2007 (there are over 40 major UE3 titles including Unreal Tournament 2007 for example)

If you would like to see the on-demand version of the webcast, please visit: https://www.msusapartnerreadiness.com/WS_abstract.asp?eid=15004904

Thanks,

BoB