A user by the name of 666 at PhysXInfo has discovered that NVIDIA has officially ended support for Ageia’s PhysX physics processing units (PPUs) in the latest PhysX drivers bundled with NVIDIA’s ForceWare driver packages.
“The current PhysX driver unfortunately does not support Ageia PPU hardware which you’re already aware. Support for Ageia PPU ended after the 8.xx.xx driver but like you we’ve receive other users asking to include support in current PhysX releases,” said an NVIDIA customer support rep via email. “There are discussions to release a stand-along PhysX driver that will support Ageia PPU but that is still in discussion and I’m unable to get any confirmation or schedule. I can certainly update you if this changes or you can check back with us in a couple of months. Unfortunately we don’t know anymore at this point.”
Ageia’s PhysX software and PPUs were the technologies that started the physics war in desktop graphics. Agiea’s PCI express add-in cards assisted the GPU by accelerating physics calculations in titles written to support Ageia’s PhysX middleware. The technology was later purchased by NVIDIA, whereupon it was ported to run on any GeForce 8000-series (or newer) GPU. PhysX continues to serve as a headlining feature amongst those unique to NVIDIA products.
NVIDIA’s decision to end support for Ageia’s PPUs is not unsurprising considering their short lifetime, anemic market uptake and long-term obsolescence.
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