As this is my first blog here, I'd like to introduce myself just a little.
I go by the nick CvP, age is 21 and I study CSE in North South University.
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A lot of things have been happening in gaming world lately esp in the physics area which is very tightly attached to the fate of tomorrows gaming.



The Story So Far:
Some times ago, it was AGEIA (physX) and Havok (Havok Physics or HavokFX)..two unique solutions to implementing physics in games.

• physX of AGEIA is based of their own code-set- physX SDK, and a discreet Physics Processing Unit (PPU) called physX card.
  
• HavokFX is totally about using existing (and future) GPU to process physics (through the general concept of GPGPU).

physX is superior to HavokFX. Havok could only do "eye-candy" physics i.e. things that only appeared visually, no effect on gameplay/world. On the other hand, AGEIA's dedicated PPU could process physics that effect the real gameworld. It is true that those calculations could have been done in the CPU, but that kills the frame-rate as seen in Unreal Tournament 3 physX enabled maps. CPU is not suited for something massively parallel calculation like physics calculation.
While a GPU could handle it, it'd need to communicate back-and-forth with the CPU. But given the nature of CPU-GPU interconnections, GPU is (or was?) not suited to that.
By the way, Source engine also uses Havok, but a hugely customized version.



While Havok was getting more market due to their "cheap" way, AGEIA was struggling as less developers were embracing them due to the fact people really don't want to buy another piece of extra card. However, AGEIA secured a BIG market when EPIC used AGEIA physX in their Unreal Engine 3. If you don't know, games like BioShock, Unreal Tournament 3, Gears of War, American Army all used UE3 and a lot of (different kind of) developers bought UE3 for their up coming games.



nVidia and ATi
nVidia and ATi, on the other hand, both have been boasting about processing physics in their GPU. The idea was mainly to have SLi/CrossFire between three (or two) cards; two (or one) for gfx processing and one entirely for physics. They both were looking highly of Havok; their savior.


AMD
Then something weird happened. Even if Intel was wipping floor with AMD in desktop processor scenario, AMD bought ATi; with a huge risk but with a huge possibility also. This gave AMD the firepower to go for something more unified- CPU+GPU (i.e. their Fusion project). They also announced of a weird crossfire between their upcoming integrated GPU and discreet GPU. And they are indeed, looking at the physics field.



Intel
While AMD was securing this field, Intel got one step ahead! They acquired Havok! As Intel was in discreet GPU business a long ago, has the largest GPU market share (with their integrated gfx) and rumored to come back to GPU business in up coming years, all they were missing is physics. And they just secured that part.

It is only natural that Intel wants a good way to process physics of games in their processors i.e. their Larrabee (GPU+PPU in x86 architecture) project.


nVidia
Now if you were in nVidia's position, all these news will scare you.

• Intel : CPU, GPU (integrated & discreet), PPU (not discreet), Motherboard chipset
  
• AMD : CPU, GPU (integrated & discreet), PPU (may be in future), Motherboard chipset
• Havok, the physics on GPU project is dead
  

Where is the place of nVidia in this new scenario?

Therefore, nVidia had to do something..and you guessed it right- they acquired the only thing left: AGEIA!
nVidia is now planning to enable physX to be processed on ANY GeForce 8 series card by using Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA), a C like programing lingo that can turn a GeForce 8 GPU to GPGPU. It is still uncertain whether nVidia will provide discreet PPU like AGEIA did. However, with their current plan, it seems they wont.
A few days ago nVidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said,

???
Among all these major players, we are missing one, aint we? Where is the software giant Microsoft? Well, they will play a vital role in this physics game.
If you are still now getting it, it is their DirectX- the most used, de facto standard game development API. Microsoft has always helped gaming through DirectX. It provides a easy, widely used way to develop games. It also standardizes the key features as you can see, all gfx cards now boasts about supporting DirectX.

It is rumored that Microsoft will include some sort of DirectPhysics just like Direct 3d/Draw/Sound/Music/Input/Play. And they should. Without it, things will turn nasty.



The Story of the Future:
Physics will indeed play a vital role in tomorrows gaming. However, what will happen to physics itself? Consider this situation:

• Intel with its Larrabee GPU+PPU
• nVidia with its GeForce + physX on CUDA
• DAAMIT with something on their own

It is very much clear these physics SDK/instructions/process wont be compatible with each other. nVidia got a head-start with physX implemented in several games and physX on CUDA. But given Intel's current records, if their Larrabee can beat GeForce, they can just throw out nVidia from the market. Forget not DAAMIT! They are the cornered mou...err...tiger.

The only solution I see is a DirectPhysics from Microsoft.
However, that wont happen before DirectX 11 which is due in 2009 (rumor though!).
If they all go their own way instead of standardizing things, it is a bad news for us, the gamers.


The fate of tomorrows gaming is still uncertain...