NVIDIA buying AGEIA

NVIDIA to Acquire AGEIA Technologies

PhysX on GeForce Will Bring Amazing Physics Dynamics to Millions of Gamers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CLARA, CA — FEBRUARY 4, 2008—NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA), the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AGEIA Technologies, Inc., the industry leader in gaming physics technology. AGEIA' s PhysX software is widely adopted with more than 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on Sony Playstation3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii and Gaming PCs. AGEIA physics software is pervasive with over 10,000 registered and active users of the PhysX SDK.

" The AGEIA team is world class, and is passionate about the same thing we are—creating the most amazing and captivating game experiences," stated Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. " By combining the teams that created the world' s most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForce®-accelerated PhysX to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world."

" NVIDIA is the perfect fit for us. They have the world' s best parallel computing technology and are the thought leaders in GPUs and gaming. We are united by a common culture based on a passion for innovating and driving the consumer experience," said Manju Hegde, co-founder and CEO of AGEIA.

Like graphics, physics processing is made up of millions of parallel computations. The NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800GT GPU, with its 128 processors, can process parallel applications up to two orders of magnitude faster than a dual or quad-core CPU.

" The computer industry is moving towards a heterogeneous computing model, combining a flexible CPU and a massively parallel processor like the GPU to perform computationally intensive applications like real-time computer graphics," continued Mr. Huang. " NVIDIA' s CUDAâ„¢ technology, which is rapidly becoming the most pervasive parallel programming environment in history, broadens the parallel processing world to hundreds of applications desperate for a giant step in computational performance. Applications such as physics, computer vision, and video/image processing are enabled through CUDA and heterogeneous computing."

AGEIA was founded in 2002 and has offices in Santa Clara, CA; St. Louis, MO; Zurich, Switzerland; and Beijing, China.

The acquisition remains subject to customary closing conditions.

More details about the acquisition will be provided during NVIDIA' s quarterly conference call, to be held on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pacific Time. The Company' s prepared remarks will be followed by a question and answer period, which will be limited to questions from financial analysts and institutional investors. To listen to the conference call, please dial 212-231-2901; no password is required. The conference call will also be webcast live (listen-only mode) at the following Web sites: www.nvidia.com and www.streetevents.com.

Replay of the conference call will be available via telephone by calling 800-633-8284 (or 402-977-9140), passcode 21354792, until February 20, 2008. The webcast will be recorded and available for replay until the company' s conference call to discuss its financial results for its first quarter, fiscal 2009.

About AGEIA
AGEIA Technologies, Inc., is the industry leader in gaming physics technology. AGEIA' s PhysX software is widely adopted with more than 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on Sony Playstation3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii and Gaming PCs. AGEIA physics software is pervasive with over 10,000 registered and active users of the PhysX SDK. AGEIA is also credited with developing the world' s first dedicated hardware physics processor, the AGEIA PhysX processor. The company, headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., is privately-held. For more information visit http://www.ageia.com.

About NVIDIA
NVIDIA is the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, a high-performance processor which generates breathtaking, interactive graphics on workstations, personal computers, game consoles, and mobile devices. NVIDIA serves the entertainment and consumer market with its GeForce® products, the professional design and visualization market with its Quadro® products, and the high-performance computing market with its Tesla™ products. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. and has offices throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. For more information, visit www.nvidia.com.

Meh?

Predictable.

Hopefully nvidia will turn it into something good. I guess a combined gpu with a ppu wouldn' t be too feasable considering how big high end GPUs are to begin with. They could probalby do it for mid-range though. NVidia is a pretty solid company, they' ll come up with something good.

"If you knew how good I am you would think I'm modest."

Ageia never had a future and it was easy to see they were going the way of the dodo after UT3 failed to be the " killer app" for its tech.

While it seems fine at the moment, Nvidia has a long history of acquiring companies and then systematically destroying them (3DFX, ULI, PortalPlayer,etc).

Most likely, Nvidia will ditch the dedicated PPU. It was never a good idea to begin with, and nobody liked it (developers and consumers). Instead they' ll use Ageia IP to enhance their own products in various ways but we probably won' t see anything until 2009 at the earliest.

Ageia as we knew it is now gone. For the few who actually bought a PhysX card, unfortunately they end up with a rather expensive paperweight.

I guess a combined gpu with a ppu wouldn' t be too feasable considering how big high end GPUs are to begin with. They could probalby do it for mid-range though. NVidia is a pretty solid company, they' ll come up with something good.

It is feasible to have a PPU in a high end GPU. Just look at the ATI 3870 x2, which is two high end GPUs on a single board. A PPU chip is singificantly smaller than a high end GPU. We wouldn' t see this in a new generation of GPU though, maybe with a refresh. Still, I doubt it, business wise it wouldn' t make sense to integrate a PPU in their GPUs. It' s physically possible, just not fiscally likely. To keep mid range GPUs profitable we definitely wouldn' t see them on those. The mid range is where GPU makers make most of their money in the desktop space because it' s their biggest market. They want to be competitive as possible, price wise.

Unlucky is right, Nvidia probably won' t do much with the hardware. I wouldn' t be surprised is they aquired Agiea just to keep them away from Intel. The CPU and GPU have been in competition between eachother on which gets to handle game physics. AMD owns ATI, so they don' t really care, the competition is between Nvidia and Intel. Intel already aquired Havok.

On the other hand Ageia made the PPU to cost reduce their chips for the HPC market. That' s what some are saying at least. It would be interesting to see if Nvidia might be interested in this. They have the capital to push these chips right in that market even if they lose money at first.

Nvidia rules.

Nvidia confirms PhysX hardware dies

The physics card as a hardware device will die. Nvidia spokespersons were very precise about that as they said that the current PhysX cards will be the first and the last of their kind.

Nvidia will implement PhysX instructions into CUDA and the GeForce GPU should take over the physics hardware role.

If you have a PhysX card, you can definitely be sure that that it will be the last one to launch. Ageia becomes just another brand that Nvidia swallowed, and the list includes 3DFX, ULI, Mental Ray, Aureal and some other big names

It' s official. PhysX is dead. Thank god.

After NVidia munched 3DFX their drivers started rocking hard.

"If you knew how good I am you would think I'm modest."

This is another good step for both parties.

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.