AGEIA PhysX FAQs for System and Board Partners For use in partner marketing materials KEY QUESTIONS 1: What exactly is the AGEIA PhysX Processor? 2: What is the Gaming Power Triangle? 3: What is physics for gaming? 4: What is a physics processor? 5: What makes the AGEIA PhysX hardware special? 6: Why do I need physics in my game? 7: Isn’t physics just juiced up graphics? 8: Can I get PhysX enabled games today? 9: Why do I need dedicated hardware for physics? 10: How do I get the new AGEIA PhysX processor into my PC? 11: How much does AGEIA PhysX cost? 12: How do games get PhysX-optimized? 13: Do I have to buy new hardware every year just to get new physics features? AGEIA Confidential March 2006 . 1 What exactly is the AGEIA PhysX Processor? The AGEIA PhysX processor is the first dedicated hardware accelerator for PC games that enables dynamic motion and interaction for a totally new gaming experience. Exciting immersive physical gaming feature that you can expect to see in next generation cutting edge titles will include groundbreaking physics features such as: * Explosions that cause dust and collateral debris * Characters with complex, jointed geometries for more life-like motion and interaction * Spectacular new weapons with unpredictable effects * Cloth that drapes and tears the way you expect it to * Lush foliage that sways naturally when brushed against * Dense smoke & fog that billow around objects in motion What is the Gaming Power Triangle The gaming triangle represents the three critical PC processors that enable the best possible gaming experience. The AGEIA PhysX processor is the key hardware element required for optimized game physics and is the new third engine of the Gaming Power Triangle which will drive a new era in exciting and immersive gaming. This new triangle consists of the central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU) and Physics Processing Unit (PPU) working together to balance the extensive computing demands of game logic, graphics and physics. Within this balanced triangle the CPU “thinks and orchestrates” to drive game artificial intelligence and logic, the general purpose GPU “renders and displays” to deliver beautiful 3D imagery, and the third leg of the triangle, the new AGEIA PhysX Processor, “moves and interacts” to take gaming to the next level with pervasive dynamic motion and interaction. AGEIA Confidential March 2006 . 2 What is physics for gaming? It’s the next big thing in gaming. Physics is all about how objects in your game move and react. It’s not just how things look, but how they behave. In many of today’s games, objects just don’t seem to act the way you’d want or expect. Most of the action is limited to pre-scripted or canned animations. Even the most powerful weapons leave little more than a charred smudge on the thinnest of walls; and every opponent you take out falls in a strangely familiar way. Serious gamers are left with a fine game, but one with a missing sense of realism to make the experience truly immersive. Until now, only limited software physics has been integrated in games. That means physics computation has been handled by the general purpose CPU which is already burdened with the ever increasing demands of today’s advanced games including game logic and AI. Meanwhile, the highly specialized graphics processor is fully engaged with handling the rendering requirements of cinematic visuals at interactive framerates. As a result, physics in games has been limited to a few objects in a scene, one-off “effects” or visual trickery that just mimics real physics. Now for the first time, the AGEIA PhysX Processor delivers the computing horsepower necessary to enable true, advanced physics in games. What is a physics processor? A physic processor is one designed specifically for the unique requirements of physics algorithms, which represent an environment that’s much different general purpose or graphics processing. And the AGEIA PhysX processor is the first and only physics processor (PPU) available for games. The PPU calculates all of the movement and interaction in a game at incredible speeds, so that graphically- sophisticated games can have realistic “cause and effect” action. AGEIA PhysX calculates the equations of matter and force and their interaction and movement in real-time environments. What makes the AGEIA PhysX hardware special? The only way to get real physics with the scale, sophistication, fidelity and high level of interactivity is with the AGEIA PhysX processor, which was developed from day one to accelerate the highly specialized physically based simulations. Its massively parallel, interactive AGEIA PhysX cores are optimized specifically for dynamic large-scale, physics processing, which enable it to accelerate real-time physical motion and interaction at a scale and quality far beyond that of general purpose solutions. For more information, read “Advanced Gaming Physics – Defining the New Reality in PC Hardware AGEIA Confidential March 2006 . 3 Why do I need physics in my game? In today’s games, objects just don’t seem to act the way they would in real life. Most of the action is limited to pre-scripted or canned animations. For example, fired shots leave strangely similar looking wallpaper-like bullet hole “marks” on the wall; players’ arms and legs somehow manage to actually protrude through what appeared to be a brick wall; objects of different weight, size and mass respond to contact oddly in the same way. Serious gamers are left a great game, but with a missing level of reality. But when physics is added to the mix, games can finally act real and feel real. Physics enables games to replace the repetitive predetermined motion with real interactions. So just like life, you never have the same experience twice. Buildings and landscapes are now massively destructible with extreme explosions of thousands of shards of glass and shrapnel that cause collateral damage; lifelike characters run, jump, block, tackle, swim or fly in remarkably natural lifelike ways; realistic smoke, fog and oozing fluids now react with characters, objects and entire physical environments. The possibilities are really endless. Isn’t physics just juiced up graphics? No, graphics is all about how things look. And today’s general purpose GPUs do a great job of rendering and displaying beautiful 3D imagery. But 3D graphics is just that: Graphics. Physics is an entirely different beast. It’s not about how objects look, but about how objects in your game move and react. Can I get PhysX enabled games today? Yes. First of all, there are over 60 developers planning to deliver as many as 100 PhysX-accelerated game titles from now through 2006 and into 2007. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a brand new technology category like this being supported to this extent by leading content providers. In May 2006, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter from Ubisoft, one of this year’s most anticipated titles, will hit the shelves with a wide variety of new “knock your socks off” PhysX features. The Microsoft Xbox360 version is already getting 9.9-class reviews with a big chunk of physics being driven by AGEIA PhysX software. A patch to Bet on Soldier with incredible fluid weapons unlike any you’ve seen before is available now. And Artificial Reality’s Cell Factor, a mind-bending game in development which is lighting up everyone who sees it, will be downloadable within a matter of days. What’s more, downloadable updates of NCSoft’s City of Villains MMOG and the highly touted Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends by Microsoft are soon to be available. As many as 20 games, including Epic’s Unreal Tournament 2007, have been publicly announced as supporting PhysX and we expect at least 20 more to hit store shelves in 2006. That doesn’t even count what we’ll see in 2007. And with leading game engines like Epic’s Unreal Engine 3, Emergent’s Gamebryo 2.2 and Bioware’s Eclipse, the possibilities get even bigger. AGEIA Confidential March 2006 . 4 Why do I need dedicated hardware for physics? Delivering physics in games is no easy task. It’s an extremely compute-intensive environment based on a unique set of physics algorithms that require tremendous amounts of mathematical and logical calculations supported by massive memory bandwidth. Simply put, it requires the AGEIA PhysX processor: a specialized accelerator dedicated solely to delivering rich immersive physical gaming environments. The only way to get real physics with the scale, sophistication, fidelity and level of interactivity that dramatically alters your entertainment experience is with the AGEIA PhysX processor, which was developed from day one to accelerate the highly specialized physically based simulations. For more information, read “Advanced Gaming Physics – Defining the New Reality in PC Hardware” (PDF) How do I get the new AGEIA PhysX processor into my PC? The AGEIA PhysX processor is integrated into an add-in card known as a PhysX Accelerator which is [insert sales information from AGEIA partner here] How much does AGEIA PhysX cost? [insert sales information from AGEIA partner here] How do games get PhysX-optimized? AGEIA makes more than hardware. That’s only half of the story. AGEIA provides game developers world class PhysX software which enables next-generation physics features accelerated by the PhysX processor. Not only is the software unmatched in feature functionality, stability , performance and robustness, it’s also supported by all the major developer tools and enables straightforward cross-platform support for Microsoft Xbox360 and Sony Playstaton 3. AGEIA continues to add new features to new revisions of PhysX software, which game developers will integrate into the latest and greatest titles.