New PhysX Drivers v 6.10.25 were released on Friday 10-27-06. Reviewing the changes, it seems the only changes were some modifications to the installer program. As always, as there are no functionality changes, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' applies.
drivers.ageia.com

AGEIA has given us a sneak peak of their 'carwash' hardware fluids simulation application. PhysX owners, it's a 13MB download and great 'look what my PC can do' eye candy. Enjoy!

Download Link after the jump.

Over at inCrysis they have published a specification for the CryEngine 2 which is powering the upcoming Crysis release. Here is a snippet:

Real time editing, bump mapping, static lights, network system, integrated physics system, shaders, shadows and a dynamic music system are just some of the state of-the-art features the CryENGINE™ 2 offers.

Of interest to people who enjoy physics acceleration:

Physics System: supports vehicles, rigid bodies, liquid, rag doll, cloth and soft body effects. The system is integrated with the game and tools.

As this is a self developed engine hopefully they will opt to support hardware Physx.

Warning - the site is charcoal text on a black background so hopefully your monitor has a braille function.

Do you like those whacky Rube Goldberg videos?

Have a wander over here to see what is brewing in the land of Novitas Publishing. A teaser video showing what we can expect from this title shows an impressive use of Physx.

Previously we talked about the special promotional pricing on a BFG Physx card over at Dell.com for $167. Well, that deal has come and gone and the price has jumped back up over $250. Fortunately, someone has seen fit to undercut Mr. Dell by a substantial margin extending reduced prices indefinitely.

Shentech for $171

Xtechnology for $172 Edit 10/30/06 - The price has jumped on this one over $200.

Allstarshop for $177 Edit 10/30/06 - The price has jumped on this one over $200.

As it sits it seems that the bottom two are back ordered, but it certainly is worth the attempt.

Fuad Abazovic at Theinquirer.net has written an interesting article about the use of multiple Physx cards in a machine which seems to be enabled in their most recent SDK. But will multiple Physx cards really give that much benefit?

Sorry I wasn't able to get this up earlier - but in cooperation with Dell and BFG there is a 'Digital Life' show special available online for anyone in the market for an Ageia card. The card is on for $166.74 here.

Ageia should be releasing RealityMark, a Physx benchmarking tool, for public download in the next few days. I managed to score a copy and ran it on my machine.... let me tell you the video doesn't hold a candle to the real thing. The cloth effects are astounding, along with the shockwave effects with the explosions. A couple of small nits I have with it - the benchmark basically runs through twice, once on hardware accel and once on software accel but it runs it like an old batch file - it kicks you out of the program and restarts itself. The other nit I have is with the precision of the scores - as the frame rate is recorded down to the hundredths, and under software it can easily drop to under 1 frame per second, the percentage difference between the two measurements can vary quite a bit between runs. I am interested to know what the margin of error is in the benchmark. Any comments Ageia?

Over at Gamespot they have an interview with Michael Steele, VP of Marketing at Ageia about what direction he feels the gaming industry is heading and what physics can bring to the table, as well as throwing in some commentary about some of the competition.

AGEIA has posted new drivers which add support for the new SDK 2.6 features (such as deformable objects) as well as Windows Vista 64-bit support (previously it was only Windows XP 64-bit). drivers.ageia.com has the new files. A great video of the deformable objects feature can be found in an earlier post.

Ageia was first to market with a compelling product with the introduction of the Physx card. Seeing an opportunity, NVidia and ATI have both shown off similar technologies, but they are taking a different approach. All three companies have competing technologies and innovations, and they are all competing for the largest piece of the physics pie in terms of titles that are coded to take advantage of their hardware. Ageia has the benefit of being first to market and also has significantly more horsepower from a hardware perspective. Does Ageia have the head start to make this work? The answer may lie with Microsoft.

With a new SDK comes impressive new physics functionality. This new feature is known as a "deformable object with impact retention".

According the UK Register, AGEIA is prepping a PCI-Express version of the card, no word on specific availability yet. A new SDK and drivers are also in the works.. The full article is here

Seems like even Ageia might have missed this one in their list of upcoming titles. Over at Omikron Portal, they have a story which relates to the incorporation of Physx acceleration in to Quantic Dreams upcoming title Omikron 2: KARMA. The title was slated for release in 2007 - hopefully they are still on schedule and jamming it full of Physx goodies.