After Ageia's PhysX chip and Nvidia's Havok FX support announcement, ATI now follows suit with its own proclamation of support for accelerated gaming physics. The chaps over at FiringSquad decided to contact AGEIA to get their side on things. Here is AGEIA's response via their vice president of marketing Michael Steele:

We're glad that they've validated physics as the next big thing in gaming

The performance claims appear to be based solely on gigaflops of the Radeon chips and an assumption of PhysX gigaflops, but that is not a meaningful way to measure physics performance. That's like suggesting that the more wheels I have on my car, the faster I will go. Physics requires much more than raw gigaflops.

Graphics processors are designed for graphics. Physics is an entirely different environment. Why would you sacrifice graphics performance for questionable physics? You'll be hard pressed to find game developers who don't want to use all the graphics power they can get, thus leaving very little for anything else in that chip.

"Boundless Gaming" is actually enabled by AGEIA's Gaming Power Triangle in which the PhysX processor adds true physics to the mix instead of leaving it to a repurposed graphics processor.

In the end, what matters is who develops software for the product. There are games shipping for PhysX today and more than 20 announced for 2006. In addition, over 65 developers of more than 100 games are deep in development for PhysX. No specific games are announced even in development mode for ATI.

PhysX is here now

In related news, AGEIA also sent over a link to a CNet News.com blog which is also critical of the ATI solution:

- ATI's Radeon X1000-series 3D cards are DirectX 9 parts. By the time any games are out with Havok FX features, Windows Vista, and with it DirectX 10, will either have arrived or will be arriving imminently, rendering the current generation of Radeons obsolete. We're sure ATI will include Havok FX acceleration in its next-gen cards, but you'd be foolish to buy the Radeon X1900 XT card ATI is highlighting now in anticipation of future boosted game physics.

- ATI's two-card physics acceleration presents the same problem as Nvidia's. By using a 3D card for physics acceleration, you sacrifice 3D performance for physics performance. Yes, there's lots of new technology on the horizon promising faster computing, but if you've played the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, you know that it chokes even the most advanced current-gen hardware. Smooth frame rates are still more important than more flying bricks. As for the three-card option, ostensibly you can plug in an older Radeon alongside a two-card Radeon CrossFire setup to ramp up the physics, but we'll withhold judgment until we know more about pricing of the special three 3D slot motherboards.