Physics Acceleration Heats Up: Intel to Purchase Havok

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Intel has signed a definitive agreement to purchase software developer Havok Incorporated, a company that provides various software development tools to digital animation and game developers as well as one of the largest providers for software physics. “Havok is a proven leader in physics technology for gaming and digital content, and will become a key element of Intel’s visual computing and graphics efforts. Havok will operate its business as usual, which will allow them to continue developing products that are offered across all platforms in the industry,” said Renee J. James, Intel vice president and general manager of Software and Solutions Group.

Essentially, Havok will operate as a subsidiary of Intel and will continue to operate as an independent business. This reinforces the belief that current partnerships will not be affected. Havok has partnerships with many of the largest names in the gaming community such as Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, NVIDIA and AMD. Both ATI and NVIDIA’s physics solutions rely on Havok FX. Havok has provided software physics for games like Halo 3, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Half Life 2 and Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. In addition to providing software that adds physics realism to games, Havok also provides physics for professional software such as Autodesk’s 3DS Studio Max 9.

News source: DailyTech

(1 reply) #1 IntelliMoo on 16 Sep 2007 - 19:03

"No physics for you! Come back, more licensing fees!" (Intel to AMD who owns ATI.) hehe

#1.1 Tantawi on 16 Sep 2007 - 19:41

Physics Nazi FTW

#2 Croquant on 16 Sep 2007 - 19:26

Hrm... interesting move by Intel. How this affects consumers depends on what they do with Havok, but if they keep their word and "continue developing products that are offered across all platforms in the industry" then I don't see the down-side.

If they lock nVidia and ATI out in the cold, then that raises Ageia's stock.

#3 Chugworth on 16 Sep 2007 - 22:13

I don't think they will try to "lock out" nVidia or AMD. However, they may attempt to "optimize" it for Intel CPUs and GPUs, kind of like how the Intel compiler does. Intel doesn't have a serious gaming GPU yet, but I expect that will come eventually. In fact, I think that is a major reason in why AMD went ahead and bought ATI.

#4 PeterTHX on 18 Sep 2007 - 02:17

It would be interesting to have physics acceleration built into Intel chipsets.

With the advent of quad core you can offload physics directly to a core or 2.

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