Physics card
Encyclopedia
A physics card is an expansion card
for computers, which is used to process physics
interactions as to help produce more physical action in computer generated graphics. By taking over the processing of these effects, the CPU can use more of its power for other tasks. A physics card is centered around a physics processing unit
, similar to the graphics processing unit
on a graphics card, and also contains RAM
for use in its processes. The first physics card created was the PhysX
by AGEIA
, released in 2006.
Expansion card
The expansion card in computing is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an expansion slot of a computer motherboard or backplane to add functionality to a computer system via the expansion bus.One edge of the expansion card holds the contacts that fit exactly into the slot...
for computers, which is used to process physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
interactions as to help produce more physical action in computer generated graphics. By taking over the processing of these effects, the CPU can use more of its power for other tasks. A physics card is centered around a physics processing unit
Physics processing unit
A physics processing unit is a dedicated microprocessor designed to handle the calculations of physics, especially in the physics engine of video games. Examples of calculations involving a PPU might include rigid body dynamics, soft body dynamics, collision detection, fluid dynamics, hair and...
, similar to the graphics processing unit
Graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
on a graphics card, and also contains RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
for use in its processes. The first physics card created was the PhysX
PhysX
PhysX is a proprietary realtime physics engine middleware SDK developed by Ageia with the purchase of ETH Zurich spin-off NovodeX in 2004...
by AGEIA
AGEIA
Ageia, founded in 2002, was a fabless semiconductor company. Ageia invented PhysX – a Physics Processing Unit chip capable of performing game physics calculations much faster than general purpose CPUs; they also licensed out the PhysX SDK , a large physics middleware library for game...
, released in 2006.