MaximumPC 2005 11

quickstart THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL

12 MA XIMUMPC NOVEMBER 2005

1. What has Ageia been working on
   since E3?
   The past few months have been spent
   fi nalizing the content and board product
   for release.


2. Do you have working boards up
   and running?
   Yes, the physX processor has been work-
   ing since before E3. We’ve distributed
   boards and software to developers.


3. Will games that benefi t from the
   physX processor come out this year?
   We’re working towards a release of
   games and the physX processor board
   product late this year.


4. How many titles will be available in
   the near future that will benefi t from
   the physX processor?
   I can’t release a specifi c number because
   the games are being completed by other
   companies and we don’t have control

over their schedules. However, we have

publisher-wide deals with Sega, Epic,

and Ubisoft.

5. Will there be varying SKUs of the
   physX board?
   There will be just one clock speed and
   memory confi guration for the board.


6. Do you have a ballpark fi gure for
   the pricing of the board?
   I expect the board to be between $
   and $300.

It sounds like science fi ction, but a Singapore-based company has developed a digital

camera lens made from liquid that is designed to mimic the way a human eye focuses

on objects near and far. Named Fluidlens, it is no bigger than a contact lens yet offers

an impressive 10x optical zoom, rivaling the capabilities of high-end point-and-shoot

digital cameras.

Unlike standard lenses, which move along a fi xed axis until an object comes into

focus, the Fluidlens is able to zoom and focus merely by changing the curvature of the

lens, which is similar to how the human eye focuses.

The Fluidlens won’t be on the market for at least a year, and will most likely show

up in mobile phones and other slim devices.

Liquid Lens for Digicams

Droplet-sized lens could revolutionize cellphone cameras

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Six Questions with Ageia

What’s up with the still-vaporous Physics Processing Unit? We cornered

Ageia’s PR man Andy Keane to find out

Thomas L. McDonald has been covering games for 15

years. He’s currently Editor-at-Large of the old-school

game and puzzle mag Games.

Battlefield

Blues

GAME THEORY

THOMAS

MCDONALD

I

f there’s one thing I love about console gam-

ing, it’s that you know what hardware you’re

getting when you buy the thing, and you know

it will be good for about four years. There are no

upgrades, no patches, and no problems. This situ-

ation is even more appealing to me these days,

now that Battlefield 2 has shown me exactly how

pathetic my PC is. Sure, I could wait until it comes

out on the Xbox, I suppose, but a gimped version of

Battlefield 2 on a console would be sick and wrong.

The funny thing is, even though Battlefield 2

has become my new upgrade temptation game, I

still cleave to it. Like an abused puppy continually

returning to its cruel master, I fire it up every day

and suffer through the long loads, choppy perfor-

mance, and curiously fluctuating pings.

I have no choice, being a pretty hardcore

Battlefield: 1942/Vietnam junkie. Objective-based

shooters have long been my drug of choice.

Deathmatch bores me to tears, and pretty much

always has. Compared with solid CTF and control-

point action gaming, it’s thin gruel with little reward.

The shift happened when Tribes hit, and proved

that FPS games could be so much more than mind-

less fragfests. They could blend action, tactics,

team play, and even elements of role-playing into

something greater than mere deathmatch. As in any

RPG, people quickly fall into their roles in Battlefield,

and there is no shortage of jobs to fill. Few sessions

seem to lack for drivers, gunners, pilots, anti-armor,

snipers, demolition, medics, infantry, and the rest. I

never fly, for instance, but there are players who do

nothing but. This kind of wide-ranging design plugs

right into the desires of a huge cross-section of the

gaming public, and then pulls them together into a

flawless synthesis.

And that quality is what makes it so frustrat-

ing. Slouching toward middle age, complete with

kids, minivan, mortgage, and the rest, I can’t spend

money on new hardware every time something

tickles my fancy, although I often wonder if socking

away money for my kids’ college is a better invest-

ment than a GeForce 7800 GTX. At this point, I’d

almost rather not know about Battlefield 2 than be

cruelly taunted by its 2GB memory demands.

The physX processor is PCI-based and will

sport a rumored 128MB of GDDR3 memory.