Physics processing unit

A physics processing unit (PPU) is a dedicated microprocessor designed to handle the calculations of physics, especially in the physics engine of video games. It is an example of hardware acceleration.

Examples of calculations involving a PPU might include rigid body dynamics, soft body dynamics, collision detection, fluid dynamics, hair and clothing simulation, finite element analysis, and fracturing of objects.

The idea is having specialized processors offload time-consuming tasks from a computer's CPU, much like how a GPU performs graphics operations in the main CPU's place. The term was coined by Ageia to describe its PhysX chip. Several other technologies in the CPU-GPU spectrum have some features in common with it, although Ageia's product was the only complete one designed, marketed, supported, and placed within a system exclusively being a PPU.

↑ S. Yardi, B. Bishop, T. Kelliher, "HELLAS: A Specialised Architecture for Interactive Deformable Object Modeling Archived 2023-05-09 at the Wayback Machine", ACM Southeast Conference, Melbourne, FL, March 10–12, 2006, pp. 56–61.

↑ B. Bishop, T. Kelliher, "Specialized Hardware for Deformable Object Modeling Archived 2023-05-13 at the Wayback Machine," IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, 13(11):1074–1079, Nov. 2003.

↑ "SPARTA Homepage". Cse.psu.edu. Archived from the original on 2010-07-30. Retrieved 2010-08-16.

↑ ":::News Release:::". Archived from the original on 2006-04-26. Retrieved 2011-06-08.

↑ Nicholas Blachford (2006). "Lets Get Physical: Inside The PhysX Physics Processor".

↑ http://www.legitreviews.com/article/346/2/ Archived 2011-09-30 at the Wayback Machine Legit Reviews - ASUS's AGEIA PhysX P1 Card

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