PhysX

PhysX is a real-time physics simulation engine and middleware used to model physical interactions in interactive applications and games. It originated as the PhysX engine developed by Ageia and was acquired by Nvidia in 2008 as part of its strategy to integrate physics into graphics hardware and software. The PhysX SDK provides APIs for simulating rigid bodies, articulated joints, cloth and soft bodies, particle systems, fluids, and destructible environments.

PhysX supports CPU-based simulation and also offers GPU-accelerated computation on supported Nvidia GPUs, using CUDA to offload physics work from the CPU. The library is designed to be integrated into game engines and applications, with plugins and interfaces for major engines and a C++ API for custom development. It is used across platforms, including Windows, Linux, macOS, and various consoles, and is commonly employed in both commercial games and research simulations.

Industry context: PhysX is one of several widely used real-time physics engines, alongside Havok and Bullet. Nvidia continues to maintain and evolve the PhysX SDK, expanding features such as character animation constraints, cloth dynamics, particles, and fluids, and providing tools for developers to optimize performance on GPU or CPU hardware.