NVIDIA and Havok, a supplier of cross-platform middleware, will be demonstrating a physics effects solution that runs completely on a graphics processing unit at this year's Game Developer Conference (GDC) in San Jose, California (March 21st through 24th).

The result of an ongoing engineering collaboration between Havok and NVIDIA, this new software product from Havok-called Havok FX-enables the simulation of detailed physical phenomena in PC games. Nvidia's GeForce 7 or 6 Series GPUs, amplified with NVIDIA SLI multi-GPU technology, further power up the Havok FX product, which is expected to be available this summer.

Through Havok FX, GPUs can simulate the interactions of thousands of colliding rigid bodies, a fundamental technique of physics computation seen in today's latest games. It's now possible to compute the components of friction, collisions, gravity, mass, and velocity that form the basis of rigid body physics. Havok FX is designed for GPUs supporting Shader Model 3.0.

Havok FX allows game designers to include advanced physics effects without burdening the CPU and slowing game-play, since the effects are simulated and rendered on the GPU.