For those hardcore gamers out there, good news has come in the form of the highly anticipated PhysX processor (PPU) from AGEIA. For those who are unaware, the PPU processor is the first hardware accelerator chip designed specifically to accelerate physics. Currently, Alienware, Dell and Falcon Northwest have announced themselves as launch partners for the systems containing the new technology. The downside to this is that currently there isn't much that is compatible with the physics acceleration. The first game that will fully support PPU out of the box will be Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, and it is not due to be released until May.

However, if you are a City of Villians fan, there is some great news for those who are buying the PPU equipped PC's. City of Villains is the first MMORPG to announce support for the PhysX based processor. What difference can you expect to see when playing CoV on a PhysX based processor? Well, a large difference according to AGEIA, displaying an estimated 10x the number of particles on a physics based event:

While all City of Villains  players benefit from the game’s software physics created by the AGEIA PhysX SDK, players with PhysX Accelerator cards will experience some 10 times the number of particles displayed in physics-based events, resulting in an even more immersive experience. For example:

• Mayhem Missions, which are set in a destructible environment, have destroyed objects taking greater advantage of the physics effects, such as a newspaper vending machine which, when blown up, shreds thousands of particles of paper around it.
• Physics particles can be affected by external forces. For example, the shredded bits from the newspaper machine linger in the air only to be blown away by other explosions.
• World geometry will be retrofitted with reactive physics effects, such as leaves being dropped from trees when a Power Blast is cast nearby.