If there’s ever an indication that physics hardware is here to stay, Microsoft developing a physics SDK for DirectX would be it. That’s exactly what Microsoft plans to do, and by DirectX 11, it’ll be a standard feature. With Ageia’s recently released PhysX physics addon card, the future of gaming looks to become a bit more realistic (and fun, hopefully!)

These early days of physics acceleration are entirely reminiscent of the beginnings of 3D acceleration, and Microsoft is once again stepping in to sort out the mess that is starting to develop. We, of course, have AGEIA and their PhysX API, we have NVIDIA/Havok in bed with each other, and even ATI is brewing something up. It’s getting ugly before it even starts. The consumers don’t want another format/API war, and Microsoft knows that.