nVidia vient d'annoncer, par le biais d'un communiqué de presse, que Shattered Horizon, le FPS-space opera de FutureMark, dans le but de montrer au monde entier que les prouesses du désormais célèbre moteur physique développé initialement par Ageia, puis racheté par la firme au caméléon.

Vous voilà donc en droit de vous attendre à pouvoir vous amuser pendant des heures avec des bouts d'astéroïdes et autres débris lunaires, qui s'annoncent comme assez abondants dans ce jeu où vous devez faire face à une explosion accidentelle sur la Lune qui a provoqué le déploiement d'un amas de débris lunaires entre la Terre et la planète morte, ceci vous empêchant de rentrer à la maison, sur la planète bleue. Et comme si cela ne suffisait pas, scientifiques et astronautes commencent à se fritter la tronche sur la Lune, les uns accusant les autres d'avoir causé l'explosion.

Le communiqué de presse entier (anglais) se trouve dans la suite de la nouvelle.

NVISION 08—SANTA CLARA, CA—AUGUST 26, 2008—NVIDIA Corporation today announced that Futuremark Games Studio has selected NVIDIA® PhysX™ technology for its upcoming first-person shooter game, Shattered Horizon™, which was officially unveiled last week at the Leipzig Games Convention in Germany.

“Shattered Horizon has a real space setting that offers gameplay, tactics, and freedom of movement that cannot be found in any other shooter,” said Jukka Mäkinen, Head of Futuremark Games Studio. “PhysX is essential in helping our game designers create a realistic and fun zero-gravity combat experience.”

Shattered Horizon is a multiplayer first-person shooter where players fight in zero gravity surrounded by rocky debris from a huge explosion on the Moon. With simple and intuitive controls players have complete freedom of movement to create gameplay and tactics impossible in games constrained by gravity. The game’s stunning lighting effects and zero gravity physics give the look and feel of real space, bringing to life an extraordinary and epic vision of the future.

NVIDIA PhysX technology is the world’s most pervasive development platform for physics acceleration in interactive entertainment. Consisting of a robust physics engine, API, and middleware software, NVIDIA PhysX technology provides developers the ability to add additional levels of realism into their games across all major gaming platforms, including Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and the PC. On the PC, PhysX technology harnesses the power of any CUDA™-enabled general-purpose parallel computing processor, including any NVIDIA GeForce® 8 Series or higher GPU, to handle 10-20 times more visual complexity than what’s possible on today’s traditional PC platforms. All of the 80 million plus GeForce 8 Series and higher GPUs in the field are CUDA-enabled, the largest installed base of general-purpose, parallel-computing processors ever created.

“We are excited to be working with Futuremark on their first original game,” said Roy Taylor, NVIDIA vice president of content relations. “By utilizing the advanced features that NVIDIA PhysX technology provides, Shattered Horizon will deliver a compelling, visual, and highly interactive experience to gamers.”

NVIDIA PhysX technology is already included in more than 140 shipping titles for Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and the PC. For more information on NVIDIA PhysX technology, please visit: www.nzone.com/physx.

For more information on Shattered Horizon, please visit: www.shatteredhorizon.com

About Futuremark Games Studio
Futuremark® Games Studio, wholly owned by Futuremark® Corporation, was formed in January 2008 to create world class original games with new and entertaining gameplay. Futuremark Corporation is the leading provider of performance analysis software and services for PCs and smartphones. Futuremark is known around the world for its benchmark products, including the 3DMark® and PCMark® Series, SPMark™ and VGMark™ (with more than 35 million copies distributed worldwide) and value-added services powered by a database of almost 20 million real life benchmarking results. Futuremark maintains offices in Saratoga, California and Helsinki, Finland. For more information, please visit www.futuremark.com

About NVIDIA
NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) is the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, a high-performance processor which generates breathtaking, interactive graphics on workstations, personal computers, game consoles, and mobile devices. NVIDIA serves the entertainment and consumer market with its GeForce® products, the professional design and visualization market with its Quadro® products, and the high-performance computing market with its Tesla™ products. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. and has offices throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. NVIDIA's inaugural NVISION 08 conference will be held August 25-27, 2008 in San Jose, California. For more information, visit www.nvidia.com and www.nvision2008.com.

Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: the benefits, capabilities and uses of NVIDIA PhysX technology, CUDA technology and NVIDIA GeForce 8 series or higher GPUs are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: manufacturing, design or software defects; unexpected loss of performance of our products or technologies when used in systems; changes in game users' demands; development of faster or more efficient means of accelerating applications; the impact of technological development and competition as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its Form 10-Q for the fiscal period ended July 27, 2008. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on our website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.

Copyright © 2008 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. NVIDIA, PhysX, GeForce, and CUDA are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other company and/or product names may be trade names, trademarks and/or registered trademarks of the respective owners with which they are associated. Features, pricing, availability, and specifications are subject to change without notice.