Are you talking about concentric ripples like Mark's example? Or are you talking about larger wave ripples? There are many ways to do waves for a game. Are you making a game water surface? If you make a tiled looped animated wave texture, this generally sucks because you see the tile repetitions across the large water…
It sounds like the ripple space warp would probably do what you need? http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/15/ENU/3ds-Max-Help/index.html?url=files/GUID-D76CC0CD-0835-475F-825D-B09EE34159AD.htm,topicNumber=d30e179724