PhysX is here Created 18 years ago2006-05-17 09:44:04 UTC by monster_urby

The next generation of gaming is almost upon us the the key word is PPU's. Physics processing units for your PC. They take the strain of Physics off the CPU for more fluid (Quite literally) physical gamplay.

As the author of the 'Concerned' comic once delicatley said.

"Don't worry, that sound of a boner ripping through my pants was just my boner ripping through my pants"

Check out these movies.

http://www.ageia.com/physx_in_action/tech_demos.html

awsome. too bad i'll never be able to run that stuff and the price will be jacked up unrealistically high.

Cellfactor looks pimp, but i'm confused about that game. Too much weird stuff. with guns.

?219 on play.com. I imagine thats nearly 400 US dollars.

Won't be getting one of those anytime soon. Sooner or later they will be a requirement and games companies will force prices to drop.

Pretty stuff though.

awsome!

I've heard of it before though, but seing it in action,, looks like pwnage

"Leaving" my arse ;).

Nice to see you again.

I installed the software version of PhysX and it came with a demo, looked neat...but my computer is too slow to play the Ghost Recon 3 demo that I got it for anyways..so I uninstalled it

Physics does seem like a very different thing to a game than its overall graphics though, its still very gimmicky in its use in games and I dont really see how amazingly detailed physics would have affected any previous game that could have utilised it. I dont see the same effect that physics could have to make worthwhile compared to that of having a good graphics card in a game like oblivion. Even taking a game like BF2 fully destructible vehicles would hardly add to what is already a perfect game (choke splutter)

An onboard (combined with gfx card) solution is much more likely to work than a seperate card imo.

Leaving my arse

???

What are you implying 7th?

I said i'd drop in every now and again. I'm having a spot of bad luck with my PC at home at the minute. I've blown the power supply although thats been fixed and now I find out that I've burned out my CPU too. Saying that it was a 2.2 Ghz in desperate need of an upgrade.

Looking at this whole physics thing has made me think deep deep thoughts and now I'm worried. Looking at games like Crysis and UT2007 the graphics are damn near perfection right? So now we move on to physics and when we've perfected that whats next? Surely we are on the brink of gamings demise. What happens when 'The Perfect Game' is released. Where can we go from there?

I hear GRAW (Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter) drops 20 FPS when the PhysX card is installed. So two people who have it and the card tell me anyway...

Graphics in games are far from perfect. We have nothing today that could even begin to match the detail IRL. What with all of our normalmapping and high dynamic range lighting, we're still far, far from photorealistic graphics.

Looking at games like Crysis and UT2007 the graphics are damn near perfection right?

No.

Anyone can make a screenshot look amazing, when you actually play the game is when it matters, its like taking a photo of a place at a specific time from the perfect angle when conditions are perfect. It doesn't mean you'll get the same feeling you felt when you saw that limited view of reality that you will when you are actually there.

(Not aimed at anyone here) It really annoys me when people say physics and destructable scenery don't effect gameplay. Uhm, yeah they do. Especially multi-player.

MP Scenario: The last surviving player on team A is sniping from a steel girder tower and is racking up some major points. The other team (B) is down to its last 2 men. Neither of them have any ammo left eccept for remote charges. Now:

Game without physics. Team B attempt to throw a charge into the tower but can't throw them far enough, loose their last charges and get sniped in the face to death falling in pre-set animations.

Game with physics. Both players rush the tower giving the sniper time to get one. He strikes him in the head and he collapses, limbs flailing in a great display of physics powered ragdoll crumplage. The other grabs his charge in mid flight and gets below the tower planting the 2 charges on each girder on one side of the tower. He runs for cover and detonates them, sending the tower and its occupant into the floor with dusty crushing smashyness. Effective and bloody cool to watch.

I rest my case

Realistic physics is one thing - but destructible scenery is another. I loved the destructible scenery in S:HoWWII, it made the game immensly more fun... But for the most part, when companies boast about their physics, the scenery is as static as always - the physics impact a few props and ragdolls, nothing more.

I'm looking forward to when fully destructible scenery is a standardized part of every FPS.

In fact, I think I'll re-install S:HoWWII right now...

???

What are you implying 7th?

Nothing, just didn't expect you around quite as much. Not complaining!

ONe thing I immediatly noticed about HL2 was the props breaking into actual gibs of the prop, not just pre-made generic Gibs. Like in other games, breaking a huge crate, and 3 pieces of broken wood appear. Very cool effect.

ZL: Fully destructable enviornments would take an obscene amount of time and effort. Individual gibs for everything! ZOMG!

About the physics card demos: Are those actually being rendered ingame? I didnt know that even next gen graphics could simulate running water that acts like real water! ZOMG again!

So its just a stand alone CPU dedicated to physics? Doesnt seem to innovative. Cool idea, but the only way I would get it is if a game required it....

HL2 USES THE PHYSX PROCESSOR?!?!

That's a strong move in favor of the Upgradability (reference; my Mobility/Upgradability thread).

"Leaving"

No one leaves TWHL!!1

HL2 USES THE PHYSX PROCESSOR?!?!
That's a strong move in favor of the Upgradability (reference; my Mobility/Upgradability thread).

I think you've got it all wrong.. Or maybe I have.

fully destructable environments make for great games, red faction for example, red faction 2 was EVEN BetrTer yes

its still nowhere near the jump that software 3d to hardware 3d was, how far can a physics processor go, modelling individual splinters of a box??

HL2 uses a heavily Modified Havok Physics Engine.

I always thought it was the source engine doing the physics, not Havok....

I think you've got it all wrong..

That's what I gathered from Xyos' post above mine. This is a thread about PhysX (which I've been awaiting the arival of for months ), and he was saying

ONe thing I immediatly noticed about HL2 was the props breaking into actual gibs of the prop, not just pre-made generic Gibs

Don't know if he was off topic here, meaning the engine in general, not with PhysX, or not.

quite a few games use havok physics now as its pretty easy to implement without writing your own physics code, hl2 does actually implement a well modded version of it though, with the clear difference being extra physical properties and not totally spassing up like it can in its unmodded form - e.g. oblivion

I saw this awhile ago.

Imagine the possibilities.

Yeah!
You could do ANYTHING!

One question,, does an explosion in this game cause damage to buildings,, etc?
Yes, I did see the movies, but still, could you collaps a building with a single explosion?
That would be awsome..

yes. thats the goal of the phyX card.

An onboard (combined with gfx card) solution is much more likely to work than a seperate card imo.

very bad idea. gfx solution = visual display only. its limited to just displaying on screen what happens, and at the cost of gpu bandwidth at that. its a one way road. seprate card means that it feeds the data to the GPU and CPU, meaning that that crumbling building will accually kill you if it lands on you.

US price is $300, quite a bit less then you brits.

One question,, does an explosion in this game cause damage to buildings,, etc?
Yes, I did see the movies, but still, could you collaps a building with a single explosion?

How big and explosion and how big a building are u talkin'? A nade in a skyscraper wouldn't do much, but well placed C4 and u've got yourself a show

Wow..
Imagen, you could make a small town, and make it rain comets or something from the skies which smashes all of the buildings!
And eventually the dam breaks and water flows all over what's left of the city..
Mmmm,, ideas..

very bad idea. gfx solution = visual display only. its limited to just displaying on screen what happens, and at the cost of gpu bandwidth at that. its a one way road. seprate card means that it feeds the data to the GPU and CPU, meaning that that crumbling building will accually kill you if it lands on you.

with you knowing so much about graphics cards, physics cards, the gaming industry and hardware in general, you really should set up a rival to NVidia because those idiots are already developing one!

If NVidia get a GPU AND PSU on the same card then their pure brand power will most likely destroy anything else, it doesnt matter whether its pulling processing power from the GPU or a seperate chip altogether, i'm sure they know a lot more about this than anyone here does.

Yes think of all the possibilities of limitless physics and the impossibility of designing anything that supports it, every idea so far is pure sandbox stuff.

its not limitless physics on a gpu. the only way they can do it is so it has no effect on the game world.

the way the hardwares designed its a one way road. GPU physics calc's are just visual calculations of what moving things would do. maybe all fine and dandy for ragdolls that can't do zip, but for large debris and shapnel thats supposed to hurt you, nothing.

again, why dont you take on Nvidia with your multitude of hardware and industry knowledge, or at least send them an email telling them just how wrong they are!

common knowledge fool. if you read anything you'd know that

But what about Cell factor. That game is pretty much based on pumbling your opponents with crap. Is it possible they attached a simple hit box on each object to simplify it's interaction, but only physically it could be detailed with the collisions. Perhaps that's the unseen element that solves the debris not hurting you problem as m_garg said.

You could have some powerful gaming if you also had a card for lighting as well, or even my personal favorite, the Environmental Card. Which handles mega complex amounts of plants and organic forms.

...yes, hl2 uses havok. It was very heavily modified to fit into source. I read it at the valve wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_2#Game_engine
right under the [Technical] section header.

I think we should have a seperate card for pretty trees and flowers

wow... wow

but they better not integrate my card on the GPU or the entire market will implode what with the GPU having to render both trees and not trees

i dont think i have ever seen a water tank get crushed from so many different angles
that liquids one is amazing

But what about Cell factor. That game is pretty much based on pumbling your opponents with crap. Is it possible they attached a simple hit box on each object to simplify it's interaction, but only physically it could be detailed with the collisions. Perhaps that's the unseen element that solves the debris not hurting you problem as m_garg said.

you mean where the gpu does all the calcs for the visuall debris, while the cpu simple see's if the targets hit?

well that would be redundant. big waste of power if both the gpu and cpu since they would both have to run a calculation. The design of all possible GPU baseds phyics calcs prevent them from giving any data back to the the rest of the machine, so anything it does will just go strait to the screen.

Rimrook, if we went with that quoted idea there we wouldn't have any good ragdoll effects. you wouldn't have proper colision detection an all.