Physx for PC version of Skyrim? : V

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 10:49 pm

Anyone know if Bethesda will or will likely not put Physx in the PC version? Would it make a huge difference? I'm buying a new graphics card and if they do have Physx, I will likely go with an Nvidia. If not then I'm leaning towards an ATI.

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 10:07 pm

Whats physx?

» Thu Jun 16, 2011 2:47 am

Bethesda uses Havok, not Physx.

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 4:45 pm

Whats physx?

I'm not sure if it's an actual game engine or just an enhancer, but I do know Nvidia strongly advertises it. So I'm not sure if they could use Physx in a Havok engine or if Physx is an engine in itself.

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 6:54 pm

It's a gimmick. Not many games have support or need for it.

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 2:50 pm

I'm not sure if it's an actual game engine or just an enhancer, but I do know Nvidia strongly advertises it. So I'm not sure if they could use Physx in a Havok engine or if Physx is an engine in itself.

i think that its a thing on the card that handles the physics in game. while the video card itself handles graphics. and it frees up cpu ect.

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 8:47 pm

It's a gimmick. Not many games have support or need for it.

Hardly. It's a built in physics processor on nVidia cards only, which is probably more why it's so limited. In terms of physics, it allows the games to do stuff they probably never would have been able to do without it, though. It takes the load off the CPU to do the calculations and can allow for enhanced cloth and particle effects, as well as others, I'm sure.

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 4:06 pm

I'm talking about the need for a separate PPU, not the stuff built into the GPU.

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 5:42 pm

I wouldn't let it influence your choice of GPU, unless you really know you need it and why.

That said, I generally prefer nVidia's cards anyway.

» Thu Jun 16, 2011 2:01 am

Hardly. It's a built in physics processor on nVidia cards only, which is probably more why it's so limited. In terms of physics, it allows the games to do stuff they probably never would have been able to do without it, though. It takes the load off the CPU to do the calculations and can allow for enhanced cloth and particle effects, as well as others, I'm sure.

That's just a little misleading

. It's a physics simulation engine/API, like Havok, but unlike Havok it can, optionally, use nVidia cards as hardware accelerators. It can run entirely in software too, though. As for PhysX being more limited... well, I think this quote casts some light on the situation.

"Thanks to it’s free license and rich feature set PhysX SDK, preferred by small teams, is dominating PC market. Currently PhysX SDK is widely adopted by russian (mostly trash games) and korean (mostly specific MMOs) developers. Not to mention, that PhysX SDK is default physics solution for Unreal Engine 3, used in majority of UE3 based titles (Gears of War, Mass Effect, etc). Year 2009 has brought some popular games, like Dragon Age: Origins, Overlord 2 or Risen, into PhysX library.

Havok is currently best choise for AAA titles – extensive toolset , orientation on consoles, best-in-class developer support. Well-known titles of year 2009, like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves or Killzone 2 are based on Havok. Surprisingly, even Try Havok initiative hasn’t helped Havok to gain popularity at indie-developers community." (from http://physxinfo.com/articles/?page_id=154).

In other words, PhysX, being cheap (or free) is preferred by small teams who aren't well placed to get the best out of it, and so has a poor reputation. Havok, being more established with better tools for developers, is preferred by big game studios who can get the best out of it.

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:14 pm

Either way, get the Nvidia

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 5:43 pm

Is it going to be used in MORE popular games in the future though? I just don't want to be one year down the line and all of a sudden most the games start using it and I'm left with a great ATI card that can't be used to it's fullest potential because it wouldn't support all the Physx compatible games that may come down the line.

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 2:19 pm

That's just a little misleading

. It's a physics simulation engine/API, like Havok, but unlike Havok it can, optionally, use nVidia cards as hardware accelerators. It can run entirely in software too, though. As for PhysX being more limited... well, I think this quote casts some light on the situation.

"Thanks to it’s free license and rich feature set PhysX SDK, preferred by small teams, is dominating PC market. Currently PhysX SDK is widely adopted by russian (mostly trash games) and korean (mostly specific MMOs) developers. Not to mention, that PhysX SDK is default physics solution for Unreal Engine 3, used in majority of UE3 based titles (Gears of War, Mass Effect, etc). Year 2009 has brought some popular games, like Dragon Age: Origins, Overlord 2 or Risen, into PhysX library.

Havok is currently best choise for AAA titles – extensive toolset , orientation on consoles, best-in-class developer support. Well-known titles of year 2009, like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves or Killzone 2 are based on Havok. Surprisingly, even Try Havok initiative hasn’t helped Havok to gain popularity at indie-developers community." (from http://physxinfo.com/articles/?page_id=154).

In other words, PhysX, being cheap (or free) is preferred by small teams who aren't well placed to get the best out of it, and so has a poor reputation. Havok, being more established with better tools for developers, is preferred by big game studios who can get the best out of it.

Not to mention that NVIDIA tech isn't completely trustworthy in that it wont handicap AMD cards. <_< /spreading baseless rumours
Although Optimized for NVIDIA games have reputedly disabled some graphical functions for AMD graphics cards.

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 2:54 pm

PhysX is proprietary while the nascent OpenCL is not.

PhysX is a gimmick.

» Thu Jun 16, 2011 2:47 am

PhysX is proprietary while the nascent OpenCL is not.

PhysX is a gimmick.

Havok (as used by Bethesda and Valve, to name but two) is also proprietary. Does that make Havok a gimmick?

:whistling:

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 10:01 pm

Bethesda uses Havok, not Physx.

This.
As long as games are using physics engines like Skyrim is using havok, there is no need for any kind of physX, and if the game is already using a physics engine like havok,euphoria etc do not alow the gpu physX enabled cuz its just gona mess up the system, not to mention the reduce of fps by 20, so buy the card that you think is good, but i do think that nvidia is better for showing physics,destruction and stuff like that.

What does the physX do is it takes a load of the physics processing by the cpu and tryes to transfer it to the gpu card, but quad core processors shouldn't have a problem with that at all, i mean with 4 cores a cpu can do anything it wants, so no need to overload the gpu card without a reason.

Here is a discussion about that:

http://forums.filefront.com/tech-discussion/379755-difference-between-normal-physics-physx.html

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 7:30 pm

Havok (as used by Bethesda and Valve, to name but two) is also proprietary. Does that make Havok a gimmick?

:whistling:

I was not referring to the core physics sim program itself, I was referring to the API that allows it to offload to the GPU. PhysX is proprietary. OpenCL is not.

» Thu Jun 16, 2011 12:10 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhysX

PhysX in video gamesPhysX technology is used by the game engines Unreal Engine 3, Gamebryo, Vision, Instinct, Diesel, Unity 3D, Hero and BigWorld[21] and is the physics platform of more than 300 video games,[2] such as Bulletstorm, Need for Speed: Shift or Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Most of these games use the CPU to process the physics simulations.

Video games with optional support for hardware accelerated PhysX, often with additional effects such as tearable cloth, dynamic smoke or simulated particle debris,[22][23][24] include:[25]

PC games supporting hardware accelerated PhysX GAME TITLE Release Type of acceleration DirectX PhysX effects
Alice: Madness Returns (upcoming) 2011-06-14 GPU ?
Arma 3 (upcoming) 2012 GPU 10 or 11
Batman: Arkham Asylum 2009-09-15 GPU or PPU 10, 9 dynamic fog and steam, dynamic tearable cloth and cobwebs, spark effects,
dynamic paper and leaves, additional rigid bodies, destructible environments

Batman: Arkham City (upcoming) 2011-10-18 GPU or PPU 11, 10, 9 dynamic fog and steam, dynamic tearable cloth and cobwebs, spark effects,
dynamic paper and leaves, additional rigid bodies, destructible environments

Bet on Soldier: Black-Out Saigon 2007-05-29 PPU ?
Bet on Soldier: Blood of Sahara 2006-11-09 PPU 9
Bet on Soldier: Blood Sport 2005-09-26 PPU 9
CellFactor: Combat Training 2006-05-09 PPU 9
CellFactor: Revolution 2007-05-08 PPU ?
City of Villains 2005-10-28 PPU 9
Crazy Machines 2 2007-10-15 GPU or PPU 9 fluid simulation
Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason 2008-12-05 GPU or PPU 10, 9 fluid simulation, particle physics, spark effects
Dark Void 2010-04-21 GPU 9 dynamic smoke, particle physics
Darkest of Days 2009-09-08 GPU 9 debris simulation, dynamic fog and smoke, dynamic leaves
Deep Black (upcoming) Dec 2011 GPU 9
Hot Dance Party 2008-03-31 GPU
Hot Dance Party II 2008-08-05 GPU
Infernal 2007-05-09 PPU 9
Jianxia 3 2011-05-19 GPU
Mafia II 2010-08-24 GPU 10, 9 additional debris (up to 10,000 pieces at a time), dynamic cloth, dynamic smoke
Mafia III (upcoming) 2012 GPU 11?, 10, 9 additional debris (up to 10,000 pieces at a time), dynamic cloth, dynamic smoke
Metal Knight Zero Online (upcoming) TBA GPU
Metro 2033 2010-03-16 GPU 11, 10, 9 debris simulation, dynamic smoke
Mirror's Edge 2009-01-13 GPU or PPU 9 debris and glass shard simulation, dynamic tearable cloth, spark effects,
dynamic fog and steam

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel 2008-11-07 GPU 10, 9 particle physics, dynamic leaves and rocks
Sacred 2: Ice & Blood (expansion) 2009-10-02 GPU 10, 9 particle physics, dynamic leaves and rocks
Shadowgrounds Survivor 2007-11-14 PPU ?
Star Trek DAC 2009-11-12 GPU debris simulation
Stoked Rider: Alaska Alien 2006-12-14 PPU 9
Switchball 2007-06-26 PPU ?
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2006-05-03 PPU 9
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 2007-06-28 GPU or PPU 9 debris simulation, dynamic tearable cloth, dynamic tree and plant simulation,
particle effects, additional level with destructible environments

Unreal Tournament 3 2007-11-19 GPU or PPU 9 additional levels
Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction[26] 2007-11-29 GPU or PPU destructible environments, dynamic tearable cloth, particle physics

[edit] PhysX in other softwareOther software with PhysX support includes:

Active Worlds (AW), a 3D virtual reality platform with its client running on Windows
Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Maya and Autodesk Softimage, computer animation suites[27][28][29]
DarkBASIC Professional (with DarkPHYSICS upgrade), a programming language targeted at game development[30]
DX Studio, an integrated development environment for creating interactive 3D graphics[31]
Futuremark 3DMark Vantage, a benchmarking tool[32]
Microsoft Robotics Studio, an environment for robot control and simulation[33]
Nvidia SuperSonic Sled and Raging Rapids Ride, technology demos
OGRE (via the NxOgre wrapper), an open source rendering engine
The Physics Abstraction Layer, a physical simulation API abstraction system (it provides COLLADA and Scythe Physics Editor support for PhysX)[34]

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 3:38 pm

Hardly. It's a built in physics processor on nVidia cards only, which is probably more why it's so limited. In terms of physics, it allows the games to do stuff they probably never would have been able to do without it, though. It takes the load off the CPU to do the calculations and can allow for enhanced cloth and particle effects, as well as others, I'm sure.

Actually, it uses the graphics processing hardware for the calculations. There is no dedicated hardware. Now there's another API though -- OpenCL, which runs on Nvidia AND ATI cards, which means PhysX is dead.

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 9:33 pm

I didn't read the wiki, but this is my experience.

PhysX is a physics engine developed by Ageia. I remember when PhysX was first out, they had demos of their engine running with and without a PPU (Physics Processing Unit). The physics were awesome, but it meant buying another piece of expensive hardware and only a limited amount of games were using it. It seemed like it could one day take off, but when Nvidia acquired it that puts a lot of doubts that in my mind that it will ever take off. Adding hardware support through Cuda GPUs was a great idea, but think about a developer's choice to use a product that only some of the market is able to use or a product that most of the market is able to use. I'm sure ATI users can run the software, but I don't think they have hardware support. This means that there isn't an even experience between Nvidia and ATI users. That could become a source for glitches and bugs in the game taking away precious time. An engine like Havok Physics will offer that more even experience. PhysX hardware acceleration is good. It alows things to happen in games that otherwise couldn't, but the factors that limit its practical use are a problem.

» Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:51 pm

Actually, it uses the graphics processing hardware for the calculations. There is no dedicated hardware. Now there's another API though -- OpenCL, which runs on Nvidia AND ATI cards, which means PhysX is dead.

You can use another video card with a Cuda GPU to be a dedicated PhysX Processor. It can be an old card that you would otherwise not be using anymore, or you can go overboard and buy a card just for it.