What do you think about PhysX being in Skyrim.. Would you want it in?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x9B_4qBAkk

Edit: added poll.

I have an ATI graphics card, so I don't want it.

CPU-bound PhysX is a thing, too. It's basically just a case of having a togglable "Extra physics" button if you can run it, either through an nVidia card or a really powerful CPU. Either way, it's never not optional.

That video uses the false dichotomy argument, as if you either have PhysX or nothing at all.

I stopped watching the video when their example of PhysX off for fog was NO fog at all. :facepalm:

I've added a poll.

Maybe it's just Mirror's Edge, but turning on Physx in that game with a high end PC without a Nvidia graphics card turned the whole game into a slideshow.

I'd just rather see them use graphics technology that works for everyone, and not just people with Nvidia cards.


And yeah. Weird video. Physx: Extra particle effects when you shoot a wall and in other places! No physx: No particle effects anywhere!

Phys X is the Blu-ray of the proprietary physics application market. If phys-x came in disk form I'd buy it, then use it as a coaster for my coffee cup, just to express my disdain for it.

The only things that would need any mildly serious physics processing would be physical props, and even that is fairly cheap to calculate overall. If you want to tack-on- er, I mean apply physics to piss or make flags that dynamically(!!!!) flap in the wind then Phys-X is the way to go.

thought Skyrim was gonna get the Havok physics :celebration:

Though I'm kinda the Nvidia really devoted fan, I'd prefer Havok (a GOOD implementation of it, not the bad joke that Oblivion was) + Havok Cloth. I prefer an universal physics engine with support for all GPU's.

And if not, then PhysX, of course ^^

Minor point, but PhysX isn't graphics technology, it's physics - any card could *draw* the objects, but computing physics is much harder.
It's a pity that ATI never made any sort of competition to physx, it's a great technology and can really add a lot of the little details into a game. Especially when it's used as designed - to simulate untold dozens of tiny little things, though that sort of use does indeed effectively require it to run with a graphics card. Particle effects are nice, but physx-powered particle effects can actually react to the environment, which would be totally excellent. If your motherboard supports it you could also get a low end nvidia card and run it entirely as a physx card, without the burden of rendering you don't need all that much power just for physics.

For the major physics, prop and actor movement and so forth, go havok - but for the little details, that's physx's jam. Little chunks chipping off a wall when you hit it with your sword? PhysX is there for that. Dirt flying up when you use a destructive spell? PhysX wants its babies.
PhysX is best used purely for incidental detail, but it adds a lot to the scene.

Do I want PhysX, heck yes. Will it happen? I highly doubt it, because Skyrim will use Havok... and so why justify using PhysX? Ashame for all of us that have Nvidia cards that could handle far superior physics, but we won't get anywhere by it, it seems.



The engine itself is no more proprietary then the other major alternative that Skyrim will use is, PhysX will try and work off of the CPU, the hardware acceleration IS the only real part of the engine that is essentially proprietary. The fact is PhysX will still work if you don't have a compatible graphics card, it will instead use the CPU and will not get the mega performance that it will see off of the nVidia CUDA architechture. In fact the most popular physics engine out there is really more proptietary then PhysX, that is the one Skyrim will use and that is Havok. Havok is essentially in the end, owned by Intel and for a physics engine that only runs off of the CPU.... yeah... good luck to anybody who wants to make processors that do not align with Intel standards.

Half Life 2 has had physical particles since day one and there's never been any lag or processing issues. Phys-x is not without it's uses, but it's not necessary, which is the key point. its just a waste of time for any developer to integrate it unless the game itself is about physics. There's no application it can perform that can't be done by simple animations.

I mean if Bethesda puts in the option to use it, whatever (as long as it doesn't harm the '"normal" particles and object physics), but to actually ask for Phys-X :confused:

HL2 had a few physically simulated particles, I'm talking dozens upon dozens, that don't last a second or two then vanish.

The mechanics of it are really quite simple - CPU bound physics have the major problem of the CPU being built primarily for a linear series of tasks, and in a physics system where every element may interact with every other that puts a limit on how many simulations you can reasonably run. Your GPU, however, is designed to run many smaller tasks in parallel, such as is required to render many parts of the same scene, or simulate dozens of different objects. In a very broad, vague way, CPUs go for power over parallelism, GPUs do it the other way around. Physical simulation is far more suited to the GPU than the CPU.

Our processors are more than strong enough to handle a scene's worth of important simulation, but they're nowhere near strong enough to handle the unimportant simulation. Glass shattering and the pieces falling - fine, the CPU can do that. You have a firefight in a room full of wine and all of a sudden we have 4000 individual elements all asking for physical simulation and the CPU only has so many clock cycles to spare, wheras the GPU has a lot more room for an awful lot of simple simulation. It's just a case of matching up a specialised processor to a specialised task.

I have my doubts whether GPU-powered physics will ever make a serious difference to gameplay, but to the atmosphere? Well, consider previous threads about, say, simulating rain properly. There are too many particles for the CPU to do it, but the GPU excels at doing a lot of reasonably simple maths.

Actually ATI supports Bullet which can use OpenCL hardware acceleration. ATI also believes that Bullet will win over PhysX and Havok in the long run because of it's much more open nature.



Indeed, hardware acceleration doesn't really ADD abilities as much as it simply off-loads them to be processed else where. The strain of physical particles will kick in far sooner on a Physics engine that is only running off of the CPU then one that hardware accelerates off on to the GPU. PhysX makes a move in the right direction but nVidia's not allowing the hardware acceleration to be open is a bad thing. Then again when you get down to most computer games, they are all using things that are as bad, even DirectX is limited to Microsoft Windows, while OpenGL is an open standard. As for asking for PhysX, of course I'd ask for it, it can process superior physics via it's hardware acceleration, that's simply true and that's the draw of it, I won't deny that point, however it is set-up so it can be toggled on and off on most games that it does appear in already.

I dont want people with ATi cards to suffer because of this gimmick.

I'm fine with Havok. There was nothing wrong with Oblivion's physics imo (yep, I'm pretty easily satisfied).

Oblivion could've used some physics tweaking as it came to the amount that could be displayed and the odd movements of some ragdolls, but to amend that you need to look no further than Half-Life 2 for a near perfect implementation.

Voted no for the sake of accessability. Believe it ir not, I'm one of those people who actually want beth to succeed and not just give me something worth my money. I have an nvidia card so I wouldn't mind as far as my own experience goes, but I'd be rather bummed that Beth limited their audience. Everyone deserves the right to experience the joy of TES! :foodndrink:

You are aware that when people ask for features they don't mean "to the exclusion of all else", right? This thread is not asking for there to not be no physx, it is asking for physx support. That, by no means, excludes anybody. In the same way having "High" graphics settings doesn't exclude people who can only play on "Low".

Well, I can't imagine how they could possibly take advantage of PhysX without limiting the audience by some degree. Ever used PhysX on CPU alone? It's (r@|* unless used on a ridiculously powerful processor. And I imagine it would be really difficult to incorporate two alternate, interchangeable, parallel working physics engines. And then there are the consoles...

So your "PhysX toggle" either toggles on all the physx effects and leaves the important stuff to havok, or toggles on the computationally heavy effects and leaves the important stuff to havok.

Just like having high quality shaders doesn't mean you have to use them, having high quality physics doesn't mean you ahve to use them.

Like I said, actually implementing that would be very difficult, especially in a sandbox game like TES.

Hardly, strike effects and so have to exist anyway, it's just a case of emitting a few physx'd particles at the same time. If you simulate rain, well, you already have rain, so just stop doing regular rain and generate some rain particles. Bethesda aren't children, or amateurs.

no they have already said that they are using havok

Bethesda is already using Havok and that is good. The last thing I would want is that Skyrim would become one of the infamous "TWIMTBP" games... :pinch: