Batman Arkham City, no physics at all if you don't use physx ?

[Grooveriding]

I saw this video today showing the Batman Arkham City game with vs without physx.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trq6B4anzjM&feature=youtu.be&hd=1

It looks like if you don't use physx there will be no physics effects at all looking at this video. Everything I see done there with physx I've seen in other games that don't use it.

Also, this is obviously not everything in the game, but having recently played the BF3 beta; I don't see anything here I haven't seen done on the CPU.

Is this a wise choice to mandate physx in order to have physics effects in a game ? Especially considering the rather large performance hit gpu physx has historically had versus cpu implemented physics.

I'll assume there will be the option to run this on the CPU, in the past though this was ridiculously intensive (Mafia 2) bordering on unplayable. I do wonder though as in this comparison it says with GTX card vs without GTX card ? The video is obviously to help EVGA sell cards of course, perhaps there will be a CPU option.

 

[SirPauly]

Probably, the same physic abilities as the console without PhysX, but more investigations, data and views are welcomed.

 

[RussianSensation]

Is this a wise choice to mandate physx in order to have physics effects in a game ? Especially considering the rather large performance hit gpu physx has historically had versus cpu implemented physics.

Pros: Companies in many industries come up with creative ways to differentiate their products/services. In this case, NV has a competitive advantage with PhysX technology. Aigea (spelling?) could have been purchased by AMD just as well. It's a strategic business move to spend $ by a firm to try and bring out the best in its products. NV took a bold move in this acquisition and implementation and I am sure it has added a sale or 2 for the firm.

Cons: Since there is no industry standard, not all gamers get to enjoy the same benefits of this specific technology. Also, since there is no industry standard, it's impossible to gauge how efficiently (or not) the technology is being used. Would we have seen far more impressive physics effects if PhysX was an industry standard? Would we see a reduced performance hit if PhysX coding was more efficient?

Conclusion: Until there is an industry standard I feel that his feature will continue to remain a niche one in the near future. I can see long-term potential in the next 3-5 years, perhaps, if NV pours a lot more $$ and comes up with 3-4 killer games that just blow your mind away with their use of PhysX. Also, it seems modern GPUs are not fast enough to have physics effects that WOW and at the same time allow for 60 fps. Possibly in 5 years a GPU will be able to fully simulate water and wind and explosions, etc. using PhysX. We'll have to see.

Personally, I don't necessarily blame NV for spending $ to try and differentiate their products. Perhaps if NV licensed PhysX to AMD for a royalty fee, we could see a wider adoption of physics effects in games. Until then it will be dependent on NV's desire to keep spending $$$ by working directly with specific developers. Thus far, PhysX has not been very impressive since a lot of very good physics effects have been done in games like Crysis and BF3 without PhysX.

Specifically in regard to Batman: AC, the physics on the cape is nothing special and the ice being shattered leaves much to be desired to be honest. The game itself is not great looking (it seems they are just reusing the same 2 year old engine from AA).

My 2 cents.

 

[SirPauly]

It's not PhysX that is the problem to me, but more-so that it is using Cuda, from AMD's perspective. I think AMD likes PhysX and would be all for an OpenCL version of PhysX, imho!

 

[toyota]

aside from the interactive smoke/fog, the effects look lame. really it looks like they took a scene and just turned it into a cheesy tech demo. the Scarecrow levels of the first game were certainly nothing more than that. wow, some falling bricks and swirling debris that look silly is anything...

 

[notty22]

Looks pretty sweet to me. There have been many artwork stills released of this game in the past months, that all looked awesome.
Here is a video review, with many in game moments.

http://www.ign.com/videos/2011/10/14/batman-arkham-city-video-review?objectid=55047

 

[Silverforce11]

Does it have AA for AMD cards at least??

 

[Grooveriding]

Does it have AA for AMD cards at least??

I just can't see them making that mistake twice in a row. They must realize people are going to be looking for exactly this situation. I read recently this game will support DX11, so deferred AA should be available regardless.

 

[Grooveriding]

aside from the interactive smoke/fog, the effects look lame. really it looks like they took a scene and just turned it into a cheesy tech demo. the Scarecrow levels of the first game were certainly nothing more than that. wow, some falling bricks and swirling debris that look silly is anything...

This is my big complain too, some of it is just so overdone. The final side by side with the circular hallway and shattering glass highlights this. Just way overdone with the debris on the ground, I noticed the same in Mafia 2; excessive amounts of overdone debris.

Those instances are also where I would notice my framerates chugging.

The BF3 beta had some amazing unscripted physics and destruction. In the Caspian Border map buildings would shatter and pieces go flying around, the terrain would rupture from tank fire, bushes swaying from the wind of artillery shells passing by etc. No slow-downs and more impressive than anything I've seen done before.

Until third-party physics applications running on the gpu can approach and exceed what the better game development houses like Dice and Crytek can do on their own with the cpu and their in-house engines; how is it going to take off ?

 

[tviceman]

I'm sure the with / without GTX is for EVGA marketing purposes. But regarding the effects, if you don't like it then just turn it off. It's not a requirement. If nvidia wasn't sending engineers to help code this in, then the igame would be a straight up console port with no differences besides higher resolutions.

 

[velis]

I think RussanSensation already said it all. However, we must also account for the fact that PhysX isn't the only physics engine around. AMD is pretty gay about Havok and there are others as well, none of the more important ones suffering from being proprietary to one company.
Games like the Batman series use PhysX only because of NV's brilliant marketing and developer support. Since they're willing to help devs do some physics it is logical that the physics that ends up being done is done using NV's tech.

I also don't see why AMD would be interested in licensing the tech. CUDA is only one of the problems, availability of other just as good engines is another.

We really need a standard here.

 

[Dribble]

I think RussanSensation already said it all. However, we must also account for the fact that PhysX isn't the only physics engine around. AMD is pretty gay about Havok and there are others as well, none of the more important ones suffering from being proprietary to one company.
like the Batman series use PhysX only because of NV's brilliant marketing and developer support. Since they're willing to help devs do some physics it is logical that the physics that ends up being done is done using NV's tech.

I also don't see why AMD would be interested in licensing the tech. CUDA is only one of the problems, availability of other just as good engines is another.

We really need a standard here.

They are all physics libraries that run on the cpu, and physx when run in cpu only mode works on more different hardware then any of them - from pc's to consoles to phones. I think it's also free.

The problem is the lack of hardware physics libraries - the only one that exists is physx (yes I know that others like bullet are meant to exist, but until they make it into games they are just another marketing demo - see havok fx).

 

[SirPauly]

I think RussanSensation already said it all. However, we must also account for the fact that PhysX isn't the only physics engine around. AMD is pretty gay about Havok and there are others as well, none of the more important ones suffering from being proprietary to one company.
Games like the Batman series use PhysX only because of NV's brilliant marketing and developer support. Since they're willing to help devs do some physics it is logical that the physics that ends up being done is done using NV's tech.

I also don't see why AMD would be interested in licensing the tech. CUDA is only one of the problems, availability of other just as good engines is another.

We really need a standard here.

The same reasons why AMD ported Havok to OpenCL. Havok is proprietary.

[Nvidia] put PhsyX in there, and that's the one I've got a reasonable amount of respect for. Even though I don't think PhysX - a proprietary standard - is the right way to go, despite Nvidia touting it as an "open standard" and how it would be "more than happy to license it to AMD", but [Nvidia] won't. It's just not true! You know the way it is, it's simply something [Nvidia] would not do and they can publically say that as often as it likes and know that it won't, because we've actually had quiet conversations with them and they've made it abundantly clear that we can go whistle.

However, PhysX is a piece of technology that changes the gameplay experience and maybe it improves it. What I understand is that they actually invested quite a lot, Nvidia put in a hefty engineering time and they tried to make a difference to the game. So, in that aspect, I have respect for it; it's a reasonable way to handle the situation given the investment in PhysX. Nvidia wanted a co-marketing deal and put forward PhysX, and Rocksteady and Eidos said, OK, as long as you do it - which they did.

There are levels of respect for PhysX here from AMD -- and officially offered they had quiet talks about PhysX.

Theory and conjecture hat on:

Since Intel and AMD did come to an agreement with Havok and AMD did the work to port Havok to OpenCL; why wouldn't AMD approach nVidia and ask, " Hey, if we do the work will you allow PhysX to be ported to OpenCL?" It seems from AMD's point-of-view, nVidia said, " Go Whistle!"

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/interviews/2010/01/06/interview-amd-on-game-development-and-dx11/

 

[Genx87]

PhysX scales and I am sure there is an option to run it on the CPU. But as you said, it is slow compared to running it on a GPU. Like many of us said years ago. CPU's arent good at doing physics compared to a GPU.

 

[Red Storm]

I'm still waiting for someone other than Havok to provide actual physics that affect game play in a popular game. PhysX's name is a bit misleading. It has really been nothing more than extra graphical effects. While that's always nice to have, it doesn't have any actual effect on physics. That's the whole point of realistic physics in games, making the game play more realistic and believable.

 

[AdamK47]

I really liked the PhysX in Batman AA. It really does add to the game when set to High. Performance was a non-issue for me at the time I played it since it ran at a constant 60 fps with dual GTX 285s. I'm eager to see what the PhysX are like in Batman AC.

 

[SirPauly]

I'm still waiting for someone other than Havok to provide actual physics that affect game play in a popular game. PhysX's name is a bit misleading. It has really been nothing more than extra graphical effects. While that's always nice to have, it doesn't have any actual effect on physics. That's the whole point of realistic physics in games, making the game play more realistic and believable.

I really don't understand this at all. There are two aspects that are important to me, and they are improvements in game-play but also important is to raise the bar of fidelity, which makes things more realistic, too.

Never in my gaming life have I witnessed complaints about adding fidelity as being a negative. What I'd like to see is more adoption of GPU Physics so the potential may dramatically change game-play and redefine gaming, and why I would like to see PhysX be ported to OpenCl at some point, and continue to raise the bar of fidelity, too.

 

[Genx87]

I'm still waiting for someone other than Havok to provide actual physics that affect game play in a popular game. PhysX's name is a bit misleading. It has really been nothing more than extra graphical effects. While that's always nice to have, it doesn't have any actual effect on physics. That's the whole point of realistic physics in games, making the game play more realistic and believable.

The video shows real time physics being done on the dollar bills when the character is swinging a weapon, sparks in the steel mill, and interactive fog.

 

[Grooveriding]

I'm still waiting for someone other than Havok to provide actual physics that affect game play in a popular game. PhysX's name is a bit misleading. It has really been nothing more than extra graphical effects. While that's always nice to have, it doesn't have any actual effect on physics. That's the whole point of realistic physics in games, making the game play more realistic and believable.

Right now that is the major problem with physx; there are CPU physics out there that do it better with no performance hit on the GPU side.

When developers like DICE and Crytek are already pushing the boundaries of what they can do with current GPUS, they're not going to have interest in using something like physx when gamers are already going to need all the performance they can get from their video cards to render their games.

This must be a contributing factor to why gpu physx has gone nowhere and has only be used a small handful of games. Until it can offer an alternative that is better than what some devs are already doing on the CPU and do it with no performance hit, it will continue to be a gimmicky bullet point seen in one or two games a year.

 

[SirPauly]

imho

Not all developers have the resources and talents of Crytech and Dice. This is why middlewares are needed like PhysX and Havok.

Edit:

It's not about Crysis2 or BattleField 3 -- they don't offer PhysX. How would Batman look without PhysX? How does Crysis 2 or Battlefield 3 translate into improving Batman?

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

I posted there that it looks about the same as what is in BF3 and apparently that was a trolling comment.

They mad.

 

[Red Storm]

I really don't understand this at all. There are two aspects that are important to me, and they are improvements in game-play but also important is to raise the bar of fidelity, which makes things more realistic, too.

Never in my gaming life have I witnessed complaints about adding fidelity as being a negative. What I'd like to see is more adoption of GPU Physics so the potential may dramatically change game-play and redefine gaming, and why I would like to see PhysX be ported to OpenCl at some point, and continue to raise the bar of fidelity, too.

I don't think you understood my post. In Half-Life, thanks to Havok's physics engine I can kill an enemy via the force of launching/dropping an inanimate object at/on them. That's physics.

In Batman, papers fly around and fog moves as I run through it. That's graphics, not physics (it has no actual effect on the game world).

I did say it's nice to have these extra effects, but the name PhysX is a little misleading because it's only aesthetic. It's more akin to something like AA (aesthetic change, has no actual effect on the game play).

The reason for this is because devs are not likely to include actual game play altering physics when only half the market can actually use it, so it gets limited to aesthetic only effects. I remember when Age of Empires III was in the works, they wanted to have realistic debris blowing off buildings that could actually harm players/buildings it crashed into, but they dropped that idea when they realized people on lower quality settings couldn't see the debris and wouldn't understand what was happening.

We need a uniform standard that both companies are willing to use so we can get some actual progression in physics.

 

[brixter11]

The only reason Batman AC uses physx is because it is the default physics engine for Unreal Engine 3. Even When Physx isn't being gpu accelerated it functions as the games main physics engine.

 

[Genx87]

I don't think you understood my post. In Half-Life, thanks to Havok's physics engine I can kill an enemy via the force of launching/dropping an inanimate object at/on them. That's physics.

In Batman, papers fly around and fog moves as I run through it. That's graphics, not physics (it has no actual effect on the game world).

I did say it's nice to have these extra effects, but the name PhysX is a little misleading because it's only aesthetic. It's more akin to something like AA (aesthetic change, has no actual effect on the game play).

The reason for this is because devs are not likely to include actual game play altering physics when only half the market can actually use it, so it gets limited to aesthetic only effects. I remember when Age of Empires III was in the works, they wanted to have realistic debris blowing off buildings that could actually harm players/buildings it crashed into, but they dropped that idea when they realized people on lower quality settings couldn't see the debris and wouldn't understand what was happening.

We need a uniform standard that both companies are willing to use so we can get some actual progression in physics.

You believe dropping a box on an enemy and they die in HL is because of physics? That is a scripted response to a box dropping on them.

What you are seeing with papers flying around is done by physics. You can interact with it in the game. A different projection of the papers will happen if you interact in a different way. That is physics. You may not think it is a big deal but it is physics.

I agree with your last sentence. The problem, AMD cant even be bothered to push their own physics standard(bullet) much less work with Nvidia to standadize Physics. Personally Microsoft would do the industry a huge favor by including a physics API in directX. Until then we will continue to see fragmentation in the industry between PhysX, Havok, and Bullet and custom physics engines.

 

[Madcatatlas]

The only reason Batman AC uses physx is because it is the default physics engine for Unreal Engine 3. Even When Physx isn't being gpu accelerated it functions as the games main physics engine.

http://www.unrealengine.com/features/physics/