How much of a role will physx play

[Attic]

As an avid gamer who likes being able to buy the best price/performance GPU, I think that the sooner Physx dies the better. nVidia has done a disservice to the gaming community by trying to divide it via Physx.

We need something better than Physx, and for god sakes, it should certainly run on all gamers rigs. Havok is cool, I had a great time in Red Faction Guerilla blowign up buildings. The physics engine in Just Cause 2 is Havok as well right?

It just really comes down to AMD users don't get Physx and that's why Physx will never be more than a gimmick tool that nVidia uses for marketing. This also appears to be exactly nVidia's intention, why else disable Physx accleration in rigs with ATI GPU's? Frankly it's bullshit, any sweet talk about nVidia's right to do it is bullshit. You can plug ATI cards into nVidia motherboards and vica-versa right, how bout letting ATI users use an nVidia board for physx, that would make sense. Artifically limiting that ability throgh a detection scheme is bullshit.

Trust me, we do not want to have to two rigs, one to play with nVidia propietary game additions and one with AMD's additions, but this is what nVidia claims is best for their customers. Come on, its ridiculous and goes against any commen sense for what's best for driving innovation in the gaming community.

 

[MrK6]

As an avid gamer who likes being able to buy the best price/performance GPU, I think that the sooner Physx dies the better. nVidia has done a disservice to the gaming community by trying to divide it via Physx.

We need something better than Physx, and for god sakes, it should certainly run on all gamers rigs. Havok is cool, I had a great time in Red Faction Guerilla blowign up buildings. The physics engine in Just Cause 2 is Havok as well right?

It just really comes down to AMD users don't get Physx and that's why Physx will never be more than a gimmick tool that nVidia uses for marketing. This also appears to be exactly nVidia's intention, why else disable Physx accleration in rigs with ATI GPU's? Frankly it's bullshit, any sweet talk about nVidia's right to do it is bullshit. You can plug ATI cards into nVidia motherboards and vica-versa right, how bout letting ATI users use an nVidia board for physx, that would make sense. Artifically limiting that ability throgh a detection scheme is bullshit.

Trust me, we do not want to have to two rigs, one to play with nVidia propietary game additions and one with AMD's additions, but this is what nVidia claims is best for their customers. Come on, its ridiculous and goes against any commen sense for what's best for driving innovation in the gaming community.

Excellent post, and I bolded what I think is the most important part. Platforms need to be open and cheap or they'll never see development, and as stated, NVIDIA is just being greedy and trying to control a market. From a business standpoint, it's a completely logical venture, but from a gamer standpoint it's bullshit and they're ruining my hobby. I'm glad PhysX is tanking as much as it is.

If AMD was smart, and so far they seem to be, they'll hire a ton of programmers over the next year and really kick their software development into overdrive. After some rough years with the recovery from AMD buying ATI, they have some pretty great hardware available. Assuming this trend continues (who knows though, the 6xxx series could suck), if they really get their drivers to top notch quality as well as all the features they add (Eyefinity, etc.), the next thing I would think they would focus on would be a physics solution. Hopefully they keep it to an open standard (OpenCL etc., dunno if I used the correct lingo there). Now if they develop a physics API catered to their architecture and it performs exceptionally well on it, well, that makes business sense, but it should still be open for everyone to use, even if it's unoptimized.

However, this may not be the case. As it is now, we have a ton of idle CPU power but most of the time graphics cards are already maxed. This is the fundamental flaw with running GPU-based physics solutions. Yes, the GPU may be better suited for calculating some types of physics, but if they're already being push to the max rendering graphics, GPU-physics will just hurt FPS more. Most PhysX reviews show FPS tanking when PhysX is enabled on the GPU, which is pretty ironic. And, as others have mentioned, as implemented currently, PhysX is a complete joke. It adds nothing to games and anything it does add could be rendered on a CPU with minimal macroscopic differences.

 

[konakona]

Can people stop calling everything they don't agree with socialism or communism? Its all just business decisions, there should be no place in the graphics section for politics.

strangely though, I have had a weird feeling that staunchly diehard nvidia fans also happen to be ultra conservative. Maybe just me, but that's how some of the noticeable figures here are from what I gathered. So if you are a flaming liberal and nvdia for life, feel free to step up and prove me wrong

Someone even went as far to portray AMD as some sort of axis of evil for being funded by an Abu Dhabi firm in a AMD-bash-thon.

 

[Wreckage]

As an avid gamer who likes being able to buy the best price/performance GPU, I think that the sooner Physx dies the better. nVidia has done a disservice to the gaming community by trying to divide it via Physx.

You are basically saying "the sooner new technology dies the better".

Without NVIDIA we would still be waiting for advanced physics. Not to mention 3D and a host of other technologies they keep bringing out.

I'm glad at least one company has stones to push the industry forward instead of waiting (and waiting and waiting) for someone to do it for them.

NVIDIA has saved PC gaming.

 

[toyota]

You are basically saying "the sooner new technology dies the better".

Without NVIDIA we would still be waiting for advanced physics. Not to mention 3D and a host of other technologies they keep bringing out.

I'm glad at least one company has stones to push the industry forward instead of waiting (and waiting and waiting) for someone to do it for them.

NVIDIA has saved PC gaming.

you are hilarious. we dont really have advanced physics with physx. we got some effects that most of which can easily be done from Havok or anybody else without cutting the frame rate in half. besides more interactive smoke/fog and more realistic cloth simulation physx hasnt added shit to pc gaming.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I was cautiously excited when amd started talking about bullet... but as far as I know they haven't really progressed anywhere near actually having it in games. So for the forseeable future physx is the only thing that's going to push physics past what CPUs can currently handle. I have to laugh when people talk about "good enough" like PC gaming has ever been about making things good enough.

 

[SirPauly]

imho,

Don't understand how thinking if PhysX wasn't offered or dies will somehow make GPU Physics shine more. It is the chaos, division and fragmentation of proprietary that brings innovation, choice and competition............then hopefully open standards are formed to mature to force the proprietary feature to become a faded memory.

By nVidia offering PhysX -- forces AMD to try to offer some competition for the feature through their open source projects. With both trying to bring something to the table forces the industry, developers and the consumer to take notice and become more aware.

Don't understand this utopia or idealistic view where every one has to wait for open standards to offer a feature and having the same exact experience. If one is willing to invest and risk in areas -- good for them. If some don't desire to wait to offer features and sees proprietary as an opportunity to innovate and differentiate -- good for them.

PhysX doesn't exist or is dead right now -- how has your ATI gaming experience improved? What did it take away? The experience would be the same with or without PhysX. Then why all the drama?

 

[linkgoron]

You are basically saying "the sooner new technology dies the better".

Without NVIDIA we would still be waiting for advanced physics. Not to mention 3D and a host of other technologies they keep bringing out.

I'm glad at least one company has stones to push the industry forward instead of waiting (and waiting and waiting) for someone to do it for them.

NVIDIA has saved PC gaming.

What are you talking about? What advanced physics title have we seen from PhysX? Seriously, Half life 2 from 7 years ago had better physics than most games today. including anything PhysX (Batman AA or any other game).

I'm talking about GAMEPLAY CHANGING EFFECT. Not some flying newspapers. GAMEPLAY CHANGING. NONE. NOT ONE. I haven't seen physx do anything that hasn't been done before. I've also seen features moved to physx from cpu just for the sake of marketing.

How is a company that blocks out competition (Batman and anti-aliasing, and ATI+Nvidia PPU) doing anything except advancing itself? I also remember the GTX 260/280 prices, before ATi brought out the 4XXX series.

How about the G92 that are supposed to re-branded yet again to the 3XX series (or were? I might've missed it).This is what? the third generation that they've re-branded these chips? fourth?

Last I've seen ATI were the first with a dx11 (and 10.1) cards. or eyefinity. Or is that not pushing the industry forward? a sound-chip on card etc.

nVidia Saved PC gaming? WTF. Physx isn't even a PC feature, and is related to gaming in general and not specifically to PC gaming.
I'd say online gaming services (ie STEAM) have done much more than physx (or any feature from ati too).

The only thing nvidia is pushing the marketing department.
I don't even know why I'm replaying to your post. I know your history...

</rant>

BTW, I'd say ATi is obviously also advancing themselves mainly, but I feel that nVidia is taking a much more anti-competitive approach

 

[Dark Shroud]

imho,

Don't understand how thinking if PhysX wasn't offered or dies will somehow make GPU Physics shine more. It is the chaos, division and fragmentation of proprietary that brings innovation, choice and competition............then hopefully open standards are formed to mature to force the proprietary feature to become a faded memory.

By nVidia offering PhysX -- forces AMD to try to offer some competition for the feature through their open source projects. With both trying to bring something to the table forces the industry, developers and the consumer to take notice and become more aware.

Don't understand this utopia or idealistic view where every one has to wait for open standards to offer a feature and having the same exact experience. If one is willing to invest and risk in areas -- good for them. If some don't desire to wait to offer features and sees proprietary as an opportunity to innovate and differentiate -- good for them.

PhysX doesn't exist or is dead right now -- how has your ATI gaming experience improved? What did it take away? The experience would be the same with or without PhysX. Then why all the drama?

It's not so much the PhysX its self that many of us have problems with. It's what Nvidia is doing with PhysX that is making people angry.

I don't care that Nvidia own PhysX the same way I don't care that Intel owns Havok. It doesn't even upset me that PhysX hardware decoding is only done on Nvidia cards, that's just business. Though I think it's foolish, Nvidia could make money selling hardware decoding licenses to ATI & probably Intel down the road. ATI meanwhile is getting chummy with Havok & Bullet.

The real issue is that Nvidia's software now scans our systems to see if ATI hardware is present. I take issue with that alone as a privacy issue. But that the fact that they will disable PhysX hardware decoding on any Nvidia cards we've purchased if an ATI card is present is total garbage.

They lost sales from me there and I will not buy their cards any time soon until that changes.

 

[zerocool84]

You are basically saying "the sooner new technology dies the better".

Without NVIDIA we would still be waiting for advanced physics. Not to mention 3D and a host of other technologies they keep bringing out.

I'm glad at least one company has stones to push the industry forward instead of waiting (and waiting and waiting) for someone to do it for them.

NVIDIA has saved PC gaming.

Yea so much advanced Physics............that's a good one. Come back to me when that happens.

 

[BenSkywalker]

AMD ported Havok to OpenCL

Havok is 100&#37; proprietary fully owned and absolutely controlled by Intel. You think there is a chance of Intel allowing that to happen when they don't have anything that could benefit from it? In any realistic assesment, Intel makes nVidia looks like Linus Trovalds.

Destructable geometry is not an example of physics. Destructable geometry as is seen in BFBC2 needs to be created by artists and scripted to respond in a particular fashion. It is pre generated increasing the development time and costs. A physics based solution allows you to assign material properties to any body and let the physics engine handle how it will end up deforming. Long term there is no doubt that all games will be using physics to handle destruction of objects, that is an obvious given, it's just a matter of getting everyone on board with doing it.

GameplayCards- where do I buy one of these? I'm curious as everyone keeps talking about how they buy this hardware to improve their gameplay experience. For some reason or other I have always ended up buying a graphics card, be it from ATi, 3dfx or nVidia, and so I normally expect a graphics card to improve graphics, but it sounds like these gameplay cards are the way to go, where do I pick one up?

Obviously that part is tongue in cheek, but it is hard to describe how comical it comes across when people lament a graphics card for doing nothing but improving graphics. Seriously, what are you expecting? We do not want perfect real world physics in most games; shooters certainly wouldn't be fun for the overwhelming majority and outside of a group of enthusiasts looking at flight sims/racing sims real world accurate physics isn't something most people would really want to see impact gameplay. More immersive environments are of great benefit however, when we start seeing advanced physics engine as the norm, fully destructable environments become trivial to support in every game. Right now, prohibitive development costs are involved(not incredibly high, but high enough that it needs to be factored in and will prevent it from happening).

On the topic of closed versus open platforms- as a marketplace reality- closed systems are vastly more succesful in the gaming market overall. Even looking at the strongest elements of PC gaming, MMOs, they still are closed off in terms of hosting in game servers yourself etc for obvious reasons. This isn't to say that they are ideal, just that they have certain benefits from a business standpoint and clearly consumers see something in them as they have handily bested the open platforms to date.

In terms of ideal situations for the gaming market overall, I think Bullet is the way to go. An OpenCL based solution that can run across all the gaming platforms allows portability which is a big deal today if we like it or not. As of this moment, PhysX is the only solution that offers better then CPU level performance and console portability. I guess one way to approach that situation is to bash nV for doing something, I'd rather see other people get going with an alternative.

GPU accelerated physics are without a doubt coming to the gaming market as a commonplace element in the not too distant future. Much like hardware T&L, and there were a lot of people who were against that when their company of choice didn't have an alternative, it is going to be so commonplace it won't be worth discussing anymore. The question is one of when, the faster we get broader based support, the sooner that will happen. Hopefully Bullet can help out with this as noone else has shown any real motivation to provide an alternative to PhysX yet. Whatever middleware physics solution ends up being the market leader, hopefully all the players get involved as soon as possible so we can all benefit from the improvements in technology some people so adamantly opposed to at the moment.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I would like to understand this myth that a CPU doing physic calculations returns unrealistic effects and it is all scripted but a GPU doing physic calculations is done in a realistic and there is no scripting.

The advantage of using a GPU to calculate the physics effects is that the GPU is potentially faster than a CPU in those particular calculations, potentially allowing more detailed simulations. Potentially.

It isn't "boo building falling apart using CPU physics - shit cause it is all scripted" and "yay building falling apart exactly the same way using GPU physics - fantastic cause it isn't scripted". They both are scripted and can return exactly the same result.

The results of physics calculations will be as good as their "script" (read the programming). Then you have the question of how fast those calculations can be executed and how fast the results can be presented.

That is when the GPU can take over the CPU - when the CPU is too slow.

Are we in a time where we want more physic effects and the CPU is already taxed? Do devs keep saying "we wanted to add more physics effects but there is no hardware for it"?

Don't we keep reading that "using a quad over a dual core made no difference in this game" over and over?

Only now are we getting games that tax more than 2 cores and 6 cores are arriving. And that is discounting "virtual" cores.

 

[NoQuarter]

strangely though, I have had a weird feeling that staunchly diehard nvidia fans also happen to be ultra conservative. Maybe just me, but that's how some of the noticeable figures here are from what I gathered. So if you are a flaming liberal and nvdia for life, feel free to step up and prove me wrong

Someone even went as far to portray AMD as some sort of axis of evil for being funded by an Abu Dhabi firm in a AMD-bash-thon.

Ohh.. I see, ultra conservative drives gas-guzzling Hummer sending oil money to the middle east, middle east uses oil money to buy AMD stock, ultra conservative bashes AMD for being bought out by middle east

 

[NoQuarter]

Havok is 100% proprietary fully owned and absolutely controlled by Intel. You think there is a chance of Intel allowing that to happen when they don't have anything that could benefit from it? In any realistic assesment, Intel makes nVidia looks like Linus Trovalds.

Intel does benefit from it, Havok is licensed to developers, the more reason the devs have to use Havok the more Intel can sell licenses and support for it.

Destructable geometry is not an example of physics. Destructable geometry as is seen in BFBC2 needs to be created by artists and scripted to respond in a particular fashion. It is pre generated increasing the development time and costs. A physics based solution allows you to assign material properties to any body and let the physics engine handle how it will end up deforming.

I sort of have to disagree with you here, the destructible portion of the geometry is predetermined but the reaction of the elements making up that geometry is determined by the Havok physics collision and destruction routines. Making the buildings partly indestructible was also a gameplay decision, or everyone would just level the whole town.


Any physics solution is of course an approximation of reality, increasing the accuracy of that approximation would seem to increase computational demand exponentially so the question is how accurate does it need to be to simulate reality well enough to fool us in a game?

We seem to get two extremes - either barely passable physics to keep dev time and costs down or far too accurate physics on a select few objects causing such computational demand to have an excuse to use the GPU. If the 'just right' needs GPU acceleration that's fine with me, I just have a feeling that level of physics would run fine on multicore CPU's too.

I think BFBC2 is one of the few games even approaching the 'just right', completely destructible objects would be cool but explosives would completely ruin gameplay at that point. Of course a game with 100% physics based material environment would be pretty sweet but computationally impossible and hard to justify in game design since no stage would survive a 13 year old with a rocket launcher (now it sounds really fun)

 

[Wreckage]

Owning a card without PhyX is like owning a card without DirectX.

 

[zerocool84]

Owning a card without PhyX is like owning a card without DirectX.

sigh.....................

 

[Dark Shroud]

I'm a dumbass.

Fixed that for you.

 

[BenSkywalker]

I would like to understand this myth that a CPU doing physic calculations returns unrealistic effects and it is all scripted but a GPU doing physic calculations is done in a realistic and there is no scripting.

Either a CPU or GPU can do either/or, you can find benches of the CPU running non scripted physics in titles like Batman, I think they push up close to 5fps. In terms of properly identifying what is predetermined, go blow the same building up over and over. If you end up with debris in the same shape and size no matter how you blow it up, it's what most people call scripted. Handling a basic collision detection routine is something current CPUs can reasonably handle as long as the sampling isn't too frequent.

The advantage of using a GPU to calculate the physics effects is that the GPU is potentially faster than a CPU in those particular calculations, potentially allowing more detailed simulations. Potentially.

And a 5970 is potentially faster then a 4550. Potentially. If you run @640x480 on a PentiumD, you won't see it. So potentially a 5970 has an advantage over a 4550.

The results of physics calculations will be as good as their "script" (read the programming).

I don't think you understand what people consider scripted physics. If you shoot a rocket at a wall that has scripted deformation the wall will break at certain points no matter where you hit it. That is what people mean when they say scripted. A 'real' physics based solution will have the wall collapse based on the angle and point of impact. Both of them will then rely on physics calculations as to where the debris falls, the difference is that with 'scripted' physics you will have predefined chunks, with an actual physics simulation you could have thousands of pieces of debris all of varrying size depending on how the wall was hit.

Don't we keep reading that "using a quad over a dual core made no difference in this game" over and over?

We see those comments, but we also see charts where all cores are showing some load. Devs clearly have a ways to go on load balancing between the cores, but when you have a solution that handles all of that for you, it makes it a bit easier. Again, one path requires additional development time, the other not so much.

Intel does benefit from it, Havok is licensed to developers, the more reason the devs have to use Havok the more Intel can sell licenses and support for it.

Havok licensing, surrendering superiority in the lucrative gaming CPU market.... hmmm, don't think that one is going to stand up to the board too easily

I sort of have to disagree with you here, the destructible portion of the geometry is predetermined but the reaction of the elements making up that geometry is determined by the Havok physics collision and destruction routines.

Basic collision detection for scripted deformation. Racing games from ten years ago had more advanced physics simulations, by a long shot, then BFBC2.

We seem to get two extremes - either barely passable physics to keep dev time and costs down or far too accurate physics on a select few objects causing such computational demand to have an excuse to use the GPU. If the 'just right' needs GPU acceleration that's fine with me, I just have a feeling that level of physics would run fine on multicore CPU's too.

Seems like MafiaII is going to offer a pretty good balance judging by the video clip. Hopefully the game itself lives up to its stellar predecessor.

I think BFBC2 is one of the few games even approaching the 'just right'

Use a very basic collision detection routine with a ton of scripted deformation? I guess I just have my hopes far, far higher then that

completely destructible objects would be cool but explosives would completely ruin gameplay at that point.

Two different ways of handling this- first off- ever seen a house that actually had a rocket fired at it? They don't tend to blow to bits, it actually is out of the norm if an entire wall will collapse. While rockets do a considerable amount of damage, they are shockingly OP in terms of environmental damage in almost every game. They could use a more realistic approach to curb the tide of destruction.

The second way of handling it, limit explosive ammo. It isn't like you are going to enter a battlefield at any time and see hundreds of rockets flying around. They are expensive and used sparingly for certain situations and that's it. Obviously if you are going for a story driven linear experience you are going to have to make compromises, either to the flow of your narrative or in terms of level design, but for MP style games it is easily within reason to make terrain completely deformable without having it go over the top if the proper design considerations are taken into account and handled.

 

[NoQuarter]

Havok licensing, surrendering superiority in the lucrative gaming CPU market.... hmmm, don't think that one is going to stand up to the board too easily

Good point, hadn't looked at their incentives fully.. sigh. So Bullet is the only thing not tied up with someone only interested in vendor locking their API..

And yea.. rockets are certainly overdone.. course everyone expects way more from shotguns than reality supports too

 

[badb0y]

Without ATi on board, PhysX is a joke.

 

[Mem]

You are basically saying "the sooner new technology dies the better".

Without NVIDIA we would still be waiting for advanced physics. Not to mention 3D and a host of other technologies they keep bringing out.

I'm glad at least one company has stones to push the industry forward instead of waiting (and waiting and waiting) for someone to do it for them.

NVIDIA has saved PC gaming.

I can't believe you said that Wreckage ,then again anything from you is always so biased towards Nvidia that 95% of members here don't take you seriously, Microsoft started the PC gaming industry with Win95/DX etc.. etc ,as to PhysX I know a lot of gamers including myself don't see it as a must have or important factor.

Btw saying Nvidia is only company pushing the industry forward is an insult to ATI/AMD,Microsoft and the other companies or did you turn a blind eye on them on purpose.

 

[Wreckage]

Microsoft started the PC gaming industry with Win95/DX etc.. etc

They did? Somehow I was able to play games on a PC long before Windows 95. :hmm:

 

[happy medium]

I can't believe you said that Wreckage ,then again anything from you is always so biased towards Nvidia that 95% of members here don't take you seriously, Microsoft started the PC gaming industry with Win95/DX etc.. etc ,as to PhysX I know a lot of gamers including myself don't see it as a must have or important factor.

Btw saying Nvidia is only company pushing the industry forward is an insult to ATI/AMD,Microsoft and the other companies or did you turn a blind eye on them on purpose.

Wasn't Trident the first real gpu's? I can't remember.

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

 

[Mem]

They did? Somehow I was able to play games on a PC long before Windows 95. :hmm:

I played games on Dos too,Win95 set the way for easier gaming and start of DX standard.

 

[Mem]

They did? Somehow I was able to play games on a PC long before Windows 95. :hmm:

I played games on Dos too,Win95 set the way for easier gaming and start of DX standard.

I think the old folks here remember the pure Dos gaming days where you had to play around with having enough type of memory(lower/upper memory etc) for Dos games, Win95 started to change all of that and Windows games/OS rather then Dos made it a lot easier for gamers.