Nvidia PhysX

[veri745]

Has there been any news or anything interesting happening with Nvidia Physx?

I just took a look at the "Supported Games" page on the geforce website, and it looks like there are only 27 games on the list. Unreal Tournament III is the first one listed, and that came out in 2007.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/physx/games

Is that really the entirety of the list?

Also:
Is anything interesting happening with competing physics solutions, from AMD or anybody else?

 

[OCGuy]

Proprietary standards tend to fail in the PC world, minus Macbooks, of course.

Physics is advancing without PhysX, BF4 shows off some of it.

 

[mode101wpb]

Since AMD won the console war, I am sure PhysX will go the way of the Dodo bird, but it does look good in Metro: LL

 

[bystander36]

Since AMD won the console war, I am sure PhysX will go the way of the Dodo bird, but it does look good in Metro: LL

I'm not sure how consoles change PhysX. It'll just continue like it always has. Consoles and PC's will have a basic PhysX engine that runs on the CPU. A few games a year will get some special GPU accelerated PhysX tacked on to it.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Yeah consoles don't really change PhysX, besides it supports both.

 

[RaulF]

I think the new Batman game has it.

Used for fog effect.

 

[veri745]

Wow, ok.

Yeah, I remember being super exciting about the potential that PhysX, Cuda, OpenCL, and DirectCompute could have with improving physics in games.

There are still very few games I've seen that have impressive physics, though.

Kerbal Space Program is pretty neat, although I think it's almost entirely single-body simulations.

Osmos is also really cool, but I'm not sure what physics engine it uses or if there is GPU acceleration.

 

[Carfax83]

I think the new Batman game has it.

Used for fog effect.

Not just fog, but cloth, snow, smoke, particle effects and turbulence..

Assassin's Creed IV will have it as well, a long with Call of Duty Ghosts.

 

[FalseChristian]

It'll never catch on until AMD gets on board which they won't so it's a mute point.

 

[bystander36]

It'll never catch on until AMD gets on board which they won't so it's a mute point.

PhysX is used in tons of games. It is just you don't realize it most the time. The only times we really are aware is when they add on GPU accelerated PhysX. The GPU accelerated part is what doesn't get used much.

 

[parvadomus]

PhysX is used in tons of games. It is just you don't realize it most the time. The only times we really are aware is when they add on GPU accelerated PhysX. The GPU accelerated part is what doesn't get used much.

Which games? Havok is better than PhysX. Propietary stuff always dies sooner or later. Maybe Nvidia ports it to OpenCL some day to not let it die... :sneaky:

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Havok is better than PhysX.

I disagree, but what makes you think Intel's proprietary standard Havok is better than Nvidia's?

 

[Carfax83]

PhysX is used in tons of games. It is just you don't realize it most the time. The only times we really are aware is when they add on GPU accelerated PhysX. The GPU accelerated part is what doesn't get used much.

Exactly. PhysX probably has the widest adoption of any physics engine. Also the GPU accelerated version is being used more, not less; especially in AAA games.

There's really no competition for PhysX right now, as it's the most feature packed and flexible physics engine out there.

 

[bystander36]

Which games? Havok is better than PhysX. Propietary stuff always dies sooner or later. Maybe Nvidia ports it to OpenCL some day to not let it die... :sneaky:

http://physxinfo.com/index.php?p=gam&f=all

You obviously are not aware, but PhysX runs on the CPU the vast majority of the time. You seem to only be aware of GPU accelerated PhysX.

That shows 445 released games with PhysX, and 30 in production. 26 have GPU accelerated PhysX, with 10 more in production.

 

[Pseudoics]

The new Batman looks fantastic with all the PhysX fluff, perhaps the best implementation I've seen. Possibly because those effects really suit the theme of a Batman game.

It's also very demanding of my lowly 760 in some areas, but i'm calling unoptimised.

 

[Phynaz]

The key number being the 26 that have GPU PhysX.

Pretty much makes it a flop.

 

[bystander36]

The key number being the 26 that have GPU PhysX.

Pretty much makes it a flop.

That makes GPU-PhysX a flop...or at least modestly used. The part that was interesting to me, at least, was there are 10 currently in development.

It does not make PhysX a flop, as it has been in over 400 games.

 

[parvadomus]

I disagree, but what makes you think Intel's proprietary standard Havok is better than Nvidia's?

Its well multithreaded, and I have personally tested both, and also Bulletphysics.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Must be why there were 3 PC titles in all of 2013 so far that used it.

 

[blastingcap]

I could be wrong, but I think OP was referring to GPU-accelerated PhysX, not to games that merely use PhysX. Else we'd be talking about stuff like Havok too. If OP comes back, maybe he could shed some light.

 

[bystander36]

To be fair, Havok's physics is more like CPU PhysX, at least in most cases. And CPU PhysX has been well multithreaded in more recent titles. In its early versions, it was suspected that dev's, by Nvidia request, did not turn on its multithreading abilities.

 

[RaulF]

The new Batman looks fantastic with all the PhysX fluff, perhaps the best implementation I've seen. Possibly because those effects really suit the theme of a Batman game.

It's also very demanding of my lowly 760 in some areas, but i'm calling unoptimised.

Call it what you like, but plenty of people have stated the physx is a resource hog every time is used. Yeah it looks pretty, but at a price.

 

[mindbomb]

way more than game that use some type of opencl physics atm

 

[Carfax83]

Its well multithreaded, and I have personally tested both, and also Bulletphysics.

You couldn't have tested PhysX 3.x.. That had extensive SSEn and multithreading optimizations added to the SDK.

Only the older versions lack inherent multithreading, but the option is still available for devs that want to implement it.

 

[veri745]

http://physxinfo.com/index.php?p=gam&f=all

You obviously are not aware, but PhysX runs on the CPU the vast majority of the time. You seem to only be aware of GPU accelerated PhysX.

That shows 445 released games with PhysX, and 30 in production. 26 have GPU accelerated PhysX, with 10 more in production.

I was not fully aware; thanks for the link. However, I am mostly interested in hardware acceleration (GPU/PPU). Does the software-only PhysX API provide mutli-threading capability? How much parallelism can you achieve without GPU acceleration using PhysX?

I could be wrong, but I think OP was referring to GPU-accelerated PhysX, not to games that merely use PhysX. Else we'd be talking about stuff like Havok too. If OP comes back, maybe he could shed some light.

I am not too familar with Havok as an API. I would pose the same questions basically about it. How much parallelism can be achieved?

Overall, I am not too concerned about one API vs another. I just recall all the huge promises of physics acceleration using either the GPU or a highly-multithreaded CPU, and this was like 6-7 years ago.

Multi-body physics simulation, fluid dynamics, destructible / dynamic environments. There are still so few games that showcase any of these.