Physx - Are you interested in it? Have your say! VOTE!

[BoFox]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Havok, Crytek, Infernal Velocity etcetera are ALL proprietary.

Might want to look up what the word means.

Also, the effects used in those engines are basically standard fare, and don't begin to approach the level of complexity and realism that PhysX is capable of.

Argh, my pedantic bubble of semantics was bursted! (What I meant was the non-exclusive nature of other engines, rather than proprietary) Until there is a game that is actually built from the ground up with PhysX rather than it being a tack-on, it has proven time and time again to be a mere add-on gimmick compared to what well-written CPU-based algorithms can do with general game physics.

The emphasis of PhysX's unbalanced grandeur is just an argument in the wind for now - receiving the same kind of notoriety as TressFX for example, due to its extremely unbalanced demanding nature with the rest of the game (but worse due to its exclusive nature that some game developers cave in to).

Looking at this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Jkt7hSsrU

First shown on the AMD “Codename: Spider” platform, the demo shows off a new lighting technique known as real-time global illumination, together with a scalable physics simulation optimized for multi-core systems.

without peeking at exactly how many calculations per second it took, an untrained eye could think that it were PhysX due to its extravagant (and albeit stuttery) nature if one did not know it were AMD's own Ping Pong demo.

Point is, Nvidia's PhysX has never ever really amounted to more GAME-FILLED SUBSTANCE than what Ageia demonstrated with GRAW for instance, many years ago - all for one compelling reason. So far, PhysX has been just that.

Then we have flexible DC and OpenCL as a standard of DX11.
http://bulletphysics.org/wordpress/?p=340

There just has never been very much in PhysX, and there's not really any more future in PhysX than there ever was.

 

[cmdrdredd]

We know what it means but the point is in general most people are not noticing or not caring, at least the scripted stuff looks similar and a bonus of physical game change properties and that part people are noticing more.

So because you say it sometimes looks the same that physics doesn't matter now?

This is just getting farcical now. Physics calculations can be so much more realistic, calculating for the impact of an explosive projectile, the angle of impact, the wind pushing debris and smoke, and it can change depending on these factors during your gameplay. The fact that you don't care or are some how ignorant of the fact that you're watching a scripted event doesn't change the impact of real physics on actual gameplay when used to the fullest degree. I'm not saying it was ever used to this effect but it can be. Emphasis on the can be. If we all somehow shut down GPU physics before it's had a chance to develope, grow, expand, and build upon a foundation, we will be left with what exactly? Character models that bounce around like a super bounce ball when you brush up against it? Unrealistic smoke that doesn't react to any movement? Purely scripted events that don't change. Imagine shooting a box and it breaks a certain way, then imagine shooting the box from the other side and it breaks apart as if you shot it from the front. That breaks immersion and is just pitiful but it's what we will be stuck with because it will be rendered and coded to do a certain thing when impacted with a weapon. It will never react to your direction, the strength of the hit etc.

 

[BoFox]

PhysX is like having 64x OMG-SuperDuperSSAA with 256x TR-SSAA alpha coverage samples on just the main character alone while everything else in the game is blurried with FXAA and Xbox360-quality textures.

No thanks - I'd take a more balanced approach anyday.

 

[cmdrdredd]

PhysX is like having 64x OMG-SuperDuperSSAA with 256x TR-SSAA alpha coverage samples on just the main character alone while everything else in the game is blurried with FXAA and Xbox360-quality textures.

No thanks - I'd take a more balanced approach anyday.

Do you even read your posts before you submit them or just randomly type stuff in the box?

How is anything you said remotely accurate or even relevant? I'd really like to know that.

 

[Deders]

PhysX is like having 64x OMG-SuperDuperSSAA with 256x TR-SSAA alpha coverage samples on just the main character alone while everything else in the game is blurried with FXAA and Xbox360-quality textures.

No thanks - I'd take a more balanced approach anyday.

It's nothing like that, It actually runs quite smoothly on decent hardware, and has come a long way from the early days.

 

[Final8ty]

So because you say it sometimes looks the same that physics doesn't matter now?

This is just getting farcical now. Physics calculations can be so much more realistic, calculating for the impact of an explosive projectile, the angle of impact, the wind pushing debris and smoke, and it can change depending on these factors during your gameplay. The fact that you don't care or are some how ignorant of the fact that you're watching a scripted event doesn't change the impact of real physics on actual gameplay when used to the fullest degree. I'm not saying it was ever used to this effect but it can be. Emphasis on the can be. If we all somehow shut down GPU physics before it's had a chance to develope, grow, expand, and build upon a foundation, we will be left with what exactly? Character models that bounce around like a super bounce ball when you brush up against it? Unrealistic smoke that doesn't react to any movement? Purely scripted events that don't change. Imagine shooting a box and it breaks a certain way, then imagine shooting the box from the other side and it breaks apart as if you shot it from the front. That breaks immersion and is just pitiful but it's what we will be stuck with because it will be rendered and coded to do a certain thing when impacted with a weapon. It will never react to your direction, the strength of the hit etc.

The debate is not what it can/could do, we don't need a lesson in that, we have read already of the possibilities, it's about what is being done is what some are unimpressed with.

 

[Keysplayr]

The debate is not what it can/could do, we don't need a lesson in that, we have read already of the possibilities, it's about what is being done is what some are unimpressed with.

"It's not what you thought it was. It's something else." <-- is what your posts ring with.

Well you know what? Now it's part of the debate, because facets of what it can and could do should factor in the impression it leaves users.
You can keep narrowing the argument down (or try to again) til you've reached your comfort level, but you aren't the one to dictate just what can and can't be included in a debate. It factors in. So it gets to be discussed.

 

[Final8ty]

"It's not what you thought it was. It's something else." <-- is what your posts ring with.

Well you know what? Now it's part of the debate, because facets of what it can and could do should factor in the impression it leaves users.
You can keep narrowing the argument down (or try to again) til you've reached your comfort level, but you aren't the one to dictate just what can and can't be included in a debate. It factors in. So it gets to be discussed.

Yes other facets can be brought in but they have to be in the right context when they are used in reply as and answer when the quote was not about that facet at all which was addressing something else and had been addressed.
Its another thing altogether when what could is just made as a comment which they have been..

The what could does factor initially but over time that impression is gone when its not delivered.
My thought of Physx was very different in the beginning but it has not delivered so what it could be has little relevance if it never going to be.

What is most relevant at the moment is what has been delivered because the could could be never.

 

[DominionSeraph]

I'd be less likely to buy a game if it used PhysX because, unless you have a dedicated card, there's no guarantee of a playable framerate. With developers being paid to leave out effects we've had since the 1990's in favor of a proprietary implementation, I'd be rewarding them possibly giving me less so they can drive an artificial difference designed to get me to line Nvidia's pockets purchasing upgrades I shouldn't need.

If your title in 2013 is designed to be missing effects that Shogo had in 1998 unless I throw a good chunk of my GPU at it... no thanks. There's no excuse for that.

 

[Keysplayr]

Yes other facets can be brought in but they have to be in the right context when they are used in reply when the quote was not about that facet at all which was addressing something else and had been addressed.
Its another thing altogether when what could is just made as a comment which they have been..

The what could does factor initially but over time that impression is gone when its not delivered.
My thought of Physx was very different in the beginning but it has not delivered so what it could be has little relevance if it never go to be.

You cant keep replying with well it could do if in reply to everything.

Are you doing this on purpose with your sentences? You are usually very well articulated in "text". Because seriously, I am having no luck following your run on sentences with random words thrown in for good measure. It's almost "bot" like. Would you stop please? Thanks.

 

[BoFox]

It's nothing like that, It actually runs quite smoothly on decent hardware, and has come a long way from the early days.

One of the more impressive games to use PhysX was Alice : Madness Returns.

At around 5:00 in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1sI8ovRIFY
, you could see the awesome broken tiles on the floor. (These broken tiles could probably still be done at least 90% as impressively on the CPU with a well-written algorithm.)

However, on the other hand, one cannot help but notice that the dynamic hair does not need GPU-based PhysX.

Edit - anyway, it's just a strawman in the face of Red Faction Armageddon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHKPW49BdBI

 

[Final8ty]

Are you doing this on purpose with your sentences? You are usually very well articulated in "text". Because seriously, I am having no luck following your run on sentences with random words thrown in for good measure. It's almost "bot" like. Would you stop please? Thanks.

Yes i make lots of typos, most people can work it out.

 

[BoFox]

Do you even read your posts before you submit them or just randomly type stuff in the box?

How is anything you said remotely accurate or even relevant? I'd really like to know that.

I'd really like to know a game where the clothes move around dynamically, where the flag waves in the wind, where the hair is more life-like than what could be done in Alice: Madness Returns if it were GPU-based PhsyX, where all the towers/buildings come crashing down so precisely like in Red Faction Armageddon, where the barrels stack up nicely and blow each other up on a massive scale like in Crysis, where the fires burn the trees so beautifully in Far Cry 2, where there is dynamic smoke and fog rising up and about realistically, where there is complex rag-doll physics like in 3DMark2003, dynamically moving hair in 3DMark2001 (12 years ago to be exact), with the same kind of rag-doll physics by using the gravity gun in Half Life 2 to pick up a dead man by the ankle and throw him around in an accurate, life-like environment with 9.8m/s^2 gravity and mass and air density calculations...

ALL OF THE ABOVE (and more) without bogging down the fps count to 25fps on a decent GPU like GTX 660 just because of one stupid waving flag taking up billions/trillions/ga-zillions of calculations. I'd just prefer a well-rounded game with more than just a couple gimmicky PhysX add-ons - that has most of interactive objects in the environment powered by GPU physics rather than just a select few components "here and there".

That's why it's like NFS: Hot Pursuit's implementation of MSAA being only on the car itself, while nothing else in the environment is being anti-aliased even though the MSAA option was enabled in the in-game menu. It just leaves a bitter-sweet taste in the mouth, when one realizes how much sweeter things could have been if things were just a tad bit more balanced overall.

Edit-
Crytek, the elite game designer, would not touch PhysX with a 10-foot pole even if Nvidia offered as much help as humanely possible from NV's PhysX team - who knows how much $$ Nvidia offered for Crysis 3 (such a killer app that NV was no doubt drooling after) to implement PhysX....

 

[Deders]

If your title in 2013 is designed to be missing effects that Shogo had in 1998 unless I throw a good chunk of my GPU at it... no thanks. There's no excuse for that.

I think things have moved on a little since then. Most developers do put in non PhysX versions of effects nowadays.

 

[cmdrdredd]

The debate is not what it can/could do, we don't need a lesson in that, we have read already of the possibilities, it's about what is being done is what some are unimpressed with.

It's gotta start somewhere and nobody else is trying very hard are they? Havok is a joke with it's so called "ragdoll physics" have you seen how bodies react in Dark Souls for example?

 

[cmdrdredd]

I'd really like to know a game where the clothes move around dynamically, where the flag waves in the wind, where the hair is more life-like than what could be done in Alice: Madness Returns if it were GPU-based PhsyX, where all the towers/buildings come crashing down so precisely like in Red Faction Armageddon, where the barrels stack up nicely and blow each other up on a massive scale like in Crysis, where the fires burn the trees so beautifully in Far Cry 2, where there is dynamic smoke and fog rising up and about realistically, where there is complex rag-doll physics like in 3DMark2003, dynamically moving hair in 3DMark2001 (12 years ago to be exact), with the same kind of rag-doll physics by using the gravity gun in Half Life 2 to pick up a dead man by the ankle and throw him around in an accurate, life-like environment with 9.8m/s^2 gravity and mass and air density calculations...

ALL OF THE ABOVE (and more) without bogging down the fps count to 25fps on a decent GPU like GTX 660 just because of one stupid waving flag taking up billions/trillions/ga-zillions of calculations. I'd just prefer a well-rounded game with more than just a couple gimmicky PhysX add-ons - that has most of interactive objects in the environment powered by GPU physics rather than just a select few components "here and there".

That's why it's like NFS: Hot Pursuit's implementation of MSAA being only on the car itself, while nothing else in the environment is being anti-aliased even though the MSAA option was enabled in the in-game menu. It just leaves a bitter-sweet taste in the mouth, when one realizes how much sweeter things could have been if things were just a tad bit more balanced overall.

Edit-
Crytek, the elite game designer, would not touch PhysX with a 10-foot pole even if Nvidia offered as much help as humanely possible from NV's PhysX team - who knows how much $$ Nvidia offered for Crysis 3 (such a killer app that NV was no doubt drooling after) to implement PhysX....

Rag doll physics is supposed to be realistic? You think FarCry2 does fire realistically as well? Have you ever witnessed a fire? It's nothing like that game at all. It's too static in the game. Red Faction is all scripted. Yeah you blow a hole there but where's the debris field? The rocks falling and rolling around ? The smoke that billows out of the explosion and shifts around? It's nowhere to be found.

Then you claim Crytek is an "elite game designer" oh boy...sure they can make a game that looks nice but the game itself...lets just say it's not that great when you actually play it.

Why change the subject to MSAA? That's got no relevance here.

 

[Final8ty]

It's gotta start somewhere and nobody else is trying very hard are they? Havok is a joke with it's so called "ragdoll physics" have you seen how bodies react in Dark Souls for example?

What do you mean start, PhysX has been out long enough for the word start not to apply.
Yes there are some good implementations of Havok and some bad ones.

 

[BoFox]

Rag doll physics is supposed to be realistic? You think FarCry2 does fire realistically as well? Have you ever witnessed a fire? It's nothing like that game at all. It's too static in the game. Red Faction is all scripted. Yeah you blow a hole there but where's the debris field? The rocks falling and rolling around ? The smoke that billows out of the explosion and shifts around? It's nowhere to be found.

Then you claim Crytek is an "elite game designer" oh boy...sure they can make a game that looks nice but the game itself...lets just say it's not that great when you actually play it.

Why change the subject to MSAA? That's got no relevance here.

Bottom line is - I'd just prefer a game that has all of the above (POTENTIAL) implementations of physics using a wise management of "mild" PhysX resources altogether for a fully/realistically immersive and interactive environment that is more believable than a silly one with 2-3 PhsyX objects taking up mind-boggling amounts of GPU resources.

Just more balance, that's all, for a far more well-rounded experience... that's what really contributes to a good game that is more than just a tech demo showing off the water or the smoke.

BTW, for the sake of this marvelous argument - I meant Crytek is one of the elite game ENGINE designers. There ya go.. Also, the taste in my mouth from most PhysX games just happens to be like the feeling I get with drastically limited application of MSAA in certain games - it's like having really low-resolution textures in Just Cause 2, a game that also shows off extreme CUDA capabilities on water and light filtering. Half-baked environments can hardly ever hold a candle to a well-done environment overall.

The same goes for any movie out there - everything has to be great (and balanced as well) - if one actor is so good that other actors really start to look like retarded crap in comparison, then it upsets the overall quality of the movie. That's why everything needs to be built from the ground up with PhysX in mind, powering as many things as possible in the game rather than just a few.

 

[Final8ty]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxRdZqqYfrU

System Specs:

- CPU: Intel Core i7 CPU 930 @ 2,8 GHz
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480
- RAM: 4096 MB RAM
- DirectX Version: DirectX 11
- Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
- Monitor Model: Philips 190S
water looks a bit jelley

 

[sweenish]

I voted nice extra, even though my recently bought card is the first one I've owned with the capability. I haven't played any games that utilize it yet.

My opinion may change.

 

[DominionSeraph]

I think things have moved on a little since then. Most developers do put in non PhysX versions of effects nowadays.

Go to the PhysX thread and the fanbois will be glad to show you how "PhysX off" means the game can't manage particle effects, decals, lighting effects, or screen flash. All for the glory of PhysX!

 

[Carfax83]

I didn't lay blame on anyone, I merely pointed out that it is fairly common in some GPU PhysX games. It doesn't matter what the reason is, the fact it happens is the salient point. I also didn't mention anything about the missing effects needing to be dynamic, just present.

Fair enough.

Without proof you are offering nothing but an assumption and pure speculation. The fact is that no matter what PhysX is capable off it has never went beyond some extra debris, smoke or cloth effects that do not fundamentally affect the game play. It's the same as TressFX, it adds a bit of extra eye candy at a substantial performance impact. It's nice to have but it isn't game changing, at least with TressFX everyone has the option of trying it.

I figured this was common knowledge. Whenever an object is destroyed or damaged in a game, unless the change is registered in memory or to hard disk or SSD, then it won't remain destroyed.

You see the same thing with dead bodies. You kill a bunch of guys, and then seconds (or minutes) later, their bodies miraculously disappear.

This is done to save memory like I said, because for the change to become permanent, it would have to be saved to hard disk....or at least to memory until the gaming session ends.

So unless destroying or damaging the object is part of the plot or something, it's not going to be a permanent change.

Do you find it strange that not one single game has adopted PhysX for calculating flight/car physics models or damage models? Should I take it from this fact that it purely because the devs wanted to save memory? Or should I go ahead and believe it's because PhysX simply can't do those kind of complex calculations?

Um, Mafia 2 uses PhysX and it has tons of cars. In fact, you spend most of the game driving around Empire Bay.. And lets not forget ARMA 3, which has helicopters, tanks and God knows what else.

And what makes you think PhysX can't do those calculations anyway? Especially when a GPU is so much more powerful than a CPU?

Fluid dynamics is one of the most complex and demanding physics, have you ever seen fluids being simulated in a game using the CPU?

Or should I accept the commonly accepted reason, that it's because PhysX is proprietary and no sane developer would deliberately eliminate ~40% of their potential sales? PhysX may have the capability to produce the most amazing physics possible, the problem is that this potential has never been realised because it is proprietary. It is for this simple reason that PhysX has always been and always will be add nothing but simple eye candy.

PhysX is proprietary, DirectCompute is proprietary, Havok is proprietary and the list goes on.

There is not a single physics engine that isn't proprietary.

I get your meaning though, that PhysX is limited to eye candy. However, that does not mean it's not relevant or important.

The most strenuous and intensive physics are often eye candy physics, ie cloth, fluid, smoke, fog etcetera..

It's still real physics no matter what way you slice it because it's being mathematically simulated by the GPU.

 

[Carfax83]

Thanks for the info but I am using the latest separate Physx installer. I just have to accept that even a GTX780 can't do PhysX at 2560x1600 without an unacceptable (IMHO) performance hit.

Deders made a good suggestion. Check to see if SSAA is enabled, as that is the biggest performance hog in the game.

A GTX 780 should be able to handle the game maxed out at 1600p with SSAA disabled according to HardOCP

 

[Carfax83]

Argh, my pedantic bubble of semantics was bursted! (What I meant was the non-exclusive nature of other engines, rather than proprietary) Until there is a game that is actually built from the ground up with PhysX rather than it being a tack-on, it has proven time and time again to be a mere add-on gimmick compared to what well-written CPU-based algorithms can do with general game physics.

Examples? I'd honestly like to see what you find so impressive about "well written CPU based algorithms."

And simulated fog, cloth, fog, fluid etcetera aren't gimmicks. Real physics is being calculated by the GPU to make these effects possible, so I don't see how you could call that a gimmick.

If anything, scripted animations are gimmicks because it's just a graphical effect with no physics computation..

Point is, Nvidia's PhysX has never ever really amounted to more GAME-FILLED SUBSTANCE than what Ageia demonstrated with GRAW for instance, many years ago - all for one compelling reason. So far, PhysX has been just that.

Right, it hasn't amounted to anything yet it's being adopted by more and more developers, and being featured in more and more AAA titles..

It would be more accurate to say that it hasn't fulfilled it's potential..

Then we have flexible DC and OpenCL as a standard of DX11.
http://bulletphysics.org/wordpress/?p=340

LOL, and how many games use bulletphysics for game physics?

Name some..

There just has never been very much in PhysX, and there's not really any more future in PhysX than there ever was.

PhysX being integrated in the Unreal Engine 4, and being used in Witcher 3, Call of Duty Ghosts, Planetside 2, Everquest Next, Batman Arkham Origins begs to differ with you..

 

[Jaydip]

He is asking about basic particle effects that have been removed entirely from some GPU PhysX enabled games if you use PhysX off. To be honest most GPU enabled Physx games do give a PhysX low setting which would be CPU only. Though clearly there are occasions when even rudimentary effects that could easily be rendered on the CPU are missing entirely.

Sparks
Smoke
Fog

I am currently running a GTX780 because I got it for a very good price after selling my 2x 7950s. Not once did the idea that I could use PhysX come into my decision to purchase it. It's nice to have and is definitely a welcome option, it just isn't a deciding factor for me and obviously many others. If Keys was correct in his mistaken assumption that everyone wants PhysX then AMD would never, ever sell a single GPU.

That's what I am saying, there are some computational stuffs which run way faster in GPU.I also don't believe this conspiracy theory that NV removed some basic effects on purpose to make Physx look good.Every GPU vendor will try to play according to it's own strengths, there is nothing unfair about that.I will not cry foul if TressFx runs better on AMD hardware.I like GPU Physx, I would not play Bl2 if Physx was missing.Some of the games where I enjoy GPU Physx includes Mafia 2(to some extent), Batman AC(probably best implementation).Does everybody care for it , hell no, if you don't like it just turn it off.