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

[BoFox]

My proof is the console version. In multiplatform games, the base gameplay remains the same regardless of whether you're playing on PC, Xbox 360 or PS3.

However the gaming experience can differ among the platforms. For example, Xbox 360 version may have slightly higher frame rates with less lag and dips than the PS3, and the PC version typically has far higher frame rates than both consoles, as well as higher IQ..

Also, developers can implement PC specific technology which doesn't alter gameplay, but impacts subjective qualities like immersion, enjoyment etcetera...

Examples include EyeFinity, TressFX, GPU PhysX, 3D Vision etcetera..

So these technologies aren't obviously included in the base version of the game, and support has to be implemented. So if there is interactive fog or smoke in a certain location in Batman Arkham City with GPU PhysX enabled, yet no fog or smoke was present in the console or base version, then it was implemented by the NVidia software engineers working in concert with the game developers.

But with PhysX becoming more and more flexible with different levels of PhysX and greater CPU optimization, we are starting to see less of these problems. Modern PhysX games will run the advanced PhysX on the CPU if the switch is enabled and no CUDA GPU is present.

So AMD users are not technically getting left out anymore. They can still run these effects, it will just be much slower...and probably not worth the effort unless they have a hybrid setup.

In regard to the part of your above quote that I bolded in red,

Well, at least in Batman: Arkham Asylum the Xbox360 version had environmental fog intact whereas the PC version without GPU Physx had fog REMOVED altogether. This complete removal of environmental fog (regardless of whether it was interactive or non-interactive) made the game look unacceptably bland IMHO.

Keep in mind that Xbox360 had far less resources, weaker hardware, and Xenos - an ATI-based GPU rather than Nvidia's.

That was horrible for Radeon gamers- even for those with a secondary Nvidia card in their rig as Nvidia declined to support them altogether.

 

[taltamir]

In regard to the part of your above quote that I bolded in red,

Well, at least in Batman: Arkham Asylum the Xbox360 version had environmental fog intact whereas the PC version without GPU Physx had fog REMOVED altogether. This complete removal of environmental fog (regardless of whether it was interactive or non-interactive) made the game look unacceptably bland IMHO.

Keep in mind that Xbox360 had far less resources, weaker hardware, and Xenos - an ATI-based GPU rather than Nvidia's.

That was horrible for Radeon gamers- even for those with a secondary Nvidia card in their rig as Nvidia declined to support them altogether.

Not just fog, cloth flags for example flapped in the wind. without physics the flags were removed instead of being replaced by solid non flapping flags.
It happens quite often in flagship physX titles where nvidia paid off a developer

 

[BoFox]

Yeah, the same goes for Mirror's Edge - the hanging sheets of cloth or plastic were completely REMOVED, along with other objects like steam from the water. EDIT- I'm not sure about the console version of ME, but still, these objects could have been easily rendered by the developer as simple transparent static meshes - almost just as easy as it is to implement the PhysX logo.

 

[Teizo]

Speaking of phys-x....with batman coming out, I have an old GT 240. Would it be better to let my 760 do all the phys-x, my i5 (which right now the Nvidia control panel says to defer to the 760), or use it (the GT 240) as a dedicated phys-x card?

 

[BoFox]

GT 240, to help your GTX 760???

I don't know if you'd be able to tell a difference. The frame rate during "resource-consuming PhysX moments" might be only like 5-10% higher, but then I don't know about the frame time measurements. A gut feeling tells me that it might actually introduce some more stutter than with just the 760 alone.

 

[Deders]

Yeah, the same goes for Mirror's Edge - the hanging sheets of cloth or plastic were completely REMOVED, along with other objects like steam from the water. EDIT- I'm not sure about the console version of ME, but still, these objects could have been easily rendered by the developer as simple transparent static meshes - almost just as easy as it is to implement the PhysX logo.

Might have been a tad unrealistic if you had to walk through solid plastic

Speaking of phys-x....with batman coming out, I have an old GT 240. Would it be better to let my 760 do all the phys-x, my i5 (which right now the Nvidia control panel says to defer to the 760), or use it (the GT 240) as a dedicated phys-x card?

Post Fermi shaders are much better than previous generations at handling PhysX. It's worth trying but I expect you'll see better framerates just by letting the 760 handle it all.

 

[Teizo]

Ok, thanks guys. I may give it a try. I had a feeling it was a bit too old to do any good really, but the tinkerer in me thought maybe to give it a go.

Appreciate the insight.

 

[BoFox]

Might have been a tad unrealistic if you had to walk through solid plastic



Post Fermi shaders are much better than previous generations at handling PhysX. It's worth trying but I expect you'll see better framerates just by letting the 760 handle it all.

You'd be amazed at how well the CPU could handle that plastic, if you had some thrifty Russian programmers doing wonders out of limited resources. In fact, I think that the plastic could've looked just as impressive if Mirror's Edge used 4 threads - with at least 1-2 for physics.

Post Fermi shaders are not "MUCH better" when one realizes that there are about 4 times as many shaders largely due to the removal of hot-clock for Kepler's similar-sized GPUs vs Fermi's. Example:
GTX 560 Ti's 384sp @ 1650 MHz
GTX 680's 1536sp @ nearly 1100 Mhz (4 times as many shaders for considerably more than twice as many GFLOPS, while on a smaller GPU silicon die)
While GK110 has more than 5x the shaders of GF110...
It's just what Charlie over at S|A speculated about Kepler, that it'd handle PhysX twice as efficiently per shader or something like that..... he also speculated that Kepler's performance would be all over the place, sucking so badly in some games (barely beating Fermi) while yielding several times the performance in others - which turned out to be totally false. With that said, Kepler is still the best thing to come from Nvidia since G80 in 2006.

 

[Carfax83]

Well, at least in Batman: Arkham Asylum the Xbox360 version had environmental fog intact whereas the PC version without GPU Physx had fog REMOVED altogether. This complete removal of environmental fog (regardless of whether it was interactive or non-interactive) made the game look unacceptably bland IMHO.

Keep in mind that Xbox360 had far less resources, weaker hardware, and Xenos - an ATI-based GPU rather than Nvidia's.

That was horrible for Radeon gamers- even for those with a secondary Nvidia card in their rig as Nvidia declined to support them altogether.

OK I haven't posted in a while because I've been busy. I'll get around to the other posts later on when I have more time..

But THIS ONE caught my attention because it's so easily disprovable.

You claim that environmental fog was intact in the Xbox 360 version. Now although I don't have an Xbox 360, I have YOUTUBE so I can easily verify whether that statement is true or false.

After looking up a Arkham Asylum guide for the 360 on YouTube, I found an area that I know for a fact had fog on the PC version with PhysX enabled.. I know this for a fact because I have the PC version and I played through it twice with PhysX enabled.

Arkham Asylum walkthrough on Xbox 360

Now fast forward to the 5:00 mark to where Batman is in the Arkham Asylum cemetery.

In the PC version, this area was covered with dynamic fog. In the 360 walkthrough however, there IS NO FOG!

And not only that, there aren't any leaves flying around either that I can see.

So your statement is false. There is no fog in the Xbox 360 version, and there is no fog in the PC version unless you have PhysX enabled..

 

[Deders]

You'd be amazed at how well the CPU could handle that plastic, if you had some thrifty Russian programmers doing wonders out of limited resources. In fact, I think that the plastic could've looked just as impressive if Mirror's Edge used 4 threads - with at least 1-2 for physics.

Post Fermi shaders are not "MUCH better" when one realizes that there are about 4 times as many shaders largely due to the removal of hot-clock for Kepler's similar-sized GPUs vs Fermi's. Example:
GTX 560 Ti's 384sp @ 1650 MHz
GTX 680's 1536sp @ nearly 1100 Mhz (4 times as many shaders for considerably more than twice as many GFLOPS, while on a smaller GPU silicon die)
While GK110 has more than 5x the shaders of GF110...
It's just what Charlie over at S|A speculated about Kepler, that it'd handle PhysX twice as efficiently per shader or something like that..... he also speculated that Kepler's performance would be all over the place, sucking so badly in some games (barely beating Fermi) while yielding several times the performance in others - which turned out to be totally false. With that said, Kepler is still the best thing to come from Nvidia since G80 in 2006.

I meant post g92, fermi and above. Even GTX260/280 shaders were better optimised than g92.

And how many people had quad cores when this came out? It had been out a while when I played it on an Athlon64x2.

 

[SirPauly]

Not just fog, cloth flags for example flapped in the wind. without physics the flags were removed instead of being replaced by solid non flapping flags.
It happens quite often in flagship physX titles where nvidia paid off a developer

Can you prove flags were removed from the default settings or simply nVidia adding dynamic flags with PhysX?

 

[AceHoleGoober]

I dislike the fact PhysX is proprietary. I do understand nVidia's intention of adding value to their products whether produced by nVidia or not.

With the above said, I prefer to have as much eye candy as possible. Therefore, I chose PhysX - must have! (Diehard fan). Several games feel much more alive with PhysX than without.

 

[taltamir]

Can you prove flags were removed from the default settings or simply nVidia adding dynamic flags with PhysX?

same difference.

 

[Deders]

same difference.

Not really, If they were presented with one toolset for the game and an additional toolset for PhysX they most likely developed the game first, then the PhysX features.

 

[taltamir]

Not really, If they were presented with one toolset for the game and an additional toolset for PhysX they most likely developed the game first, then the PhysX features.

doesn't matter. The developer put flags in physX and put nothing without physX instead of immobile solid flags without physX.
It doesn't matter which order they made them in, they COULD have put non physX based flags and chose not to.

This is either them not caring enough to make a complete game for people without physX, or a deliberate attempt to promote physX, I don't know which, I never claimed it was one or the other, and I honestly don't care because they are both equally bad in my view.

You argument is that it was not an attempt to promote physX but a case of developer incompetence. So what, same disrespect in my book. They should have put in immobile flags

 

[blackened23]

2nd time in thread, checking in on page 18, are we any closer to a resolution on this? I'm guessing no.

 

[Deders]

doesn't matter. The developer put flags in physX and put nothing without physX instead of immobile solid flags without physX.
It doesn't matter which order they made them in, they COULD have put non physX based flags and chose not to.

This is either them not caring enough to make a complete game for people without physX, or a deliberate attempt to promote physX, I don't know which, I never claimed it was one or the other, and I honestly don't care because they are both equally bad in my view.

You argument is that it was not an attempt to promote physX but a case of developer incompetence. So what, same disrespect in my book. They should have put in immobile flags

Another factor that a lot of developers have to work with is how much time they have before the release date. Iirc they took another month after the console releases to make sure PhysX was working properly before they released it on the PC, even then they had to patch it before it worked properly.

 

[BoFox]

Can you prove flags were removed from the default settings or simply nVidia adding dynamic flags with PhysX?

Just play the game, change the settings and see for yourself.

 

[Deders]

Just play the game, change the settings and see for yourself.

That doesn't prove it was removed, see my post above.

 

[BoFox]

Not guilty because you think there is no proof? I didn't look into the console version of Mirror's Edge, so I don't know if the console version was also missing the flags altogether. Anybody know?

At least for Batman: Arkham Asylum, the ENTIRE environmental fog was removed altogether from the PC version (when GPU PhysX is disabled), compared against the Xbox360 Xenos (ATI) version.

Do you really think that the developer would indifferently disregard 40% of the GPU enthusiast crowd just because of some time constraints due to spending so much time on a select few PhysX objects while they cannot spend a fraction of that time leaving (or implementing as you would like to believe) far less complex / more static object meshes?

 

[Deders]

Do you have any videos of fog in the 360 version? The video above shows the graveyard on the 360 version with a distinct lack of fog.

 

[taltamir]

Just play the game, change the settings and see for yourself.

He isn't contesting that the flags are not there if physX is disabled.
He is contesting the use of the word "removed", because technically removing requires it to be added first, then taken out.
So if they added it in physX in a way that is incompatible with base game, and didn't bother adding a comparable simple mesh flag for when physX is disabled, then strictly speaking it was "excluded" rather than "removed"

 

[caswow]

Doesnt matter why how and when. Effects get removed because of physx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0xRJt8rcmY

 

[SirPauly]

Getting GPU PhysX effects into games: interview with NVIDIA Content Team

PhysXInfo.com: Also, there is an opinion that with disabled GPU PhysX option, minor effects (like sparks or cloth banners) are omitted from the games on purpose, while they can be easily calculated on CPU or substituted with non-physical objects. What can you say about this?


David Schoemehl: When NVIDIA engages with a developer to work on a GPU PhysX title we will offer suggestions for enhancing existing effects and adding entirely new effects. For the existing effects that are enhanced by PhysX you will see original version of the effect with GPU PhysX disabled. For effects that are created new as part of the GPU PhysX effort you will not see a fallback, because it did not exist in the original game.

Our goal is to work with developers to enhance their original game to take advantage of the latest hardware NVIDIA has to offer. We want to provide gamers that select NVIDIA a superior play experience for these games. We would not want to raise the min recommended specs for a game determined by the developer by adding additional default effects to the original game.

http://physxinfo.com/news/7165/gett...nto-games-interview-with-nvidia-content-team/

Great question considering many are under the opinion that minor effects (like cloth banners) are omitted from the games on purpose!

 

[caswow]

Yea right ill believe NV that these things would have never been in the game:awe: