PhysX graphics a big deal?

[Keysplayr]

But I'm not OK with paying for IP and devolopement for features I CAN'T USE!
Does that mean everyone with AMD graphics should get those games for less $, because they can't use physx?


You talking about visage... give me a break!

Love to.:thumbsdown:

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's not really true. A lot of the things you see in game physics aren't really physics, but canned animations. I recently experienced this for myself. I had an issue in Crysis 3 with tree destruction, and in the end, the root cause of it was that Crysis 3 apparently uses canned animations for many of their destruction effects.

So the destruction isn't even real, because the physics isn't real. Crytek didn't even have the sense to allow for the animations for tree destruction to be loaded into memory for faster access.

That's consolitis right there my friend.



It depends on how the glass breaks. Is the breaking of the glass an actual simulation using physics algorithms, or is it a canned animation(s) that repeats itself over and over again almost the same way with little variation.

And that kind of physics which requires instant updates to the game world wouldn't work well with cloud computing I think.



In online gaming, game physics is done locally for the most part so if your friend doesn't have PhysX, the glass will break differently for him. It will still break, but not as realistically.

Oh I see, yeah that would make sense. So lot of the stuff you see like a gun firing or something being destroyed is premade. So the server is probably telling the client "play animation #2342" or something to that effect. I suppose more advanced physics that could still be done without physx though, it would just have to send to the client "bullet hit this at this angle at this velocity" and the client would calculate it locally. I guess that's basically what physX is doing.

 

[SirPauly]

I dont tweak anything, I just say it can be used without a nvidia GPU. The content continue to be garbage anyways. The particles are exaggerated in such a way that the screens looks to have some crap over it, that dont belongs to the game. The only things I like about physx are the fluids, and turbulence effects.

Personally allow the developer to decide what is best for their titles over-all -- and the market to decide on Physics over-all.

I think developers taking advantage of multi-core CPU strengths and GPU Strengths for physics are welcomed; to potentially raise the bar of realism, fidelity, immersion and potentially the holy grail -- redefine game play itself!

What you call garbage and crap -- I see innovation, steps forward and trying to improve physics as a whole. Added dynamics are neat!

 

[SirPauly]

Havok's Hard Reset and Blizzard's Diablo 3 are among my top favorite physics implementation.

Just Cause 2, Mirrors Edge, Alice, Mafia 2, Batman(s), PlanetSide 2, Borderlands 2, Hawken, Metro: Last Light, Witcher 3...
You know what... I'd be pretty pissed if I had to run these games in a Demo version i.e. w/o all their PhysX glory.

And Witcher 3 alone will be enough to cause frustration for any gamer without GTX in his rig.
OTOH PhysX also leaves bitter taste for Nvidia owners as well, as it's pretty clear that it's used only on occasions and with market disrupting motives.

So I guess PhysX is a pretty big deal and cause for frustrations on both side of the GPU fence.
If only Nvidia would support it with 1/10 of the money gamers all around the world waste on bandwith and handkerchiefs while weeping about PhysX :'(

Diablo 3 -- enjoyed the Havok physics -- Also Just Cause 2 is using Havok as well -- very enjoyable! Enjoy both Havok and PhysX Strengths!

 

[serpretetsky]

Well everything in a game is physics, technically, so I still don't see how they can't code it directly.

Ex: I shoot a window, the glass breaks. Why can't that be done in code without using a special API? Server calculates bullet trajectory and all the physics involved in the shards flying, then sends the info to the clients that have line of sight to make that animation. Isin't that how everything else works anyway?

What happens if I have physx and my friend does not, and I shoot a window, what does he see, it just vanishes?

Or am I missing something?

Physx was originally introduced by a company named Ageia. It was a hardware (proprietary card) and software (physics library) solutions for simulating game physics.

The original emphasis of the company was that a general CPU was not the most efficient method to process physics. They instead built a custom card that was dedicated to nothing but game physics, advertising it could perform many more physics operations then a CPU could.

This is the emphasis of Physx, that a general CPU is NOT the ideal hardware to handle physics. They advertised that game companies could perform more complex and realistic simulations with their system.

Since then, nVidia has argued that their video cards actually perform very similar calculations to what the Ageia hardware card did. They purchased Ageia and Physx and ported Physx to work on nvidia cards using CUDA.

Physx now works on all nVidia cards.

claimed Advantages of Physx:
---------------------------------------------------
1) ability to perform much more physics calculations then a regular CPU
(more hard body calculations, faster fluid simulations, more complex soft body calculations, higher particle count effects)

claimed Disadvantages of Physx:
---------------------------------------------------
1) Modern processors have much more power to handle physics then their older models (many cores, AVX instructions, etc). So the advantage of using video cards to process physics is not as great as it once was. *** Some people go even further and claim that nVidia goes out of their way to slow down CPU physics using Physx to show how fast their video cards are and/or forces game companies to drastically reduce physics effects when Physx is disabled. I cannot comment on these accusations.

2) Physx is proprietory to nVidia. As oppose to physics solutions that use more open standards to access the power of video cards such as opencl.


Most physx calculations do not affect gameplay as of today (they are just eye-candy), so there's no problem with server-client networking. It's just a system to render a large number of physics calculations faster on the local computer.

 

[Spjut]

I'm not a fan of a one party solution.

What I think is the worst is that Nvidia even blocks actual Nvidia cards from being used for dedicated PhysX if it's used in combination with an AMD card. We shouldn't have to resort to hacking drivers.

 

[Keysplayr]

What I think is the worst is that Nvidia even blocks actual Nvidia cards from being used for dedicated PhysX if it's used in combination with an AMD card. We shouldn't have to resort to hacking drivers.

You wouldn't have to resort to hacking drivers if you used GPU PhysX they way it was intended to be used. Just the fact that people are hacking to get PhysX content is a testament that people do indeed WANT the option.

 

[Spjut]

You wouldn't have to resort to hacking drivers if you used GPU PhysX they way it was intended to be used. Just the fact that people are hacking to get PhysX content is a testament that people do indeed WANT the option.

Nvidia began blocking it first with forceware 186.

I can use my old 8800GT for dedicated PhysX, of course I want the option since I have compatible hardware(though I admit it's slow for today's games). And Nvidia has gotten my money for that card. It's bullshit that it's blocked.

 

[Keysplayr]

Nvidia began blocking it first with forceware 186.

I can use my old 8800GT for dedicated PhysX, of course I want the option since I have compatible hardware(though I admit it's slow for today's games). And Nvidia has gotten my money for that card. It's bullshit that it's blocked.

The 8800GT would work fine as dedicated PhysX card if you pair it with another Nvidia primary card. So, what is actually BS is you're wanting to use the card out of the scope of it's intended purpose. It was not meant to be used as a dedicated PhysX card when the primary card is not and Nvidia card. So, they blocked it. You could still use that 8800GT in another rig for video. You got what you paid for.

 

[Carfax83]

Nvidia began blocking it first with forceware 186.

I can use my old 8800GT for dedicated PhysX, of course I want the option since I have compatible hardware(though I admit it's slow for today's games). And Nvidia has gotten my money for that card. It's bullshit that it's blocked.

8800GT is beyond old at this point, and practically useless for PhysX in modern games. The slowest card you can get away with is a GTS 250..

 

[Spjut]

The 8800GT would work fine as dedicated PhysX card if you pair it with another Nvidia primary card. So, what is actually BS is you're wanting to use the card out of the scope of it's intended purpose. It was not meant to be used as a dedicated PhysX card when the primary card is not and Nvidia card. So, they blocked it. You could still use that 8800GT in another rig for video. You got what you paid for.

Any Nvidia card that supported PhysX, could be used for dedicated PhysX in combination with AMD up until Nvidia decided to block it with forceware 186 some months into 2009. The 8800GT was released in 2007.

If that's getting what you paid for according to you, fine. I prefer not getting features that work fine locked away.

 

[cmdrdredd]

you mean the the more "realistic" shards of glass that you did not even have time to slow down and look at it. or the the silly cloth physx tech demos that stuck out from the game anyway?

sorry other than smoke/fog effects, I just think physx is a joke for the most part. we still have the same stupid looking completely out of place chunks since physx began.

Go look up Batman and tell me things are out of place. With physx off you have no newspapers in the street, no particles coming off boilers and freeze ray blasts, and basically the game is utterly flat without it.

 

[Makaveli]

You can do hybrid PhysX, which is what I'm doing right now.

Basically you render with your AMD gpu's, but do PhysX via a dedicated to PhysX nVidia card.


Obviously the other thought process here is if PhysX is something you're interested in, how much extra is better driver support, PhysX, and perhaps even the GeForce Experience software worth over a similarly performing Radeon?

For some it's all about the bottom dollar, for others there is some extra value in an experience.

+1

 

[toyota]

Go look up Batman and tell me things are out of place. With physx off you have no newspapers in the street, no particles coming off boilers and freeze ray blasts, and basically the game is utterly flat without it.

lol wow I see you have fallen for the marketing. do you really think that stuff is not possible without hardware physx? of course its possible but Nvidia has fooled ignorant people into believing that only the hardware physx can do simple things like lots of sparks and cloth physx or blowing trees.

 

[blackened23]

Go look up Batman and tell me things are out of place. With physx off you have no newspapers in the street, no particles coming off boilers and freeze ray blasts, and basically the game is utterly flat without it.

I have to admit, I liked the physx implementation in Batman: AC. Overall, though, physx seems to be hit or miss which is why have mixed feelings overall about physx - I wouldn't make a purchasing decision based on it. I mean, I've played other physx games where the effects were just comically overdone (Mafia II) or not even noticeable (Metro 2033), it just seems to be hit or miss I guess. Which is why I like it as a perk, but probably wouldn't justify a purchase for.

 

[cmdrdredd]

lol wow I see you have fallen for the marketing. do you really think that stuff is not possible without hardware physx? of course its possible but Nvidia has fooled ignorant people into believing that only the hardware physx can do simple things like lots of sparks and cloth physx or blowing trees.

no but the game looks like garbage without it. That's the whole point.

Try running it on your CPU too...you can do that and it's slower than frozen molasses.

 

[toyota]

no but the game looks like garbage without it. That's the whole point.

Try running it on your CPU too...you can do that and it's slower than frozen molasses.

no the whole point is Nvidia restricts those effects and designs them only for hardware physx and makes people think they are not possible without it.

 

[cmdrdredd]

no the whole point is Nvidia restricts those effects and designs them only for hardware physx and makes people think they are not possible without it.

They don't tell people it's not possible. Just that it's faster since like I said they do run off your CPU too, but it is really slow.

When given the option between a game being flat and lifeless and having actual effects that add details to the game with partical explosions, papers blowing in the street, capes and flags moving fluidly and realistically reacting to changing wind direction, and water flowing naturally over rocks and other obstacles, I'll take the effects any day.

I see no problem with Nvidia doing it, just like AMD using lighting techniques in Dirt Showdown that offer zero graphics improvement but an instant 50% frame rate hit on Nvidia hardware. At least physx offers a little enhancement to the scene.

 

[toyota]

They don't tell people it's not possible. Just that it's faster since like I said they do run off your CPU too, but it is really slow.

When given the option between a game being flat and lifeless and having actual effects that add details to the game with partical explosions, papers blowing in the street, capes and flags moving fluidly and realistically reacting to changing wind direction, and water flowing naturally over rocks and other obstacles, I'll take the effects any day.

I see no problem with Nvidia doing it, just like AMD using lighting techniques in Dirt Showdown that offer zero graphics improvement but an instant 50% frame rate hit on Nvidia hardware. At least physx offers a little enhancement to the scene.

lol you still do not get it all. they are slow on the cpu because the way Nvidia designed it. those same simple little effects can be done on the cpu just fine if designed for it.

and yes they do make it seem like you could not ever have those effects run properly without hardware physx. again you have fallen for the marketing.

 

[cmdrdredd]

lol you still do not get it all. they are slow on the cpu because the way Nvidia designed it. those same simple little effects can be done on the cpu just fine if designed for it.

and yes they do make it seem like you could not ever have those effects run properly without hardware physx. again you have fallen for the marketing.

Whatever...you keep telling yourself that. I'm done.

It's really you who can't grasp the idea that someone can actually like the effects.

 

[Carfax83]

lol wow I see you have fallen for the marketing. do you really think that stuff is not possible without hardware physx? of course its possible but Nvidia has fooled ignorant people into believing that only the hardware physx can do simple things like lots of sparks and cloth physx or blowing trees.

It's possible without hardware PhysX, but it will run much slower, and not look nearly as nice due to less precise calculations.

I think you're underestimating how much computation is required for these effects dude. Cloth effects in particular, are very compute intensive, and Batman Arkham City uses those effects a lot for the characters and enemies (Penguin, Joker, Bruce Wayne, Hugo Strange and a lot of the common thugs and enemies all have cloth physics on their clothing), and in the game World in general...

With the advent of the Ageia PhysX card, that was the first time in gaming history where cloth wasn't some canned animation, because CPUs at the time could not handle such effects.

And while we've come a long way since then, modern CPUs can still find cloth physics very taxing. Sure, they can definitely do it comfortably with a few objects at the same time, but if you increase the amount of objects or the complexity, they start to struggle whereas a GTX 460 would cruise on through with no difficulty.

And fluid physics is even worse. Borderlands 2 is the second game to use fluid physics that I know of, the first being Cryostasis.

 

[SirPauly]

nVidia must be marketing Cuda, GPU parallel processing as well. Heck, why bother? The CPU can do it just fine.

 

[cmdrdredd]

nVidia must be marketing Cuda, GPU parallel processing as well. Heck, why bother? The CPU can do it just fine.

There are things that run more efficiently and faster on the GPU, no doubt about that. The CPU has a lot of other work going on and much more limited resources to work with.

 

[toyota]

Whatever...you keep telling yourself that. I'm done.

It's really you who can't grasp the idea that someone can actually like the effects.

what the hell does liking the effects have anything to do with? you cant even grasp anything I am saying. let me try and make it real simple for you. cloth, sparks, and other simple stuff like that CAN be done on the cpu and run fine IF designed to run on the cpu in the first place. hell there are relatively old games with sparks and leaves flying around. Nvidia makes those effects for the gpu and they are optimized crap and of course wont run on the cpu without a huge performance hit. again all you have done is fall for the marketing.

 

[stahlhart]

That's enough.
-- stahlhart