Proof We Need Physics Cards

[BassBomb]

I was fooling around in Half Life 2 - Garry's Mod 9

having some fun spawning watermelons mmmm good, but i was thinkin, i need to slice them to eat

so i throw a car landmine in that will be a good idea no?

Watch the video and you know!

Original Resolution was 1280x1024, recorded by the free FRAPS version in half size, then codec'd in windows movie maker (i dont have any other movie editing software)

4.538MB
Half Life 2 - Garry's Mod, Watermelon World

You can see how much lag i got from all the physics needed in the calculations of all the exploding watermelons, all the polygons changing, etc... I was getting ZERO FPS after explosion, then slowly regained the speed

 

[BlacKJesuS]

could just be the combination of a 6600GT and 1 gig of ram...

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: BlacKJesuS
could just be the combination of a 6600GT and 1 gig of ram...

HL2 doesn't make any beneficial use of extra memory past 1GB, and a 6600GT is more than enough to drive HL2 at high details at that res.

 

[BassBomb]

will 2 gb really allow more physics?

my fps is amazingly fine when i play the game , i run on full no vsync 2xAA 8xAF

 

[BassBomb]

bump

 

[tvdang7]

the physics just suck alot of cpu power in the source engine. thats how it is. :/

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: tvdang7
the physics just suck alot of cpu power in the source engine. thats how it is. :/

Which is precisely the point. A physics processor would alleviate this stress of the CPU.

So definitely, for games with a large number of exploding watermelons, PPU's are a must. I'm glad that issue has been settled .

Seriously, it's true, if there are going to be lots of destructable objects in games, PPU's or better multi-CPU optimization is going to be a must. The PS3 with 7 functional SPE's can probably get away no problem without a PPU if well coded, though.

 

[Elfear]

I wonder how much improvement you'd see ocing the proc a bit or if a DC were used. I realize HL2 isn't multi-threaded but I know there is a program out that allows you to put all the Windows apps on one core and leave one core entirely for the game. I saw a nice jump in fps in that game when I went from 2.2GHz to 2.85GHz with my old 3700+.

 

[BlacKJesuS]

Originally posted by: Avalon

Originally posted by: BlacKJesuS
could just be the combination of a 6600GT and 1 gig of ram...

HL2 doesn't make any beneficial use of extra memory past 1GB, and a 6600GT is more than enough to drive HL2 at high details at that res.

i lagged at 1gig....dont lag with 2.....


@ 1024

 

[DeathReborn]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
will 2 gb really allow more physics?

my fps is amazingly fine when i play the game , i run on full no vsync 2xAA 8xAF

No, 2GB RAM will not give you any more physics than 1GB. At the moment it's tied to CPU & in some cases the GPU now. AFAIK Source will stress the CPU with Physics so only a better CPU would help.

The PhysX PPU will only help if the devlopers use the PhysX SDK from scratch or add it in with a patch. Same for GPU powered Physics, the game has to be told to use the GPU (via patch or from scratch) & the GPU be capable enough.

 

[Topweasel]

Originally posted by: DeathReborn

Originally posted by: BassBomb
will 2 gb really allow more physics?

my fps is amazingly fine when i play the game , i run on full no vsync 2xAA 8xAF

No, 2GB RAM will not give you any more physics than 1GB. At the moment it's tied to CPU & in some cases the GPU now. AFAIK Source will stress the CPU with Physics so only a better CPU would help.

The PhysX PPU will only help if the devlopers use the PhysX SDK from scratch or add it in with a patch. Same for GPU powered Physics, the game has to be told to use the GPU (via patch or from scratch) & the GPU be capable enough.

Not entirely true, Games using the Havok physics engine which source happens to be one of them, would only need a small patch to interface with the Havok interface that they are working on with Nvidia. So actually PPU through GPU work that Nvidia is working on can quickly be added by Valve, it is the PhysX and the ATI solution that will take some time to add.

 

[Regs]

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umm no.

 

[ForumMaster]

well that settles it. i'm getting me a PPU card.

 

[Drayvn]

Everyone keeps thinking that the PPU will help all objects, well it will, but hasnt anyone remembered it can do real time water physics which is far more power than processing a few 100 objects.

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: Drayvn
Everyone keeps thinking that the PPU will help all objects, well it will, but hasnt anyone remembered it can do real time water physics which is far more power than processing a few 100 objects.

Yes, and it can also do moving clothing, swaying hair, particle effects...etc..

 

[lanielf]

I did the same thing as he did, at 2.9 ghz, same problem ! damn this thing gets my computer to his knees, too bad,
will physx work with 1900xtx ? will it be PCI ?

 

[imported_importpsycho]

I wanted to try it on my computer
never tried gary's mod and i'm stumped, how do I get watermelons?
on menu I see things like balloons, wheels, charactors but I see no watermelon...

 

[firewolfsm]

You have a 2.0GHz AMD, by the time these cards become standard (or can) the lowest AMD you'll see is 4GHz or something performing like that, this'll take years and CPUs will be good enough by then.

 

[Crescent13]

Yup I love to do that and watch the framerate drop! It's fun to blow watermelons and other breakable things up in gmod! . To make it better, go to console and type in sv_worldspeed 0.10 and watch it in slow-mo

EDIT: You need sv_cheats set to 1 in order to use the slow-mo.

EDIT 2: I get that kind of lag and I have 2GB of DDR-500 Ram at 3-4-3-7 1T and a Opty 144 @ 2.8GHz.