PhysX does work on CPUs. It is the most open of the proprietary API's out there. Can Havok work on a GPU?
Right now that is the major problem with physx; there are CPU physics out there that do it better with no performance hit on the GPU side.
When developers like DICE and Crytek are already pushing the boundaries of what they can do with current GPUS, they're not going to have interest in using something like physx when gamers are already going to need all the performance they can get from their video cards to render their games.
This must be a contributing factor to why gpu physx has gone nowhere and has only be used a small handful of games. Until it can offer an alternative that is better than what some devs are already doing on the CPU and do it with no performance hit, it will continue to be a gimmicky bullet point seen in one or two games a year.
I don't think you understood my post. In Half-Life, thanks to Havok's physics engine I can kill an enemy via the force of launching/dropping an inanimate object at/on them. That's physics.
In Batman, papers fly around and fog moves as I run through it. That's graphics, not physics (it has no actual effect on the game world).
I did say it's nice to have these extra effects, but the name PhysX is a little misleading because it's only aesthetic. It's more akin to something like AA (aesthetic change, has no actual effect on the game play).
The reason for this is because devs are not likely to include actual game play altering physics when only half the market can actually use it, so it gets limited to aesthetic only effects. I remember when Age of Empires III was in the works, they wanted to have realistic debris blowing off buildings that could actually harm players/buildings it crashed into, but they dropped that idea when they realized people on lower quality settings couldn't see the debris and wouldn't understand what was happening.
We need a uniform standard that both companies are willing to use so we can get some actual progression in physics.
You believe dropping a box on an enemy and they die in HL is because of physics? That is a scripted response to a box dropping on them.
What you are seeing with papers flying around is done by physics. You can interact with it in the game. A different projection of the papers will happen if you interact in a different way. That is physics. You may not think it is a big deal but it is physics.
I agree with your last sentence. The problem, AMD cant even be bothered to push their own physics standard(bullet) much less work with Nvidia to standadize Physics. Personally Microsoft would do the industry a huge favor by including a physics API in directX. Until then we will continue to see fragmentation in the industry between PhysX, Havok, and Bullet and custom physics engines.
It's actually Physics on both counts. I have trouble understanding why someone would have a problem with realistic physics that improves fidelity, just dismiss it. When fidelity has been one of the most important aspects of PC gaming itself.
To me it's about improving game-play and fidelity.
Richard Huddy said:However, PhysX is a piece of technology that changes the gameplay experience and maybe it improves it. What I understand is that they actually invested quite a lot, Nvidia put in a hefty engineering time and they tried to make a difference to the game. So, in that aspect, I have respect for it; it's a reasonable way to handle the situation given the investment in PhysX. Nvidia wanted a co-marketing deal and put forward PhysX, and Rocksteady and Eidos said, OK, as long as you do it - which they did.
The only reason Batman AC uses physx is because it is the default physics engine for Unreal Engine 3. Even When Physx isn't being gpu accelerated it functions as the games main physics engine.
The irony whining about proprietary and desire proprietary DirectX to solve the proprietary problem, hehe!
There needs to be a true standard that companys will actually support. It gets old when nvidia pays off someone to only support their version of physics when there are other versions out there. But I don't see the developer caring enough about their customer base to add physics to any game that someone like nvidia/amd doesn't pay for and implement themselves. :thumbsdown:
I just can't see them making that mistake twice in a row. They must realize people are going to be looking for exactly this situation. I read recently this game will support DX11, so deferred AA should be available regardless.
You really believe Nvidia pays developers to use PhysX?
Any evidence or proof?
The only thing Nvidia does is send out engineers and programmers to developers to help them implement Nvidia specific features and optimizations in their games as part of TWIMTBP program.....which is no different than what AMD does in it's "Gaming Evolved" program.
In fact, the use of HW accelerated PhysX requires a fee if I'm not mistaken, whilst software physx is free.
This is why AMD has been losing marketshare and Nvidia has gained it -- don't get me wrong, I feverishly defend AMD around these parts because AMD being in the marketplace is good for competition. But what nvidia does absolutely right is that they GO AFTER the developers, they do not wait for developers to come to them. That is AMD's fatal flaw, they create features for their hardware but they wait for developers to come to them. Nvidia doesn't.
The BF3 beta had some amazing unscripted physics and destruction. In the Caspian Border map buildings would shatter and pieces go flying around, the terrain would rupture from tank fire, bushes swaying from the wind of artillery shells passing by etc. No slow-downs and more impressive than anything I've seen done before.
Yeah, but there's a difference between courting developers (ie TWIMTBP program) and outright paying them off.
TWIMTBP program only sends engineers and programmers to developers to help them implement Nvidia specific features and optimizations, but it doesn't give them financial assistance as far as I know.
I thought Nvidia was porting PhysX to multicore CPU's since it was runnning on 1 core? I read about that last year.