Batman Arkham City, no physics at all if you don't use physx ?

[ViRGE]

Thats like comparing apples to oranges in a way. How can you say CPU implementations "do it better," when there are currently NO CPU implementations that do real time physics ONLY like hardware PhysX?

And there's a good reason for this. There is a very large to humongous performance delta between CPUs and GPUs in parallel computing performance.

Actually there's a very important secondary reason, and it has nothing to do with computational performance: API overhead. Whenever you do debris calculations on the CPU, all of that stuff has to be setup as objects and submitted to the GPU, which has a fairly high overhead. With PhysX, most (if not all) of that is done as a second-order calculation on the GPU; the CPU never knows about the individual objects and never has to deal with them. This is why doing all those debris calculations on the GPU is so fast, because it's a bunch of tiny objects that get to skip the submission process. If the CPU had to be involved in any way (e.g. this was first-order physics and had to be sent back), it would be much slower even with the higher computational performance of a GPU.

I think it makes more sense to leverage the embedded GPUs now shipping with more and more CPUs from Intel and AMD. In a few years so many people are going to have that GPU in their rig (whether they go with a dedicated card or not) that the install base will likely be much higher than the dual card users.

And that's actually a very interesting point. iGPUs have relatively low performance, but the interconnect between the iGPU and CPU are massively superior in terms of latency, bandwidth, and use of shared resources. I'm not sure if anyone in the public has studied it (I'm sure AMD has), but perhaps the limiting factor right now is not dGPU computational performance, but dGPU interconnects?

 

[SirPauly]

Zogrim at PhysXinfo has a nice exclusive Interview from nVidia:

Exclusive: NVIDIA talks present and future of PhysX Technology

http://physxinfo.com/news/6419/exclusive-nvidia-talks-present-and-future-of-physx-technology/

Will see if there are any good data nuggets in here.

 

[SirPauly]

Asked a lot of good questions and the nVidia panel was impressive. So, the reason for the slow take was a concentration on getting the tool-sets right and no developers are asking to port PhysX to OpenCL. Translates into a very long time to move to OpenCL.

 

[NIGELG]

Enjoy having your one or two GPU PhysX titles PER YEAR.But if CPU PhysX is being improved and works well on all systems[Ati AND nVIDIA] then I have no problems.

For the Nvidia owners I guess more powerful GPU'S will reduce having to have an extra card in your system.As an ATi user I don't think I'm missing anything because not a single title with GPU physX interests me in the slightest[Except Mafia 2].

Popular AAA games like RAGE,Skyrim,Deus Ex,Witcher 2 etc don't have GPU physX maybe because these developers see no need to pay for it.One thing I notice though is that owners of GPU physX setups buy crap games like Dark Void only because it has GPU physX... because such games are rare... but it can't save a crappy game from being crappy.

 

[Carfax83]

Question.

Is it still possible to run an NV card for just Physx and a AMD primary GPU card.

Not officially. I recall there being some hacked drivers or some such, but I'm not sure if they are still available.

If so what limitations are there to this setup?

The limitations are what you'd expect for something not officially supported, ie stability, functionality issues..

Having to wait for drivers?

As far as I know, Nvidia has no intention of releasing drivers which allow for hybrid set ups. The reason cited is Q&A, according to the interview which SirPauly posted. They don't want to have to mess with AMD's drivers to get it working properly with Physx.

Additional load and heat?

Depends on what kind of physX card you'd get.

What would be the lowest end NV card you can use to get acceptable performance with physx on?

Probably a 9800 GT.. I'd recommend either a GTS 250 or a GTX 460 though..

I've been contemplating adding the secondary card to my system but need to have these questions answered first figure a few of you are running a system with this config.

Honestly, I wouldn't mess with it, unless you like messing with hacked drivers and the such..

It's best just to get an Nvidia primary card and roll with it, if you want to use PhysX..

 

[Carfax83]

Popular AAA games like RAGE,Skyrim,Deus Ex,Witcher 2 etc don't have GPU physX maybe because these developers see no need to pay for it.One thing I notice though is that owners of GPU physX setups buy crap games like Dark Void only because it has GPU physX... because such games are rare... but it can't save a crappy game from being crappy.

A crappy game is a crappy game yes, but Batman AC isn't a crappy game, and I doubt Metro Last Light will be a crappy game when it debuts next year I'd rather the few excellent games incorporate PhysX, rather than many average or crappy ones.

And the reason why there was such a shortage of PhysX titles this year according to Nvidia, is because they wanted to work on getting PhysX 3.0 up to speed, and other tools.

Next year, and the following years should see an increased rate of adoption of PhysX.

I'm certain Metro Last Light will support PhysX 3.0 and the latest iteration of Apex destruction.

If you want to see what HW accelerated PhysX can offer in terms of destruction physics, click on this link.

 

[Grooveriding]

A crappy game is a crappy game yes, but Batman AC isn't a crappy game, and I doubt Metro Last Light will be a crappy game when it debuts next year I'd rather the few excellent games incorporate PhysX, rather than many average or crappy ones.

Every gpu physx game ever released from the past four years:

http://physxinfo.com/data/vreview.html

Only 17, that's 4.25 a year. Four of those games are good, the rest are unfortunately, crap. One is not even a true game, it was a free download tech demo. Another, Unreal 3, only has a few effects in one level. Then there is Hot Dance Party, and its sequel; Hot Dance Party 2.

Pretty poor all around: Four years, 17 games (really 15 1/2), most crap. More impressive physics seen on the CPU with no performance hit, versus inferior physics done with gpu physx = 20-50% framerate hit.

If you want to see what HW accelerated PhysX can offer in terms of destruction physics, click on this link.

Tech demos and a lot of overdone debris effects. Stuff like that has been shown for a long while and used to that degree would cripple any setup out there. Probably why the graphics are terrible in those videos, so they could achieve a playable framerate.

Crysis physics on the CPU, no performance hit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-0MWls-C5A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaHS-y_mapQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG5qDeWHNmk&feature=related


Battlefield 3 physics on the CPU, no performance hit, knocking down walls, buildings, the vegetation reacting to the wind shear off artillery shells, debris without unrealistic heaps of little fragments all over the place :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNwgRch5PMY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YJdqHe6EcY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBLOOjoE1Kk


Incredible gameplay with physics like that is what drives PC gamers to spend their money!

Why Battlefield 3's PC Version is More than just a Game

"More importantly, and rarely covered by the press,Battlefield 3 is driving upwards of a billion dollars in PC builds and upgrades this year alone. No other title since Crytek's Crysis had such an anticipatory impact on PC hardware sales."

 

[toyota]

snip

If you want to see what HW accelerated PhysX can offer in terms of destruction physics, click on this link.

that is not the least bit impressive yet it will take a freaking high end gpu to do that? sorry but the bridge falling down in Half Life 2 Ep 2 is more impressive and can all be done on a low end dual core cpu and 8600gt for graphics. lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8EQ0_dr_5M&feature=related

 

[Makaveli]

Not officially. I recall there being some hacked drivers or some such, but I'm not sure if they are still available.



The limitations are what you'd expect for something not officially supported, ie stability, functionality issues..



As far as I know, Nvidia has no intention of releasing drivers which allow for hybrid set ups. The reason cited is Q&A, according to the interview which SirPauly posted. They don't want to have to mess with AMD's drivers to get it working properly with Physx.



Depends on what kind of physX card you'd get.



Probably a 9800 GT.. I'd recommend either a GTS 250 or a GTX 460 though..



Honestly, I wouldn't mess with it, unless you like messing with hacked drivers and the such..

It's best just to get an Nvidia primary card and roll with it, if you want to use PhysX..

wow thanks for he quick detailed response, I would like to stick to ATI gpus for my primary. So will take all your feedback into consideration.

 

[blackened23]

A crappy game is a crappy game yes, but Batman AC isn't a crappy game, and I doubt Metro Last Light will be a crappy game when it debuts next year I'd rather the few excellent games incorporate PhysX, rather than many average or crappy ones.

And the reason why there was such a shortage of PhysX titles this year according to Nvidia, is because they wanted to work on getting PhysX 3.0 up to speed, and other tools.

Next year, and the following years should see an increased rate of adoption of PhysX.

I'm certain Metro Last Light will support PhysX 3.0 and the latest iteration of Apex destruction.

If you want to see what HW accelerated PhysX can offer in terms of destruction physics, click on this link.

Metro 2033 makes me want for some type of low level programming (versus going through an API), talk about a pig of a game with high detail. Now I can get fluid 60 fps gaming with: 1080p, DX11, tesselation, high detail most of the time but advanced DOF and physx destroys my framerate on my gtx 580 box. Very high detail also makes computers weep.

Looks sweet as hell though I enjoyed Metro 2033, didn't like the combat too much though. Playing on hard difficulty basically boils down to memorization, hopefully combat will have a better feel in the next installment.

 

[SirPauly]

Enjoy having your one or two GPU PhysX titles PER YEAR.But if CPU PhysX is being improved and works well on all systems[Ati AND nVIDIA] then I have no problems.

For the Nvidia owners I guess more powerful GPU'S will reduce having to have an extra card in your system.As an ATi user I don't think I'm missing anything because not a single title with GPU physX interests me in the slightest[Except Mafia 2].

Popular AAA games like RAGE,Skyrim,Deus Ex,Witcher 2 etc don't have GPU physX maybe because these developers see no need to pay for it.One thing I notice though is that owners of GPU physX setups buy crap games like Dark Void only because it has GPU physX... because such games are rare... but it can't save a crappy game from being crappy.

They're features and abilities to help improve immersion and the gaming experience if an individual chooses. A choice. I wish things were more ideal but sometimes there is division and chaos when one tries to bring innovation to the consumer. Maybe it's too early for the industry as a whole to embrace GPU Physics right now but nVidia, AMD and hopefully Intel are building foundations and doing the work needed when the industry and hopefully developers embrace GPU processing much more in the future.

Simply desire to see more realistic dynamics and rid gaming of static imagery, tricks, and canned events, and GPU processing may help, imho.

 

[Seero]

that is not the least bit impressive yet it will take a freaking high end gpu to do that? sorry but the bridge falling down in Half Life 2 Ep 2 is more impressive and can all be done on a low end dual core cpu and 8600gt for graphics. lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8EQ0_dr_5M&feature=related

Here is a game that was built under the radar of PhysX, but was built with PhysX.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9aNEo7l0XQ

Let me know if BF3 has this kind of physics. BTW, that game was 15 bucks at release. Nvidia didn't wave its flag about it because there is nothing special running the game with Nvidia video card and really was not a big title to begin with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=fAkksO-nJ80

This game would have be far better that what was released, but there were something wrong about the theme and were forced to cancel. If it were cancelled, it would have been a completely different story.

 

[Carfax83]

Crysis physics on the CPU, no performance hit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-0MWls-C5A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaHS-y_mapQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG5qDeWHNmk&feature=related

But this is no different than what I showed in my link, except that fewer rigid bodies are used. And how do you know there was a performance hit? I didn't see any framerate issues in any of the demos..

Also, the videos just goes to show the limitations of the CPU. Mafia 2 with hardware physx can have up to 10,000 unique particles/objects on the screen at any given time, while the CPU struggles with a few thousand of the same objects on screen at the same time.

Honestly, rigid body physics is perhaps the least impressive of all the various game physics. It doesn't begin to look impressive until we see thousands of rigid bodies.

Here's something far more impressive. Fluid simulation being done on a GTX 480, with 128,000 particles!

Lets see a CPU do that! Or what about something as simple as realistic looking hair?

Realistic hair has long eluded game physics for decades, and only now with hardware acceleration can we finally see realistic looking hair.

Battlefield 3 physics on the CPU, no performance hit, knocking down walls, buildings, the vegetation reacting to the wind shear off artillery shells, debris without unrealistic heaps of little fragments all over the place :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNwgRch5PMY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YJdqHe6EcY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBLOOjoE1Kk

If we're going to have a discussion about game physics, we have to agree on what constitutes actual physics. Like I said on the previous page, BF3 uses scripted animations in combination with real time physics, so it's not 100% real physics..

 

[Carfax83]

that is not the least bit impressive yet it will take a freaking high end gpu to do that? sorry but the bridge falling down in Half Life 2 Ep 2 is more impressive and can all be done on a low end dual core cpu and 8600gt for graphics. lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8EQ0_dr_5M&feature=related

I watched the video, and all I saw was perhaps a few hundred rigid bodies falling to the ground. Whats so impressive about that?

Rigid body physics doesn't begin to look impressive until you get up into the thousands of rigid bodies on the screen at the same time.

At any rate, the fluid simulation with 128,000 particles I posted above blows any example of CPU powered physics out of the water.

 

[toyota]

I watched the video, and all I saw was perhaps a few hundred rigid bodies falling to the ground. Whats so impressive about that?

Rigid body physics doesn't begin to look impressive until you get up into the thousands of rigid bodies on the screen at the same time.

At any rate, the fluid simulation with 128,000 particles I posted above blows any example of CPU powered physics out of the water.

and again it looks silly and will kill even a high end gpu. the whole point here is to have realistic physics and that bridge falling down in HL 2 Ep 2 is better than just about any of that physx garbage and had no real impact on performance. as for physx...oh wow some extra sparks. oh wow some swaying trees. we have that in older games with basically NO impact on the performance.

those silly pieces of rubble that go everywhere and tank performance in games like Mafia 2 look hardly any better than when Ageia first did it. I am sorry but besides the interactive smoke and fog, physx is a freaking joke that taxes the pc way too hard for what little it gives in return.

 

[Carfax83]

and again it looks silly and will kill even a high end gpu. the whole point here is to have realistic physics and that bridge falling down in HL 2 Ep 2 is better than just about any of that physx garbage and had no real impact on performance. as for physx...oh wow some extra sparks. oh wow some swaying trees. we have that in older games with basically NO impact on the performance.

Yeah, all PhysX is good for is extra sparks and swaying trees Give me a break.. If you don't like PhysX fine, but at least speak factually..

I provided several examples already of PhysX doing effects that aren't even possible on a consumer grade processor..

those silly pieces of rubble that go everywhere and tank performance in games like Mafia 2 look hardly any better than when Ageia first did it. I am sorry but besides the interactive smoke and fog, physx is a freaking joke that taxes the pc way too hard for what little it gives in return.

PhysX is such a joke, that effects never before seen in any game are now completely possible:

Finally, realistic hair and clothing in games, courtesy of PhysX.

And the problems you seem to have with PhysX, has nothing to do with PhysX itself, but it's implementation. The developer is typically the one to blame for how any technology is implemented in a game.

If a DX11 patch slows down a game without adding any noticeable IQ improvement, does that mean DX11 sucks?

No, of course not. It just means the implementation is bad.

 

[toyota]

the sparks and swaying trees were just examples that Nvidia likes to make ignorant consumers think can only happen with physx. it was in some of their physx videos from a while back. plenty of games can do that nonsense for years with basically no loss in performance.

and of course I am mainly referring to the implementation. screw demos and tech articles. REAL WORLD physx as we have it today is a joke. again, aside from the interactive smoke/fog, most of the effects are laughable while tanking the performance on even a high end card.

 

[Kr@n]

If we're going to have a discussion about game physics, we have to agree on what constitutes actual physics. Like I said on the previous page, BF3 uses scripted animations in combination with real time physics, so it's not 100% real physics..

There has been quite similar debates regarding raster engines and raytracing engines : raster engines are known for the need of lots of careful tweaking, tricks and artwork adaptations in order to look ok whereas any good RT engine require much less special attentions on shaders, artwork nor illumination to alleviate shortcomings in realism ...

As much as I would like unbiased physics computations to happen in every title out there, biased computations (scripts, oversimplifications, etc.) will be preferred as long as the lowest common denominator is too weak to perform otherwise.

 

[SirPauly]

the sparks and swaying trees were just examples that Nvidia likes to make ignorant consumers think can only happen with physx. it was in some of their physx videos from a while back. plenty of games can do that nonsense for years with basically no loss in performance.

and of course I am mainly referring to the implementation. screw demos and tech articles. REAL WORLD physx as we have it today is a joke. again, aside from the interactive smoke/fog, most of the effects are laughable while tanking the performance on even a high end card.

Neither are a joke but past methods are no where near as robust as current or what the future may hold. That bridge looked great for a time and does add to the story line but it seems to be a scripted event.

Some desire to talk bridges -- this is what I'd like to see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HNE8D_VGrE

Edit: Personally never expected no performance loss -- advancements take hits but the key is these type of computational needs are much faster on GPU's -- and makes them possible instead of settling for just and only the CPU and time needed for them to be as robust. If one is satisfied with just and only CPU's doing physics, that is one's choice.

 

[tviceman]

PhysX is such a joke, that effects never before seen in any game are now completely possible:

Finally, realistic hair and clothing in games, courtesy of PhysX.

That looks pretty damn realistic. If that level of detail in a character's hair and clothes shows up in EVE Online, that will be impressive!

 

[Genx87]

People really believe animated scenes like the bridge in HL2 are better than real time physics?

/facepalm

 

[tviceman]

that bridge falling down in HL 2 Ep 2 is better than just about any of that physx garbage and had no real impact on performance.

You keep saying this, but that really is the worst possible example you can use. The scene is completely scripted. There are no calculations involved, just the script to write the pixels. It's the same exact scene every single time, no variance at all. Even though gpu-physx in batman does not have gameplay altering events, it's calculated in real time and has different animations / results every time you play.

So to compare a scripted explosion with pre-rendered information to dynamic, volumetric fog or shards of glass breaking and scattering in batman is about as useful as comparing a potato to a strawberry.

 

[tviceman]

Zogrim at PhysXinfo has a nice exclusive Interview from nVidia:

Exclusive: NVIDIA talks present and future of PhysX Technology

http://physxinfo.com/news/6419/exclusive-nvidia-talks-present-and-future-of-physx-technology/

Will see if there are any good data nuggets in here.

Well if the code utilizes CPU's to a much better degree than past implementations, maybe future games that have physx as the middleware physics system can have game altering physics dynamics that are "enhanced" visually, or at least sped up, by shifting much of the calculations to the GPU.

Again, using gpu-physx won't alter gameplay, but maybe the advances in gameplay itself can be improved instead of just tacking on dollar bills that fly around when you run past them.

 

[Grooveriding]

There has been quite similar debates regarding raster engines and raytracing engines : raster engines are known for the need of lots of careful tweaking, tricks and artwork adaptations in order to look ok whereas any good RT engine require much less special attentions on shaders, artwork nor illumination to alleviate shortcomings in realism ...

As much as I would like unbiased physics computations to happen in every title out there, biased computations (scripts, oversimplifications, etc.) will be preferred as long as the lowest common denominator is too weak to perform otherwise.

This is an excellent analogy for physx vs CPU physics; discussing raytracing compared to what we use in current games. Raytracing can create photo-realistic imagery, but if it were implemented in a game you would be playing at less than a 1FPS slideshow.

Raytracing, who wouldn't want to play a game like this ?:

Nice, far more impressive than the physx tech demos. But not playable or possible, yet.

Exactly the same with physx, the tech demos look great, the actual, realistic implementations we get in games are just awful compared to what we see done on the CPU. As well, it costs significant FPS hits to do less than what we see done on the CPU. Overdone debris that looks out of place is not impressive.

Tech demos are nice, but if those effects were possible in game, we would see them in game. It may have the potential to do that, but in its current state, gpu physx looks like alpha technology that is not even ready to be used. The minimum expectation would be it could deliver effects at least on par with what the best CPU physics in game engines are delivering. Not less with a large performance hit.

 

[SirPauly]

I don't understand where you're seeing awful.

Let's take Dark Void, not a great game, but PhysX did a lot to enhance the experience and certainly not awful effects.

There is no doubt about it, PhysX makes a tremendous visual difference in Dark Void. The advanced particle effects enabled by PhysX make land combat an exciting and richly detailed experience. Between the shards of broken enemies, the dust clouds from bullet strikes, and the awesome torrent of particle streams from the Disintegrator cannon, combat in Dark Void is just plain awesome with NVIDIA’s PhysX technology running the show. Even Will’s jetpack is made more awesome with PhysX. That isn’t to say that the jetpack wasn’t cool without it, but with PhysX running on High, the stream of smoke coming out of the little jet engines is thick and dense and cool.

The key, where one would like to see more with Physics is this:

At the end of the day, what we are talking about here is still nothing more than some eye candy. PhysX is not a game-changer for Dark Void. It makes the game prettier, but it doesn’t actually change the way the game is played.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/02/03/dark_void_physx_gameplay_performance_iq/10

Same can be said with virtually any GPU PhysX title -- the effects are not awful but improve the gaming experience. Batman AC may raise the bar even further and probably speak for itself.