New Mafia II PhysX ON/OFF video.

[Grooveriding]

Here is another article that touches on Mafia 2, touches on CPU, ATI and nVidia:

Mafia 2 PhysX Performance

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/09/03/mafia-2-physx-performance/1

Wow physx performance is terrible. 50% performance hits by enabling it. So unless you buy a dedicated card it makes games unplayable with it enabled.

Coming soon! Nvidia implements AAx. You now need a dedicated card to run anti-aliasing in your games! Yes it's the same as before, but we added an x, so buy it!

 

[tweakboy]

Why would someone turn off Phsyx , Just go to nvpanel and choose your phsyx as your CPU ,If you want to waiste money on a card to do phsyx then do that. Your CPU possibly has got plenty of resources to handle that. If you have a dual core then you can't do it. Thanks and gl

How nice of nVidia to give us phsyx option, VC or CPU,,, Thanks

 

[ModestGamer]

The sad part is the super high end demos they have been showing off are going to have to be hardware locked in some way to high end physX only.

Those hair and cloth demos run at ~25fps with one character on screen and NO other actors or even scenery on a GTX480.

I honestly believe that Ageia having the proprietary add in card was a good move. If nvidia wants to sell us yet another 8800GT, they should just make a minimum spec card for "physX 2.0" and certify some cards that have enough raw power to be a dedicated physics card when the user buys a new GTX580/570/560/whatever.

That wouldn't be to aweful or sell the old 8600gt etc cards with enough power to anyone who has a GPU and make the money either way. Its a great way to make money on old dated product thats for sure and given the issues they have comming up. Not a bad idea to stock the cash reserves.

 

[Wreckage]

Wow physx performance is terrible. 50% performance hits by enabling it. So unless you buy a dedicated card it makes games unplayable with it enabled.

Coming soon! Nvidia implements AAx. You now need a dedicated card to run anti-aliasing in your games! Yes it's the same as before, but we added an x, so buy it!

I have a simple question for you maybe you can answer it. Do AMD cards take a performance hit when you enable features on them? Like higher resolutions, tessellation, AA, AF? I realize those features are all eye candy. But can you really turn all that up on an AMD card and there is no performance hit? I've had ATI cards in the past, but maybe something has changed recently.

I mean I see that you own 2 NVIDIA cards, so you seem to be OK with having 2 cards. I really am not sure what your complaint is.

 

[Janooo]

RedStorm, I'm not going to even address this post other than to say it is laden with innuendo and accusation, subtle, but there. No reason to mention my getting free cards, you could have just said Nvidia, but didn't. Stop being so sensitive to all this. There are GRAY areas. Not everything is BLACK or WHITE.

As for your last paragraph, YES, AMD cards most likely CAN run PhysX if made to do so. But, ATI backed Havok, cold shouldered PhysX for probably good business reasons. Nvidia blocked PhysX from running on GPU's when ATI cards are primaries instead of Nvidia cards. We all know this already, it's current events, nobody has forgotten or ever will. Would you want to support your competitors hardware with your API? Not likely. If things turned out differently and ATI did jump on the wagon, chances are cooperation from both camps would have provided support, but bitter rivals to the end is what we have.

Sore point or embarrassed perhaps?

Thread derail, needless questioning of character, not acceptable.

Moderator Idontcare

 

[Keysplayr]

Wow physx performance is terrible. 50% performance hits by enabling it. So unless you buy a dedicated card it makes games unplayable with it enabled.

Coming soon! Nvidia implements AAx. You now need a dedicated card to run anti-aliasing in your games! Yes it's the same as before, but we added an x, so buy it!

Wrong. I just ran a whole gambit of benches in Mafia II.

i7 860 @ 3.4GHZ
8GB DDR3
Single GTX480
8800GTS 512
Windows 7 64bit

19x12, All settings maxxed, Apex PhysX Highest, AA ON, AO on.
Average framerate 35fps and never dipped below 30. Maintained a tight framerate anywhere from 30 to 55 with very fast fluctuations throughout.

Most playable.

I then told the 8800GTS 512 to run PhysX. Same settings as above.
48.7 fps. And you said extra card for PhysX was a waste. I just used a 3 year old card to boost framerates in a brand new title about 38%. I'll tell you, whether you like PhysX or not, it is much more immersive with it on than off. Adds flavor. More going on.

 

[Keysplayr]

Sore point or embarrassed perhaps?

Are you kidding?

 

[Grooveriding]

Wrong. I just ran a whole gambit of benches in Mafia II.

i7 860 @ 3.4GHZ
8GB DDR3
Single GTX480
8800GTS 512
Windows 7 64bit

19x12, All settings maxxed, Apex PhysX Highest, AA ON, AO on.
Average framerate 35fps and never dipped below 30. Maintained a tight framerate anywhere from 30 to 55 with very fast fluctuations throughout.

Most playable.

I then told the 8800GTS 512 to run PhysX. Same settings as above.
48.7 fps. And you said extra card for PhysX was a waste. I just used a 3 year old card to boost framerates in a brand new title about 38%. I'll tell you, whether you like PhysX or not, it is much more immersive with it on than off. Adds flavor. More going on.

Perfect!

35fps as an average is not playable in most games, including this one, it also speaks to there being minimums that were much lower than that, which is even worse.

And this is on nvidia's flagship card at an average resolution.


As I said, physx performance is terrible, as per those linked benches, 50% performance hits with it enabled unless you use a dedicated card, which is what I originally said.

It adds little to a game and is definitely not worth buying a dedicated piece of hardware for, considering about 10 games at most use gpu physx, out of thousands of games on the market :thumbsdown:

 

[WelshBloke]

I have a simple question for you maybe you can answer it. Do AMD cards take a performance hit when you enable features on them? Like higher resolutions, tessellation, AA, AF? I realize those features are all eye candy. But can you really turn all that up on an AMD card and there is no performance hit? I've had ATI cards in the past, but maybe something has changed recently.

I mean I see that you own 2 NVIDIA cards, so you seem to be OK with having 2 cards. I really am not sure what your complaint is.

I'm not sure theres any point in responding to you but,

I think hes just saying that he doesn't think the trade off is worth it in using Physx ie the extra effects are not worth the performance hit.

 

[SirPauly]

My nitpick is the performance with cloth and hopefully future drivers, patches or updates can improve upon this.

 

[Janooo]

Are you kidding?

You could have let it go but you commented. Just asking...

 

[SirPauly]

On Cloth:

I decided to go reread one of Zogrim's articles to see if there was an update and sure enough there was:

Update #2: According to responce we’ve got from NVIDIA – Clothing is running on CPU unless you have a GPU, fully dedicated to PhysX. Sadly, we don’t have one currently, so can’t check this out.

In any case, in order to improve performance you can either disable (fully or partially) clothing simulation as described in our guide, or overclock your CPU. Dedicating more powerfull GPU for PhysX won’t help here.

APEX Particles effects are working normally, and can be calculated on GPU without any major performance

http://physxinfo.com/news/3892/mafia-ii-is-not-using-gpu-for-physx-cloth-simulation/

 

[Wreckage]

35fps as an average is not playable in most games

At best that is your "opinion" and I totally disagree.

 

[Kenmitch]

Perfect!

35fps as an average is not playable in most games, including this one, it also speaks to there being minimums that were much lower than that, which is even worse.

And this is on nvidia's flagship card at an average resolution.

As I said, physx performance is terrible, as per those linked benches, 50% performance hits with it enabled unless you use a dedicated card, which is what I originally said.

It adds little to a game and is definitely not worth buying a dedicated piece of hardware for, considering about 10 games at most use gpu physx, out of thousands of games on the market :thumbsdown:

So what your saying with your statement above is even nvidia's flagship cards in sli can't handle physX. Unless you have a dedicated card.

Nvidia pulled the plug on physX when ATI based card is primary for a reason. Most likely being they know they can't keep pace with ATI on the high end and are using the feature as a feature you might be able to use. Let's face it nvidia was caught with their pants down by the 5xxx series.

 

[Sp12]

Wreckage, Just wondering, what brand of GPU do you prefer, and why? If you want you can respond to me via PM, I was unable to successfully send you one.

 

[Pantalaimon]

Wreckage, Just wondering, what brand of GPU do you prefer, and why? If you want you can respond to me via PM, I was unable to successfully send you one.

Are you kidding? You can't tell which brand he has based on his posts?

 

[konakona]

so... sounds like this isn't the best example of what physx is capable of. If there is an actual game (not a demo) out now that incorporates physx well enough into gameplay let's see it. Taking suggestions now, anyone? I am sure there is gotta be at least one that's gonna impress me if there are "nearly hundred titles" supporting it!

 

[zerocool84]

so... sounds like this isn't the best example of what physx is capable of. If there is an actual game (not a demo) out now that incorporates physx well enough into gameplay let's see it. Taking suggestions now, anyone? I am sure there is gotta be at least one that's gonna impress me if there are "nearly hundred titles" supporting it!

Yes a ton use Physx but majority of those hundreds are CPU based Physx and won't do anything like you've seen in demos or seen in other Physx games. I doubt we'll get the effects we as consumers want even in the next few years as it's moving at a slug's pace.

 

[taserbro]

so... sounds like this isn't the best example of what physx is capable of. If there is an actual game (not a demo) out now that incorporates physx well enough into gameplay let's see it. Taking suggestions now, anyone? I am sure there is gotta be at least one that's gonna impress me if there are "nearly hundred titles" supporting it!

Acanthus linked this last page and this thing is quite old news in this context.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTVZ51iS5r4

And honestly, I don't know why tech demos are being arbitrarily discounted since the thing being debated is what physx is capable of in terms of meaningful interactions in gameplay but consider the above runs perfectly well on a 3ghz i7, two 4870s and without a physx card, it'd be easy to imagine what the possibilities would be with taking advantage of the horsepower of a semi-up-to-date rig with a physx card nowadays.

 

[Will Robinson]

Are you kidding? You can't tell which brand he has based on his posts?

Yes,he was kidding.:thumbsup:

 

[Acanthus]

Acanthus linked this last page and this thing is quite old news in this context.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTVZ51iS5r4

And honestly, I don't know why tech demos are being arbitrarily discounted since the thing being debated is what physx is capable of in terms of meaningful interactions in gameplay but consider the above runs perfectly well on a 3ghz i7, two 4870s and without a physx card, it'd be easy to imagine what the possibilities would be with taking advantage of the horsepower of a semi-up-to-date rig with a physx card nowadays.

Well my opinion really is that no current hardware will make physx work well enough to add truly immersive features. The tech demos are cool but they run at a snails pace even on flagship hardware. We are 2-3 generations off of true physics based games.

I'm of the opinion that we wont see real physics until the consoles get updated... They drive the software development cycle (sadly).

 

[taserbro]

Well my opinion really is that no current hardware will make physx work well enough to add truly immersive features. The tech demos are cool but they run at a snails pace even on flagship hardware. We are 2-3 generations off of true physics based games.

I'm of the opinion that we wont see real physics until the consoles get updated... They drive the software development cycle (sadly).

Right, I have to agree with the consoles bit unfortunately.
But as far as the tech demos, I believe they are proofs of concept designed to take things into the extreme of what the hardware is capable of in order to wow rather than show a reasonable approach that's viable for a commercial game title. Most of those demos would run perfectly fine if they were scaled back from the ludicrous amount of details territory. I'd like to think that even a far more conservative implementation nowadays would be adequate to provide new and fresh things, considering hardware progress since back then. Bfbc2 which runs on consoles, has pretty significant gameplay consequences for even comparatively tiny physics horsepower, same with portal and its sequal.

In the end, I adhere to the belief that hardware physics can't take off significantly until both sides have viable solutions. Until amd makes that happen, I wager there'll be plenty of occasions to prove me wrong, which would be very welcomed for pc gaming in general.

 

[Acanthus]

Right, I have to agree with the consoles bit unfortunately.
But as far as the tech demos, I believe they are proofs of concept designed to take things into the extreme of what the hardware is capable of in order to wow rather than show a reasonable approach that's viable for a commercial game title. Most of those demos would run perfectly fine if they were scaled back from the ludicrous amount of details territory. I'd like to think that even a far more conservative implementation nowadays would be adequate to provide new and fresh things, considering hardware progress since back then. Bfbc2 which runs on consoles, has pretty significant gameplay consequences for even comparatively tiny physics horsepower, same with portal and its sequal.

In the end, I adhere to the belief that hardware physics can't take off significantly until both sides have viable solutions. Until amd makes that happen, I wager there'll be plenty of occasions to prove me wrong, which would be very welcomed for pc gaming in general.

Maybe intel will give us some hardware physics with that useless 12SP "GPU" they are putting on the next gen

 

[Vesku]

This is the reason I try and support open standards whenever I can. I'm not going to argue that PhysX is pointless but it is diminishing the default visuals of some titles that include a PhysX option. Compared to what many titles that lack PhysX entirely manage to provide in terms of visual, immersive gameplay.

 

[mwmorph]

Keys, I think the issue with physics in games is that it's not very substantial.

You can take the approach in Arkham and Mafia NV has taken with physics which is withhold features that would easily be able to be done convincingly on a CPU without a physics engine (debris and weapon on environment scarring decals). This is stuff that should be added to games, and it would be done easily with no physics engine whatsoever.

The real advantage I can think off the top of my head for real immersion that physics adds is fluid dynamics. Cloth and water additions would be fantastic. A brook breaking up convincingly randomly around rocks, cloth that actually is affected in the wind (not just by waving, but imagine flags manipulated at correct angles by wind speed and direction), that sort of thing, but that really isn't hyped for some reason, probably because it's not as sexy. Exploding buildings are fine and all, but every time I see something like that, I always remember I've seen it done convincingly before without the need for so much additional cost and computing power without a physics engine.

The other addition would be things like true ballistics. It would be nice for devs/nvidia/amd/intel to help develop actual game play changes so that physics beings something substantial to the table. I want to see a sniper rifle fire bullets that are truly affected not just by elevation like today's games, but also windage, rotation, yaw, etc. On top of that, why not give characters actual skeletons so terminal ballistics can be simulated with entry and exit wounds? Maybe one day I'll actually have a .338 Laupa exit a enemy in an angle that wasn't the entrance angle, adding some skill to sniping multiple enemies in a line.

As of now, PhysX s just doing exactly what we've been able to do for years, except limiting it to just a subset of the population. It really adds nothing that shouldn't already be there, and costs too much in performance and price to boot (again with rare exceptions to the rule like cloth effects in Sacred 2 and Mirror's Edge, but even the effects in those games really aren't big game changers.) What we are show in not so much ineffective uses of PhysX, but a technology languishing from lack of imagination. Where's the true newtonian physics based space movement enhanced by PhysX, melee combat like shields being knocked away by swords convincingly randomly or maybe give things like the plasmid powees in Bioshock realistic physical properties? What I just saw in that video has a been there, done that without the expensive equipment feel to it and can you really blame people for technology if it isn't being used to give people something actually new, but instead is an answer searching for a nonexistant problem right now?

Would it really be asking too much for PhysX to stop doing the hey look how sexy, yet insubstantial these additions are and actually doing a killer app that changes the gameplay experience instead?

Also offtopic, but a .45 ACP round (fired from the Thompson Submachine Gun) would not tear up brick walls that badly (2nd example), the .45 is a very low power/low velocity round with a very soft jacket and core. The vast majority of .45 loads fired from your standard 5" barrel full size pistol will be subsonic speed and do damage to soft targets, not from high energy but from low energy impacting over a large surface area, making it terrible to damage hard objects like body armor or brick walls, but good from a expansion and penetration POV on soft bodies. The non physX example is actually accurate on how a .45 round would actually look against a wall.