PhysX just leveled up
by Casey Weidner · in General Discussion · 08/10/2008 (10:54 pm) · 8 replies
I dont know if anyone else noticed this article on Gamasutra.com:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19761
But Nvidia will be releasing new drivers that suport hardware accelleration for PhysX on their gen. 8 and 9 graphics cards.
Now we can utilize the true nature of PhysX without buying a $200 card. Though i'm interested to see what the performance differences would be with running PhysX on its own card while running high end rendering on a gen 8 or 9 card and running the physics and high end rendering on the same card.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19761
But Nvidia will be releasing new drivers that suport hardware accelleration for PhysX on their gen. 8 and 9 graphics cards.
Now we can utilize the true nature of PhysX without buying a $200 card. Though i'm interested to see what the performance differences would be with running PhysX on its own card while running high end rendering on a gen 8 or 9 card and running the physics and high end rendering on the same card.
#2
This would be a good time for all of us to get to work on updating that PhysX implementation which has been sitting at version 0.3 for some time. The physics system is still the major weak link in Torque as far as I'm concerned, and it would be great to have a fully functional physics solution available to the community.
08/11/2008 (2:11 pm)
Apparently I'm a bit behind here.. nVidia bought PhysX? As far as I'm concerned that's great news. I always thought the dedicated physics processor card was a long shot as far as addons gamers are willing to purchase, but this means that most systems will support physics hardware from this point on.This would be a good time for all of us to get to work on updating that PhysX implementation which has been sitting at version 0.3 for some time. The physics system is still the major weak link in Torque as far as I'm concerned, and it would be great to have a fully functional physics solution available to the community.
#3
While it's doubtful we'll ever see official physX support on ATI cards, with enough interest in physX someone is bound to create a similar product that works on ATI and nvidia cards without special drivers.
Might we someday see an OpenPL (open physics layer)?
08/11/2008 (2:39 pm)
A group reported success enabling physX support on a radeon card. While it's doubtful we'll ever see official physX support on ATI cards, with enough interest in physX someone is bound to create a similar product that works on ATI and nvidia cards without special drivers.
Might we someday see an OpenPL (open physics layer)?
#4
08/11/2008 (4:01 pm)
The physics system will be the next big thing for future games and for Torque as well!
#6
TGE PhysX Resource
If you're having trouble getting that resource working, see my post at the bottom of that resource for a trouble-shooting checklist.
08/12/2008 (2:47 pm)
If for some reason you haven't seen it yet, there's a resource for adding PhysX to TGE here:TGE PhysX Resource
If you're having trouble getting that resource working, see my post at the bottom of that resource for a trouble-shooting checklist.
#7
If you're doing a single player game though, you can get a pretty good amount of things going that you can use to affect your gameplay just by using the CPU and multicore. Networking is a whole different can of worms, and I don't recommend trying to get the more complex features working in mp.
So this is really more of an "evolutionary" step rather than a revolutionary one. When this stuff becomes fast enough that you can do a full simulation loop with all of the physics objects in the sim, regardless of what is processing them, then you have some real opportunities for making something with truly new uses for physics.
That said though, this is pretty cool since it makes the acceleration of certain things a lot more feasible due to the fact that everyone has GPUs. It opens up a lot of things you can fake with the more "styrofoam" sort of physics (think stone blocks of a castle which the player can't really collide with after they're broken off*).
* - You can just set up some rules for this sort of thing. In this particular instance, I'd say, blocks don't collide with eachother, whatever hit the blocks to cause them to break doesn't actually collide with them but merely detects contacts, and instead applies a generalized force to an area of the blocks in certain directions. Further blocks either don't take forces from players (i.e., players collide with them, but the blocks themselves are considered kinematic in PhysX parlance, and will not move).
08/13/2008 (2:51 pm)
I hate to say it guys, but based on my experience with PhysX, this isn't probably nearly as exciting as you might think. Any of the physics that have to go to be processed by the GPU basically can't be used for gameplay affecting things. Reason being that the bus just isn't fast enough for you to get results back within the same tick, with which to continue processing your sim. This sort of acceleration is good for things like debris or other junk that won't affect gameplay, or if you are going to have fluids that don't really matter. If you're doing a single player game though, you can get a pretty good amount of things going that you can use to affect your gameplay just by using the CPU and multicore. Networking is a whole different can of worms, and I don't recommend trying to get the more complex features working in mp.
So this is really more of an "evolutionary" step rather than a revolutionary one. When this stuff becomes fast enough that you can do a full simulation loop with all of the physics objects in the sim, regardless of what is processing them, then you have some real opportunities for making something with truly new uses for physics.
That said though, this is pretty cool since it makes the acceleration of certain things a lot more feasible due to the fact that everyone has GPUs. It opens up a lot of things you can fake with the more "styrofoam" sort of physics (think stone blocks of a castle which the player can't really collide with after they're broken off*).
* - You can just set up some rules for this sort of thing. In this particular instance, I'd say, blocks don't collide with eachother, whatever hit the blocks to cause them to break doesn't actually collide with them but merely detects contacts, and instead applies a generalized force to an area of the blocks in certain directions. Further blocks either don't take forces from players (i.e., players collide with them, but the blocks themselves are considered kinematic in PhysX parlance, and will not move).
#8
But it's only a graphical thing, you're right, still it's really nice to have this option.
08/14/2008 (5:46 am)
Quote:or if you are going to have fluids that don't really matterNice looking floating cloth is indeed important. Especially if you make charaters who are anything else than space marines.
But it's only a graphical thing, you're right, still it's really nice to have this option.
Torque 3D Owner Avid Gamer
www.nvidia.com/object/physx_faq.html
and
developer.nvidia.com/object/physx.html
and
developer.nvidia.com/object/physx_downloads.html
I was amazed when I first read it. Musta been a few months back now. I'm still amazed.