the point is, physx does nothing at all any other physx engine can't do, it just does it, more accurately and realistically.... supposedly. because the coding is just real phsyics rather than estimation thats it, you still have to design realistic effects.
The problem here is its impossible, I mean inarguably and literally impossible to see the difference between realistic, and estimated physics if they are both implemented well.
The gust of wind that blows up litter on the roof when the helicopter is close, its default stuff, estimated or scripted physics can create a completely 100% identical scene at the fraction of the processing cost in software and you could simply not tell it wasn't real.
We've already seen, i think in one or both graw's, where the physx acceleration added more particles seen when explosions happen, however, they were badly designed and frankly didn't look realistic, also it was mostly the same every time.
Whats the conclusion, bad coding = poor looking physics no matter if its software or hardware, physx, havoc or any other engine.
Good coding = real feeling physics, no matter the engine used.
Excessively accurate physics are pointless, because you can't possibly know where every particle will fall yourself, so the difference between a well scripted, or estimated explosion to a realistic explosion will be particles all blowing off in random but slightly different paths. You simply can't tell the difference, you never will be able to tell the difference and you'll never need to tell the difference.
We have games where cloth gets shot and rips, signs fall down, if the cloth falls and ripples, thats enough, it doesn't matter if the ripples are 100% accurate, because you can't know how it would happen anyway. Even physx hardware, with the best engine ever written still has LOTS of limits on it based on the coding of the game its used in.
In real life, a gust of wind on the other side of the planet does effect how a leaf blows in your garden, eventually. The fact is the engine will always be limited by what it can take into account, its simply grasping at straws and tacking far to much effort, time and power to do something an estimation can perfectly mimick.
Now yes, the TECH DEMO of cloth rippling on physx's site isn't matched by any other engine out there, however, its also not matched by any game with a physx engine, because the tech demo is using a incredibly powerful setup to do that one thing, if you want a game that only has one piece of cloth on screen, and thats it, fine, if not its useless.
Physx, has always and will always be pointless, realism of physics, and anything else in games is PURELY down to the coding and design of the game. The only reason Physx hardware runs physx games faster is because it uses an overly complex engine for ultra realism, when its simply not required. The fact that the physx games that are out, offer nothing in comparison to other games with good physics engines should be enough proof of that. The fact that physx has been around for a good few years now and has done nothing at all, still has no games that show a single smattering of useful stuff.
This game demo doesn't look bad, I never said that at all, its not my cup of tea at all however. My point was the "physx" parts of it, make up 1% of everything you see, and that 1% is completely unimpressive, nothing remotely new, and nothing that effects gameplay or even the look of the game, at all.
Think of it like this, one game has a body that drops of the roof, the physic engine estimation simply has the acceleration of any particle falling in the game at 9.8m/s, the physx lists the body's mass, the mavity, calculates the weight, etc, etc, and comes up with 9.82546m/s more accurately. It is more accurate physics, however you only see both body's fall in say, 4 seconds, or 4.0002345seconds. Does either change gameplay, no, does either seem more or less realistic, no, is there any benefit whatsoever to the accuracy and complexity of the calculations done by the physx engine, no. What does it do, it add's time and a power cost, but nothing else. Thats the only difference.
Well made estimations are completely indistinguishable from realistic ones, the only thing paramount to realism, immersion and detail in games, is design, nothing more, nothing less.
