Borderlands 2 PhysX can be forced to run on the CPU

[humbug]

you cant use openCL or direct compute as examples because both sides support them anyway.

Support it? yes, Is it any good on the GTX 6## series cards? No!

I would go as far as to say compared with it on AMD cards it's absolute junk.

The GTX 6## series cards do support it yes, but like porting Physx on to the CPU with AMD cards it does not work as well, using an Ivy Bridge CPU for Nvidia Physx with AMD cards is probably more effective than a GTX 680 using it's OpenCL to render AMD's advanced AA and lighting.

 

[Rroff]

The point is that Borderlands 2 is the absolute pinnacle of PhysX, which is arguably a bad thing considering how long it's been around.

Its the pinnacle of whats been put into a game using PhysX so far but its a long way from the pinnacle of what PhysX is capable of. Same old problem as mentioned many times before no developer wants to use it on anything thats an integral part of the game as it reduces their potential audience so its only used on incidental effects - a properly made game that was hardware PhysX (or physics) exclusive would bring another order of magnitude again over whats in Borderlands 2 which is why I find nVidia locking down PhysX and other companies lack of effort to produce a vendor independant hardware physics API very dissapointing.

 

[Rroff]

The GTX 6## series cards do support it yes, but like porting Physx on to the CPU with AMD cards it does not work as well, using an Ivy Bridge CPU for Nvidia Physx with AMD cards is probably more effective than a GTX 680 using it's OpenCL to render AMD's advanced AA and lighting.

Not really true - it might struggle with AMD opptimised effects but look at Unreal Engine 4 which does all the lighting pre-compute on directcompute as well as many other rendering features and works perfectly fine on nVidia hardware as well as AMD.

TBH theres a lot more issues with OpenCL itself than there are with nVidia's support of it (however good their support may or may not be) its far from a mature, stable, well supported API which unfortunatly is often the problem with many open standards although it is improving and will improve more as more games start to use it.

 

[humbug]

Not really true - it might struggle with AMD opptimised effects but look at Unreal Engine 4 which does all the lighting pre-compute on directcompute as well as many other rendering features and works perfectly fine on nVidia hardware as well as AMD.

TBH theres a lot more issues with OpenCL itself than there are with nVidia's support of it (however good their support may or may not be) its far from a mature, stable, well supported API which unfortunatly is often the problem with many open standards although it is improving and will improve more as more games start to use it.

Well so far it does not work to well at all with the current crop of Gaming Evolved games on Nvidia cards.

BTW, i have a potpourri of apps here that use OpenCL, Including Adobe CS6 and other types productivity App's, it all works perfectly with my GPU and with huge performance.

 

[Final8y]

Battlefield 3 Close Quarters Destruction HD Slow Motion Montage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJedVuLUxmQ&feature=related
Besides the fade away and the glass panes could have been done better most would not know the difference.

 

[no_1_dave]

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

Rubbish compared to Borderlands 2.
Look at the very beginning, he shoots the sides of the desk & all the pieces fly in the air, then go though the desk & vanish. In borderlands all the debris reacts with things how they are supposed to & doesn't just go through things then vanish.

Dont get me wrong though, I love the destruction of the maps on Battlefield, but again, most of the rubble does just fall through the ground & vanish.

 

[bru]

also all the destroyed chairs look the same.

Looks similar to games from a good few years ago.

 

[Final8y]

Rubbish compared to Borderlands 2.
Look at the very beginning, he shoots the sides of the desk & all the pieces fly in the air, then go though the desk & vanish. In borderlands all the debris reacts with things how they are supposed to & doesn't just go through things then vanish.

Dont get me wrong though, I love the destruction of the maps on Battlefield, but again, most of the rubble does just fall through the ground & vanish.

Most vof the stuff vanishing i don't have an issue with and as far this reacting as they should do is a matter of PhysX opinion, while they may react differently with PhysX most don't react right im my opinion, only the sparks in Borderlands 2 looks ok to me.

The debris to floaty and water runs like oil and the point is there was enough going on on screen in that vid and it was not over the top.

There have been PhysX titles with fairless going on but with the usual performance penalty.

There has been times where people have mistaken phyics in game for PhysX because most only looks at how much destruction is going on and not how precisely it reacts.

 

[Final8y]

also all the destroyed chairs look the same.

Looks similar to games from a good few years ago.

Mafia 2 had glass fragments the looked the same too, but still most didn't care either.
It seem that most are impressed with the amount of stuff onscreen and don't care for the infinite variation.

 

[no_1_dave]

Most vof the stuff vanishing i don't have an issue with and as far this reacting as they should do is a matter of PhysX opinion, while they may react differently with PhysX most don't react right im my opinion, only the sparks in Borderlands 2 looks ok to me.

The debris to floaty and water runs like oil and the point is there was enough going on on screen in that vid and it was not over the top.

There have been PhysX titles with fairless going on but with the usual performance penalty.

There has been times where people have mistaken phyics in game for PhysX because most only looks at how much destruction is going on and not how precisely it reacts.

I hate playing games & watching the debris falling though other objects, it's about time it remained as debris & acted a lot more realistically. I dont think Physx is quite there but it is a step in the right direction.

 

[Final8y]

I hate playing games & watching the debris falling though other objects, it's about time it remained as debris & acted a lot more realistically. I dont think Physx is quite there but it is a step in the right direction.

We have to forget the few of us who will analyse to the the nth degree because most of it is wasted on the average person noticing it unless its pointed out at every instance.

No difference than most people are not audiofiles as they would not notice it when they focus on the obvious and not allow themselves to hear the subtleties as they reach for the tone controls and turn them all the way up drowning the goodness out.

How many people checked the Wow-and-flutter specs on there Tape decks, Record players and wander/Jitter on there CD players.

 

[Final8y]

Personally im all for more physics but its got to fit what its being used for, because after the first days for looking closely of how realistic it may or may not move you start to care less and care more about how much of it is onscreen and playing the game.

In some games or parts of it realistic physics can play a very important part and that it will never go unnoticed because its integral to the game play (driving games, simulations), RED FACTION GUERILLA, not the most realistic but that does not matter.

 

[spoffle]

You could say the exact same thing about eyefinity, its a checkbox feature, it has to be coded into the game to allow it to be used, the same with SLI it has to be coded for.
The thing is that both features have a counterpart from the other company, which over time have been coded for as well so now nearly everything is crossfire/SLI, eyefinity/surround ready which make these features a moot point.

But AMD have nothing to combat Physx and you cant use openCL or direct compute as examples because both sides support them anyway.

Completely untrue, I was playing games on multiple monitors before Eyefinity was even announced.

 

[bru]

Completely untrue, I was playing games on multiple monitors before Eyefinity was even announced.

Yes you probably were, and those games you were playing had multimonitor support coded into them obviously, but what is it about the fact you were playing on multiple monitors before eyefinity was announced makes my previous post completely untrue?

 

[spoffle]

The point of it being a checkbox feature isn't particularly true, it's supported by many more games than PhysX is, and its support isn't included at the expense of everyone else. Nothing is arbitrarily "taken away" if you don't have multiple monitors.

It's not really correct in comparing it to PhysX because nothing is taken away in its absence, and it's not a proprietary standard. Its inclusion is there for the benefit of everyone who has multiple monitors and a capable GPU.

"Eyefinity" support would never be at the expense of anything else, and supporting fully wouldn't alienate half of the prospective customers, that's why I was saying there's no incentive for AMD to produce an equivalent. It ideally needs a third party company to come in and work with both nVidia and AMD on the implementation.

I can't see nVidia being particularly co-operative with that though considering they want to be pushing PhysX and have no interest in open standardisation. nVidia will embrace it only when they have to and not a moment sooner, they will continue to push PhysX. They'll only embrace an alternative when an open standard comes out, that's used in a big game that has physics processing that's an integral part of the game as to avoid being "left out" of it.

Multi monitor support doesn't necessarily have to be "coded" in either, the game just has to have proper support for various different aspect ratios, and be ideally horizontal+.

 

[arc@css]

Looks pretty neat, though as mentioned, I'd also like the pieces of paper and so on to remain in the game world, and not disappear.

 

[no_1_dave]

Nothing is "taken away" if you dont have Physx. You play the game how it was designed. Having physx just gives some people 'extras'.

 

[spoffle]

Nothing is "taken away" if you dont have Physx. You play the game how it was designed. Having physx just gives some people 'extras'.

It kinda is taken away. A lot of basic bog standard effects are removed (in Borderlands 2 for example) if you turn PhysX off, effects that have been in games for years, to presumably exaggerate the differences between with PhysX and without PhysX.

For example, the physics in Borderlands 2 with PhysX off are a lot more basic than the physics in Borderlands, which didn't have any hardware PhysX capabilities.

 

[Calin Banc]

The "best" physics like effect I've saw until now are in Red Faction, Hydrofobia, GTA 4 and SW TFU through euphoria and DMM, some interesting stuff in Far Cry 2 via fire and fire propagation, some in Crysis 1, Max Payne 3... and that's all as far as I recall right now. There were some nice things in Alan Wake and in Stalker - the interactive/volumetric smoke through DX 10.1 I belive - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5RMxO5DsPA&feature=related . So... yes, it can be done even on older DX versions. More, interesting stuff in CE 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JPDtDfxf6w In BF 3 I think it's nothing "natural", just preset parts of an object that will break when it takes a certain amount of damage.
Regarding PhysiX only, at a high degree o simulation, you'd be needing a powerful high end card dedicated only to that and another one for 3D rendering. No one is stupid enough to lock itself on such a small percentage of gamers: consoles out, amd out, nvidia with only one card (even a high end one) out...

 

[bru]

So its not a check box feature and yet I bet it is listed on every AMD graphics card box