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Cellfactor and Physx

“The Cloth in one of the Cell Factor levels was nothing special....at all.
I can't even notice these "liquids" I didn't see anything special in Cell Factor, just a resource hog.“
Last time we talked you didn’t have a PPU and hadn’t seen a PPU in action in Cellfactor Revolution. How can you say the liquids and high physics levels are nothing special when you haven’t even seen them? As for resource hog I am getting well over 30dps it’s not a hog at all. It’s not a surprise you didn’t notice the liquids as the high physics levels don’t work on the CPU and the liquids are turned off on with the CPU. Same for the most of the cloth.

How many levels did you look at?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3TU65KaPXI
Do you honestly think there was nothing impressive physic wise about that? If it’s not special can you show other games that have as many objects bouncing off each other and effecting gameplay? Can you show cloth in othe games thats decent?







“My 8800 has hardware physics in it? Never knew that!
Is it any good, as in up to the spec of the standalone cards?”
In theory they are not up to the level of standalone cards but far better then CPU’s. In practise we don’t know as apart from a few tech demos nothing use’s it. Hell Gate Londons is the only game I know of that use’s hardware physics on a GPU but its not out yet.
 
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Ageia going bust? Not with Sony's help....look on the website - the physx chip is built into every PS3!

Like I said in the Cellfactor thread, Why have an 8800GTX when an x1900 or 7900 will do? You want every bit of performance possible, and that's exactly what a physics card does - removes the strain off the cpu and puts it else where, thus 'freeing' your processor to do other things, such as AI etc.

If you don't want to spend 120 quid on a physics card fair enough, but at the same time, why not just use onboard graphics, as it is certainly capable of playing most if not all games?
 
SGCWill said:
Ageia going bust? Not with Sony's help....look on the website - the physx chip is built into every PS3!

Like I said in the Cellfactor thread, Why have an 8800GTX when an x1900 or 7900 will do? You want every bit of performance possible, and that's exactly what a physics card does - removes the strain off the cpu and puts it else where, thus 'freeing' your processor to do other things, such as AI etc.

If you don't want to spend 120 quid on a physics card fair enough, but at the same time, why not just use onboard graphics, as it is certainly capable of playing most if not all games?
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My point was that it is up to the developers to show off the hardware to the point where people can see the difference, ultimately they need to show off what physx can do that you can't do otherwise.
That is what is lacking at the moment in my opinion, there hasnt been anything that is particularly impressive about the card so i and others like myself dont see the need (on a side note, i have owned a physx card but i didnt see it as money well spent, i sold it on ebay and bought a better gfx card which gave me a bigger boost in frame rate due to most games not actually utilising it particularly).
 
Jihad said:
The Cloth in one of the Cell Factor levels was nothing special....at all.
I can't even notice these "liquids" I didn't see anything special in Cell Factor, just a resource hog.
Click to expand...

Well, since you ain't got a PHYSX card then you could've only tried 2 of the 5 levels bright-boy.
 
Pottsey said:
Last time we talked you didn’t have a PPU and hadn’t seen a PPU in action in Cellfactor Revolution. How can you say the liquids and high physics levels are nothing special when you haven’t even seen them? As for resource hog I am getting well over 30dps it’s not a hog at all. It’s not a surprise you didn’t notice the liquids as the high physics levels don’t work on the CPU and the liquids are turned off on with the CPU. Same for the most of the cloth.

How many levels did you look at?
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I looked at the "main" level, I.E The one in 99% of YouTube videos, I forget the name.

I guessed the liquids were in the non-PPU levels, but anyway I'm not expecting much from them.
There was some cloth on the level I played on and tbh it was nothing special it didn't seem any better than cloth I'd seen in any other game.
I can run most of the Cell Factor demo with just over 30 FPS on most of the level I'm talking about the physics are good but I'm not seeing much better over Half Life 2.
(Except the visuals which are tons better)
SOLDNER-MOFO64 said:
Well, since you ain't got a PHYSX card then you could've only tried 2 of the 5 levels bright-boy.
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I missed the part where I said I was using a PPU, bright-boy.
 
Not wanting to point the obvious out but this is the beginning of a format war, games will increasingly be physics accelerated but who's solution will dominate isn't clear yet. I'd certainly hate to see Ageia crushed between the twin behemoths of AMD and Nvidia but it's only worth nailing your colours to the mast if you can afford to.

Fact is that right now money in a budget is better spent on a better GPU, and look at it this way you can drop a Physx card into your PC at any time. Moreover, late adoption always pays off better in PC component terms so there's no point lambasting people for how they spend their money regardless of how much you admire the PPU concept.

Gift.
 
Giftmacher said:
Not wanting to point the obvious out but this is the beginning of a format war, games will increasingly be physics accelerated but who's solution will dominate isn't clear yet. I'd certainly hate to see Ageia crushed between the twin behemoths of AMD and Nvidia but it's only worth nailing your colours to the mast if you can afford to.

Fact is that right now money in a budget is better spent on a better GPU, and look at it this way you can drop a Physx card into your PC at any time. Moreover, late adoption always pays off better in PC component terms so there's no point lambasting people for how they spend their money regardless of how much you admire the PPU concept.

Gift.
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do you get the feeling that this is Voodoo all over again?
 
Chronictank said:
do you get the feeling that this is Voodoo all over again?
Click to expand...

3dfx Voodoo vs Matrox Mystique wasn't it? That's casting my mind back... but yes pretty much.

[EDIT] Just checked it should have jogged my memory seeing Pottsey's sig... PowerVR et al. too lol. Let's hope you've picked the winner this time round eh? ;)

Gift.
 
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“I looked at the "main" level, I.E The one in 99% of YouTube videos, I forget the name.”
You should take a look at the other levels in case the one you looked at is the low physics level. Only played two levels my self so not sure which are the high and low physics level maps. Will find out tonight.





“I can run most of the Cell Factor demo with just over 30 FPS on most of the level I'm talking about the physics are good but I'm not seeing much better over Half Life 2.!”
Is that a joke! No where in HL2 do you get 100’s if not 1000’s of object interacting all with full physics along with liquids and cloth like in Cellfactor. As for the cloth you keep going on about its nothing special. Prove it, you say it’s no better then what you have seen in other games. Well as I keep asking, post other games with cloth as good as Cellfactor. If its nothing special and no better then other games it should be easy for you to post other games as examples.
 
Pottsey said:
“I can run most of the Cell Factor demo with just over 30 FPS on most of the level I'm talking about the physics are good but I'm not seeing much better over Half Life 2.!”
Is that a joke! No where in HL2 do you get 100’s if not 1000’s of object interacting all with full physics along with liquids and cloth like in Cellfactor. As for the cloth you keep going on about its nothing special. Prove it, you say it’s no better then what you have seen in other games. Well as I keep asking, post other games with cloth as good as Cellfactor. If its nothing special and no better then other games it should be easy for you to post other games as examples.
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I just don't see the big deal with some cloth that gets shot into pieces, I can't recall every game I've seen with destructible cloth but there's been some atleast.
 
As far as I am aware there are none and I searched all over which is why I keep asking for people to post evidence. I don’t expect you to recall every game but as you cannot recall any games with destructible cloth and I cannot find any. I have to believe that there just are no none PPU games with full destructible cloth.

You might not see the big deal but if I am right and there are no none PPU games with destructible cloth then it is something special. It sounds like the only reason you seem to think it isn’t special is you think it’s in other games and nothing new. Well until you or someone else proves otherwise its special and a PPU only feature.
 
The PhysX card I believe will take off with the arrival of Unreal Engine 3 based games as the PhysX API is coded directly into the engine. When games like Unreal Tournament 3 and Bioshock arrive, I'll probably get one if the differences are worth it.

However, Cell Factor from what I've seen is only really a good example of rigid body physics, the fluids and cloth look pretty nasty. The liquids do not looks as if they are simulated the correct way with particles interacting with forces that drive a polygon mesh. Instead it looks like a load of blobby spheres. The cloth is also scripted slightly as it seems to tear in random positions as a bullet hits it from wherever. Rigid bodies yes, they look really cool in that game, everything else, nope.
 
One thing that excites me about physX is the implications for sports games.

Tennis, football, rugby, cricket, etc will all benefit from this technology. Player / player and player / ball interaction will be far more realistic, as well as instances when the ball hits the crowd or an advertising billboard.
 
Jihad said:
I just don't see the big deal with some cloth that gets shot into pieces, I can't recall every game I've seen with destructible cloth but there's been some atleast.
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So are you or anyone going to post these games? You say the physics in Cellfactor are no better then HL2 I am still waiting for evidence both on the large amount of objects, liquids and cloth in HL2 and other games.
 
Well HL2 can do large amount of objects like in Garrysmod. Cloth has also been introduced into Garrysmod as a new tool and works pretty well. Liquid is in the new Particle Benchmark if you know where to look.

I haven't seen Cellfactor or any Ageia game do Particle effects like that seen in the new benchmark.
 
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The only reason that having a physx card in revolution gives better framerates than the cpu (unlike combat training), is that they have implemented the cloth effects so they work on a cpu. That cripples non-ppu performance, and still looks naff. I also can't find a way to turn it off :(

All the main particle effects that acctually affect gameplay are still done by the cpu, all the ppu does is the cloth effects and fluid-dynamics.
 
“All the main particle effects that acctually affect gameplay are still done by the cpu, all the ppu does is the cloth effects and fluid-dynamics.“
That’s not true the things that effect gameplay and particles are done on the PPU that’s why you get more with a PPU and no FPS loss.

When you plug in a PPU and increase particle with a FPS boost its clear that its not being done on the CPU.

Its hard to believe at times how much misinformation and lies there are out there about the PPU.
 
Well I have been looking at the water effects in HL2 and Garrysmod but I don’t think they count. First of all there’s nothing going on but the water no AI, no sound or the rest of the game. We don’t know if the waters taking up 99% of the CPU so there’s no room for anything else or not. Not only that but its fake water. More like blocks, it sort of looks ok from certain angles but in games you don’t stand still. These two show what I mean, at first it looks ok in the bath until he moves angles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpylSM6Rlck&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S3OKZPqJMQ

Couldn’t find and destructible cloth not that it matters as Garrysmod isn’t a game. Didn’t find any clips of large amount of objects either but there are tons of clips on youtube.

Its one thing to do an effect in an empty screen its another to do it in a full game with AI and everything else. It’s like Nvidias and ATI’s tech demos they are much more detailed and higher res then you could ever get in a game as nothing else is going on.
 
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