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First Look: Unreal Tournament 3 With PhysX

Pottsey

Pottsey

Pottsey

Soldato
Joined
29 May 2006
Posts
5,380
I thought this might be interesting as a lot of people think this is going be either the final nail in the coffin or the game that saves the Ageia PPU,.
Copy and paste from

http://www.planetphysx.com/weblog/archives/2007/08/first_look_unreal_tournament_3.html#more

“Here's a sneek peek of an Unreal Tournament 3 mod built to show what kind of stuff the PPU can do in the game. This clip is from the Leipzig Games Conference.
More After The Jump
It looks like we're seeing destructible environments that effect game play. For example you can see the scene where the roof is cleared in order to allow for a clean sniper shot. The tornado also tears through the level creating obstacles on the fly which is a bit different.“

http://www.ageia.com/physx/ut3.html Ageia own UT 3 page.
 
Yes GPU do have builtin physics support but no games support it and there’s no evidence it can do anything put effects physics. It looks like it cannot do Gameplay Physics.
 
“That makes no sense whatsoever. As with other hardware they are capable of doing whatever they are programmed to do, it's just a question of floating point performance.”
GPU physics are done by Havok FX which is effects physics only. As Havok FX is the API used and its limited to effects physics I think its fair to say GPU’s are also limited to effects physics. No games do anything different with GPU physics. It might change in a few years but Havok FX has been out almost 2 years now and it doesn’t look like its going be changed to do game play physics any time soon.
 
“Is this a marketing term for Physics computations that existed before the invention of computers?”
It's not a marketing tearm it a technical team. It’s a term Havok invented as far as I can tell and as it’s very useful so others started to use it. It don’t think it was in use pre 2000.
 
“stupid question, what is suppose to be there that is special :s“
Instead of using 100% of one core or 2 cores you using 0% CPU power. That’s assuming 1 complete core could even do that much wind. Never seen it done before on a CPU.

It might not be special to you but to me going from 100% core usage down 0% is pretty good. That 100% CPU core can go and do other stuff.

The wind and tornado are special as it sucks objects into the vortex. Unlike other games with the CPU being scripted or don’t have wind effecting objects near by.





“hasn't already been showed running on a standard CPU in Crysis.”
Never seen any of the wind effects in Crysis before. Got any videos?






the excessive clipping of all the stones and debri through the wall put me right off.
The video is from the alpha it’s not even in beta yet. It’s along way from being finished. Hopefully that’s just a bug that will get fixed. With it still being Alpha bugs like that are to be expected.

As is Alpha don’t you think some of you are being a little harsh about bugs? This is meant to be a sneak peak at what’s being worked on not a video of a finial product. Now if its like this in the final product I will agree the clipping is excessive.





“Very nice, but how much overhead will be put on the system to aply the effects,”
None or very little with the PPU. That’s the idea of the PPU the overhead the CPU would have to do is moved over to the PPU.
 
“i still think crysis PhysX are better and crysis dosnt use a ppu”
I hear that a lot but I have yet to see any of the hard to do physics in Crysis. I don’t see how it can be better when it only does the easy stuff. Graphically Crisis looks nice but physics wise it’s only got relatively easy to do effects none of the hard stuff.
 
“Have you seen the nuclear explosion video? There's your wind for you. And the destruction of the buildings looks a lot nicer then in the UE 3 video with the PPU.
I didn’t see that as wind. That was the nuke hitting the building and the building being told to explode outwards. Wind is very different. It remains to be seen if crisis can do wind. Lots of games do explosions like that. Well not as nice looking. Also how scripted was that one screen?

Not only that but the nuclear explosion video isn’t in game. It’s a test tech demo. A lot of tech demos like that don’t work ingame once you have everything else running. Think of Nvidia face tech demo. Sure you can do that when everything’s just on that one effect. But not in a full game.

Has it been said the nuke effects will be in the full game? Or is it one of the many effects that are only in tech demos when the rest of the game engine isnt working?







”I'm not saying the PPU is a bad thing to have. It's just not worth the pricetag and it's supposedly very hard to code for.”
That’s just stuff the anti PPU make up. It’s easy to code for. Just look at all the free demo’s people make with the SDK. Lots of home users play around with it.
 
“oh and about the price off a ppu u can get a 8800 for 70pound more and have your games running fast with better detale“
If you already have an 8800 you can spend £80 on a PPU and get your games running faster with better detail.

The PPU isn’t to replace other hardware’ its to run alongside it. If you have a weak GPU it makes no sense to buy a PPU instead of a new GPU. But if you already have a good GPU and want more speed and more effects a PPU is the way forward if the game supports it.






“They were just messing around to see just how good their engine could be.”
That’s what concerns me a lot of those mess arounds don’t work in real games. If its not going make it into a real game it doesn’t seem right to say crisis can do these affects a PPU is not needed. When it turns out Crisis cannot do those effects in a real game. Unless you heard different those nuke’s are not going be in Crisis the game.

If that Nuke is taking up 100% of system resource’s its not going be useable in game. The point of the PPU is those effects in tech demos that take up 100% of system resource’s are now useable in game with a PPU.






“dual core rig probably wouldn't have a problem as one core would handle the physics and the other would handle the game rendering.”
The PPU is 50x better at physics then 1 core doing physics. So if everyone had PPU’s even if it wasn’t Ageia and they all used the same API we would be much better off then now with much better physics.

I still think CPU’s are a poor long tearm choice for physics. Doing physics on the CPU is holding us back. It would be like going back in time and 3dcards didn’t take off but instead it was all done on the CPU.
 
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“PhysX card in AWF when using PPU theres a big drop in FPS.”
Only if you play the year old unpatched version with old drivers before the major performance bug was fixed.

GRAW 2 also runs much faster with the new drivers. There is no big drop anymore.
 
It sound like some of you have no idea what Alpha means in game development. The Alpha stage is early in development where things are not set in stone before the beta stage. Think of how many problems bad beta games have are only x10 worse that’s Alpha.

You try things out and see what works. You don’t spend ages on clipping and making things look perfect as settings are constantly being changed. There’s no point spending ages making an effect look great only to find out the way the effect is done is being changing tomorrow. Instead you experiment without fine turning.

The Alpha stage normally has lots of broken none working effects and stuff and very little will be fine turned or polished. Speed is normally unoptimised and slows. The fine turned and polished part happens in the beta stage which is after Alpha.
 
“from what i can see the Crytek engine can simulate wind type environments very well,”
Various people keep saying this but no one has shown any wind effects yet. Where are the tree and leaves blowing, rubbish on ground being blown. Explosions causing wind e.c.t

If you have seen this you must have a video link. Please show me ingame videos of wind done by Crytek engine or any other none PPU game. I dont know how someone could say minor detail difference in wind between Crytek and PPU games. Just look at the wind in GRAW 2 its far better then Crytek. Not just a minor difference.
 
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“Alan Wakehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Detn...related&search=

If Alan Wake is the best you can get out of CPU physics its proof CPU’s are to weak at physics and we need better solutions like PPU’s or GPU’s doing physics.

Alan Wake doesn’t count for lots of reasons.

First its not a real games that’s out. It is a tech demo of a game they are working on. As I said before what you get in tech demos are not what you get in real games. As you can do things in tech demos, that are to demanding for real games.

But that’s not the main reason it does not count, the main reason being there is no wind. Everything’s still. Look away from the tornado nothing moves. Meters away from the tornado and nothing. No movement. Only the things in the centre of the tornado move. Surly a tornado of that size should be causeing wind blowing everything about. Sucking tiles off roofs. Windows blown out, They cheat. No wind, only things directly under the tornado tunnel are sucked into it.

Not only that but it’s a tech demo of a game that’s not out for years which is ran on today’s hardware would get single digit FPS. They used a overclocked hand selected Intel CPU that was the best of the best at the time. Far better then anything in shops and its still worse then a PPU.

I really don’t see how that counts as wind considering there is no wind. The grass is even still and there’s a large tornado moving about.
 
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“here the roof tiles are used as a shield then drop bouncing of the objects, isnt this what the PPU does?”
Yes a PPU does that but that’s pretty basic a CPU should be able to do that easy. The only difference is with a PPU you would get more FPS by doing that on a PPU over a CPU. But it should be fast on a CPU as its pretty simple as physics go.







“As far as the computer they used it certainly didn't seem to be running in single digits. Sure they used a quad core cpu and a 8800GTX (probably) but when the game is released that hardware will be standard.”
That tech demo on today’s home PC’s would run in single digits.
That’s part of my point.
I asked for an example of CPU’s doing wind now and all that’s been shown is something that’s not due out for 2+ years if it’s not delayed and doesn’t run on today’s standard hardware. Yet you tell me I am edging towards the fanboi position.

It’s not just a standard quad core CPU either. They hand picked the best quad core CPU Intel had, overclocked to the max it could go more then 1ghz over standard speed. Far beyond anything we have now.

How can that be a fair example of how CPU’s can do all the effects a PPU can? The way I see it the CPU is far beyond home CPU’s and physic wise its doing worse then the PPU as the wind is not working.

As for a 8800GTX I don’t believe so. Going by the rest of the system hardware and how much it was all overclocked by I would expect dual 8800 Ultra possibly overclocked as well. When dealing with systems like that they use top of the range hand picked hardware. Not standard shop hardware.

Sorry but the only fan boys are the CPU fans who refuse to admit how bad he CPU is at physics and how a PPU does better physics now today. I don’t see a 1ghz overclocked quad core CPU doing worse then a PPU that’s out now as a win for CPU’s being better at physics.

CPU’s are holding physics back big time. If everyone had PPU’s physics would be way better then what we have now.

EDIT: Unconfirmed but it looks like 7900GTX's where used in the Alan wake demo.

Another thing I should mention is the Alan wake tornado and map was vary sparse compared to UT3. The PPU tornado was a full working map with lots of buildings and people running about firing weapons like a real game. There was far more physics work going on in the UT map then Alan Wake map which was more of a emepty area.

With all the extra objects and players on the screen there must be tons more physics data being processed on the UT3 map compared to the Alan wake map.:EDIT end




“To me while there wasn't background wind the tornado looked a lot more realisitic and the objects interracted a lot more realistically then in the PPU video you posted.”
I really cannot agree. How can the CPU tornado which doesn’t have wind, doesn’t effect surrounding objects be the one that interacts a lot more realistically then the PPU tornado which does have wind, does effect surrounding objects.

Surly the tornado with wind that affects surrounding objects is the one that’s a lot more realistic. At least with the PPU grass and trees are blown by wind while with the CPU the tree just sits there like there’s no tornado.

Forget about the graphical look of the tornado as that’s down to the artists and GPU not the CPU or PPU. The tornado in UT3 has to fit the artist style of the rest of the game.







“It seems that you're just trying to justify the £100 you spent on your PPU.”
It’s got nothing to do with justifying the money spent. It to do with the technology. I try my best to prove my points with facts and people come up with rubbish like but Crisis does all the effects with a CPU the PPU does. Even though I can name a bunch of physics demanding effects Crysis doesn’t do.
 
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“some how i can;t see a physics card being all that good if they haven;t even demoed a nuke effect like the one in crysis.”
You have to take into account that’s a tech demo they cannot pull that off in game. Don’t expect to see effects like that in Crysis when/if you buy it.

I still perfew the PPU method its faster then the CPU.
 
“from what iv read the ppu is slower than the cpu since it drops fps when ppu is used. and it does funny stuff like make doors stand on edges in GRAW. did they ever manage to sort that out?“
Well a lot of websites are misleading they run the PPU at much higher settings then the CPU then go, look the CPU is faster. When you run the PPU and CPU at the same settings the PPU is faster.

I am sure I explained this many times in the past the door problems and physics problems in GRAW are done by Havok. So no Ageia cannot sort it out as they are not the cause of the problems. A lot Havok physic problems are being blamed on Ageia which is unfair.

As for the PPU slowing thing down no it doesn’t anymore. There was a major driver bug which effected performance but its been fixed.

When you run the same physics on the PPU and the CPU the PPU speeds things up a lot up to 30% or more. Only when you run higher physic settings on the PPU then the CPU do you sometimes lose FPS as the 3dcard has to draw more.

Look at GRAW 2 you have 3 options.

Option 1, Run the standard physics on the PPU and get a FPS boost.
Option 2, Increase the physics so it’s higher then the CPU and still get a FPS boost only smaller then option 1.
Option 3, Run extreme physics for a small FPS drop, so short you cannot see it. The drop happens dueing explosions but a FPS boost on the rest of the phsyics.



EDIT:
“also that nuke effect looked like it was actual gameplay since the player was moving around.”
It’s not. Find one of the videos with the devs talking or the text that’s meant to go with it. They explain it was a tech demo to push the engine as far as it goes and see what’s possible. It’s like the Nvidia face demo, fine for a tech demo, not fine for a game yet.
 
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“....looks like the same stuff Ageia does (only better imo).”
Better! Physics wise that was simple with no high end physics. Those two demos don’t do any of the high end physics effects a PPU does.

Also it’s a tech demo what you can do in tech demos are x10 better then what you can do in real games. A bunch of box’s in a tech demo are very easy to do even a CPU can do that. It’s the higher end physics effects that matter and so far we have not seen an ATI card do the hard to do physics effects.






“See, what I can't figure out is how they can call this "effects" physics....”
All the physics done on the GPU via Havok FX cannot be sent back to the CPU or game engine. So the objects can interact with other objects done on the GPU which is good for explosions as the bits and rocks and fly off each other. But as far as the rest of the world is concerned those rocks are not there and not hitting anything. Say those flying rocks hit a person nothing happens. The Person doesn’t get knocked back doesn’t take damage e.c.t hit a window it doesnt break as it cannot tell its been hit.

The game engine needs to see the end results of the physics math to work out how to change gameplay and what happens.






“Hell, I'm willing to bet the 2600 series are even better at physics,”
Considering the game support for physics is x1000 times worse then Ageia does it really matter on price?




EDIT:
“It's interactive, therefore gameplay. So I don't get it.”
It’s a marketing trick its not 100% interactive. Its one way interactive. You can interact with the bits, but the bits cannot interact with you or the rest of the world.
 
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“Ageia is going down a dead end. Now if NV or ATi seen something in Ageia and decided to buy em out, then it would have a future.“
Ageia currently have more games out then Havok lots of major developers are swapping to them. They are not going down a dead end. There are to many greats games that sold millions that use Ageia.
 
“What exactly will a gamer notice from using a PPU apart from it possibly taking work from the cpu?”
Depending on what the game implants 3d Liquids, cloth, soft metal, wind, more and better particles, large performance boost up to 30 or 50%





“We've had proper physics in games since HL2,”
HL 2 had low end physics now. It has no 3d Liquids, cloth, soft metal, wind none of the hard to do demanding physics.




“Thing is, if there is nothing that looks better so far on PPU's then whats the point buying them?”
Well there’s the large speed increase and it does look better the wind makes GRAW 2 look tons better.
 
“maybe ageia designed the game (graw2) in such a way that the cpu would never be used 100% in terms of calculating physx, in order to make out that the physx card was necessary.”
Very unlikely as any change like that would affect the CPU in all the other Ageia games that are CPU only.

The thing is the API used is shared between all Ageia games. Any change affects all games. If you update the API it’s updated for everything.





“they are out to make money just like every other company out there...“
What you saying sounds like this to me. Ageia make most of there money from CPU’s doing physics with there API. 99% of Ageia games are CPU only and the games that are PPU enabled have 99% of players using the CPU instead. So Ageia tweak the API to not use 100% of the CPU in terms of calculating physics to make more money!

See a problem? Ageia main money is from the API being used on the CPU. What your saying hurts them.
 
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