is Physx a big factor?

[drunkenmaster]

Honestly as I've said since, what 4-5 years ago with Ageia, its basic effects added after the fact, Nvidia still hasn't managed to make more than a tech demo that includes there stuff in more than an asthetic manner, and they've managed nothing that any other engine can't do.

The ONLY thing limiting physics in any manner, graphical effects, game effecting physics, anything, is DESIGN, the time taken to increase the quality and the imagination and quality of the programmers.

The Mafia 2 stuff is simply different, it takes longer to design a brakeable wall than a non brakeable one, its that simple. Its why to date every highly destructable game(usually, but especially physx ones) are usually INCREDIBLY short. Its about man power, more time on effects, less time on lighting, more time on length of game via longer story and more areas, less time people for texture design, etc, etc, etc.

Games are just a HUGE balancing act, nothing more or less, with any given amount of designers increasing quality in any area is usually robbing peter to pay paul.

The difficulty lying in you can take 10 years over a game instead of 5, have time to do everything but keeping a game in production for 10 years and knowing where tech, gpu's, power, gaming in general is 10 years later is incredibly difficult, hence the last game to take so long, Duke Nukem, was started over and over again.

Also the more and more people you hire, to get more done in a shorter time, the more bugs you have(more programmers working faster = problems), the more logistical problems, bigger cost, it gets complicated.

Nvidia often give dev's over to help with physx, theres entirely nothing they do any other engine/designer can't do, its just, they pay for a few extra guys to work basically, unfortunately this seems to be a the cost of dodgey dealings going on, and making basically false claims and lying through their teeth about how great their stuff is.

I mean how long has it actually been since Ageia's start and the "peak" of Physx is adding a few crap effects to a game that are still nothing even close to game changing, thats still where they are at, honestly, its pathetic. Actively claiming that effects that are, delayed, unrealistic, pre-rendered and done for the past decade are new, need more power, and more realistic, they should be embarassed.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Tho now you've mentioned it - I do notice on the glass wall the shards are flying out in an explosion pattern rather than inline with the damage... bad design error

Yes, its design error, but it also shows without question that again Physx is NOT being used for real time accurate piece by piece rendering, and thats the whole argument, its prerendered crap, not realistic.

You're now saying its design error and poor, before you said essentially physx, night and day.............

Its basic design and incredibly basic and common effects/physics, the fact that Nvidia are trying to pass it off as new, is pathetic as I posted a minute ago. The fact is, if Physx, which will no doubt rape AMD hardware to do this basic stuff, was being used to do realtime, piece by piece stuff, it couldn't all be the same, predone, or, delayed and inaccurate, thats the WHOLE POINT of Physx, according to Ageia/Nvidia/certain other people.

But here it is another "big physx title" and its basically simple design and badly implemented, also, this is HIGHLY likely to be Nvidia programmers working on the project......... so bad design error, and quality, and its probably Nvidia's own guys doing it.............. ouch.

 

[LeJosh]

Until developers actually learn how to put real physics in using physx\havok then it will be. But just now all the stuff is crap.

The paper in Batman: AA flopped about like rubber, the cloth is laughable and since when did someone walk up to fog and the fog moved away from him? Surely he should be able to walk through it?

That mafia 2 video demonstrating it is terrible, if you watch bullets in slow motion through glass all it does is leave a hole and cracks around and you see debris fly through the other end. Not a spherical like explosion which has a second delay per bullet, terrible design flaw. None of this needs extra power, developers have been doing this stuff better for years!

 

[Rroff]

with regards to crysis, doesn't cryengine2 have its own full physics engine built in, rather than using Physx or Havok, etc. it certainly does everything Physx seems to do, just without needing Physx.

Thats the problem (that gamers don't really see) physx is capable of far more at realtime performance than other APIs especially softbody effects that other software APIs either can't do or can only run 1-2 limited instances before performance grinds to a halt. Some of the more advanced effects use highly specific solvers that means they run fine on CPU for that limited scenario but means you can't reuse the effect adlib throughout the game world - which physx can do.

 

[Rroff]

Yes, its design error, but it also shows without question that again Physx is NOT being used for real time accurate piece by piece rendering, and thats the whole argument, its prerendered crap, not realistic.

You're now saying its design error and poor, before you said essentially physx, night and day.............

Its basic design and incredibly basic and common effects/physics, the fact that Nvidia are trying to pass it off as new, is pathetic as I posted a minute ago. The fact is, if Physx, which will no doubt rape AMD hardware to do this basic stuff, was being used to do realtime, piece by piece stuff, it couldn't all be the same, predone, or, delayed and inaccurate, thats the WHOLE POINT of Physx, according to Ageia/Nvidia/certain other people.

But here it is another "big physx title" and its basically simple design and badly implemented, also, this is HIGHLY likely to be Nvidia programmers working on the project......... so bad design error, and quality, and its probably Nvidia's own guys doing it.............. ouch.

Give them a chance its the first time anyones really used it even to this extent... another 2-3 titles down the line and it will be much more professional and better demonstrating what PhsyX can really do.

 

[LeJosh]

In theory hardware physics should be making a massive difference I just can't believe that developers are doing so bad with it just now. And Rroff Physx is a strong API but I just want developers to push the boat concerning physics and I think we will have to wait for the next generation of consoles before that happens.

 

[Cd0gz]

Give them a chance its the first time anyones really used it even to this extent... another 2-3 titles down the line and it will be much more professional and better demonstrating what PhsyX can really do.

There have been a good few games that use it and it has been out for years so if they are not professional at using physx by now what does that say? Its crap!

 

[Sh3rlock]

In a word no.

I have been running with ATI cards for a short while now after owning Nvidia from since I owned a pc and I can honestly say, I don't miss Physx one bit.

 

[Rroff]

They've barely used it tho (aside from a couple of games that are basically tech demos) and used it very little in a manner that a software API couldn't handle capably. Mafia 2 is the first title to make more widespread useage of it and even thats far below the full feature set of PhysX.

 

[HangTime]

Just thought I'd add a comment that even though I have an Nvidia card (GTX280) I disabled PhysX in Batman (one of it's flagship titles) for performance reasons. With PhysX disabled I had more than double the framerate so could pretty much max everything else out.

Now of course if you have a dedicated PhysX card then performance is better, but if you go down that route then it's pretty much a moot point as to whether your primary GPU supports PhysX or not.

If PhysX really takes off in a big way then I'll slot my 8800GTS-320 back in as a dedicated card, but it's not worth the hassle at the moment as so few games really take advantage of it.

 

[Cd0gz]

I cant see it catching on to the extent you are talking about. I doubt any of the new consoles will use Nvidia so they will adopt another API for physics. The selling point of a games console has never been and never will be physics. The PC will not move in a different direction than the consoles. Microsoft have designed DX11 so that its easier for PC games to be reprogrammed for consoles and vice versa. Physx and its waving flags and floating paper is not big enough to influence the next gen of gaming on consoles or the PC. It will fizzle out and everyone will wonder why they bothered.

 

[kylew]

Thats designer error rather than a valid argument against the API itself...

Even if it's bad design error, it still doesn't make PhysX any better. PhysX is only as good as the games it's used in, and if it's used badly continuously, then it'll be just that.

This isn't the first time you've fawned over PhysX effects and shown videos of it only for people to point out that they're really poor effects and you to notice it afterwards.

 

[kylew]

I cant see it catching on to the extent you are talking about. I doubt any of the new consoles will use Nvidia so they will adopt another API for physics. The selling point of a games console has never been and never will be physics. The PC will not move in a different direction than the consoles. Microsoft have designed DX11 so that its easier for PC games to be reprogrammed for consoles and vice versa. Physx and its waving flags and floating paper is not big enough to influence the next gen of gaming on consoles or the PC. It will fizzle out and everyone will wonder why they bothered.

That's a good point, hasn't it came out recently that nVidia won't have any hardware in the next gen consoles? That's going to obviously mean no "PhysX" (as in the nVidia branded hardware physics).

As I've said, PhysX needs to go, it's doing no one any good. Rroff argues that they've not had much chance to implement PhysX heavily in to a game, well he's right and it's not going to change untill there's an open standard for hardware physics. Games devs are only going to seriously implement hardware physics in to their games when only one GPU manufacturer uses it.

That point is even more valid since nVidia's marketshare has been dropping. Devs want as many people as possible to buy their games, so of course they're not going to implement features that locks out 50% of their customer base from playing it.

 

[Final8y]

Night and day, yup, performance maybe, the effects themselves are crap. So a bullet hits the "glass wall", and each time the glass debrie effect happens, its basically an explosion, where glass goes off in a spherical explosion with glass going in each direction, including opposite the direction of the bullet.

This is the problem with physx, its wasted on effects that simply aren't realistic. Same with the wood, its not calculated, its not realistic and its really not interacting with the enviroment, if it was it would be interacting with the bullet and the glass would all be shattering on the side opposite the bullets impact(in general) also the glass is mostly shattering into identically sized little pieces and doesn't seem to actually be taking into account the structure or size of the original piece. IE the bullet hits, the glass shatters, the original piece of glass is gone and the debrie "appears" at the site of the bullet and goes in a premade "explosion" type effect where it spreads out evenly in all directions.

Honestly, thats not even anywhere near close to realistic. Its different, because they put effort into making it different, its not the slightest bit more realistic, and considering its a very very poor effect, and really shouldn't be taking more cpu time, so it feels like more Nvidia pointless inclusion to damage performance and cheat the user out of a better experience rubbish.

Lets be honest, those bits aren't any more interactive, and the "performance cost" of truly accurate physics, is keeping track of many individually sized pieces, and calculating each piece of debries movement individually. The debrie is pre rendered, not moving realistically and therefore can't possible be being heavily calculated each time, especially as each glass shattering effect is all but identical to the last, despite bullets not hitting each piece in the same place or same angle, IE theres no way they should be so similar each time.

Just watched a bit more, its really really awful. THe glass effects don't even centre around the bullets explosion and infact seem to be very slightly "delayed", half the "glass explosion" type effects seem to be in the slightly long location, delayed, and again, the glass will explode evenly in all directions.

THe actual glass panes in the next scene are also "exploding", one bullet hits and a huge area of glass shatters into identical pieces each time, with some going up, and some going forward, and some huge fragments going up, which simply wouldn't be possible.

There isn't a sane person that would defend that as night and day difference, when its actually worse in many bits, and completely unrealistic.

Its different, not more realistic and shouldn't cost ANY more performance, if it does, Nvidia is once again absolutely cheating both Nvidia and AMD users. IE add in a new physics api, make the effects different, but exactly no better, call it realistic, its not, kill performance so it only runs well when hardware accelerated.

Its an abomination on the gaming industry to be honest. Its more realistic debrie than Mafia 1, because its the best part of, what a decade newer, nothing to do with physx, and another attempt for Nvidia to buy off a dev to try to prove how good their physx is. If it was remotely realistic, they'd have a point, unfortunately, the glass wall spherical blowout effect is like something from 5-10 years ago itself. The glass pieces of debrie don't even look like pieces of glass it looks so bad.

I noticed what you side the first time i looked at the game months ago but could not be bothered to point all that out.

 

[Rroff]

As I've said, PhysX needs to go, it's doing no one any good. Rroff argues that they've not had much chance to implement PhysX heavily in to a game, well he's right and it's not going to change untill there's an open standard for hardware physics. Games devs are only going to seriously implement hardware physics in to their games when only one GPU manufacturer uses it.

That point is even more valid since nVidia's marketshare has been dropping. Devs want as many people as possible to buy their games, so of course they're not going to implement features that locks out 50% of their customer base from playing it.

As I mentioned a couple of posts back I think Mafia II is gonna be the make or break point here... if developers see it has a significant impact on the public experience of the game they will take note and be looking at their own physic implementations in future titles, if its of mostly of little impact then physx will continue to be sidelined.

 

[AMG]

Dont forget ATI can use Havok on GPU...

i heard they they was 'working' on it but I didn't know they sgot it working


I guess thats what I get for not reading the driver updates

 

[NZXT30]

In theory hardware physics should be making a massive difference I just can't believe that developers are doing so bad with it just now. And Rroff Physx is a strong API but I just want developers to push the boat concerning physics and I think we will have to wait for the next generation of consoles before that happens.

Exactly. Everybody here is missing the fact that not many developers care enough about pc gaming to add proper physics effects.

you guys can argue all day about nvidia paying developers to add physx effects and that we need an open API. The fact is that no one would care to add extra physics effects to pc games using an open api. If nvidia wasn't paying developers for physx effects they simply wouldnt be there. i dont have an nvidia card and judging from videos the effects look gimmicky indeed but thats all pc gamers got for now.

 

[Fred]

I'd rather have it, than not have it.

I thought the effects in Batman were pretty good, and it would lessen the game to not have them.

If I was chosing another card, I think the fact that a certain card provided extra graphic enhancements would have to be brought into my decision, although its just one of many considerations... power consumption, heat output, performance, drivers etc..

 

[drunkenmaster]

As I mentioned a couple of posts back I think Mafia II is gonna be the make or break point here... if developers see it has a significant impact on the public experience of the game they will take note and be looking at their own physic implementations in future titles, if its of mostly of little impact then physx will continue to be sidelined.

But thats got nothing to do with physx, NOTHING in the game hasn't been done before. I have no clue how you are again trying to claim that somehow no game has implemented it to this level before. HOnestly I have a truly horrific memory for certain things, I can't tell you which games have it but others can.

There are plenty of games that have bullet damage ripping apart walls and breaking glass, and plenty and plenty of games that do it just as badly as physx.

Also its a little boring to hear you say Physx can do it so much better, again, you're talking rubbish, the API has no bearing on the developers ability, and Havok, or any companies own physics engine can do anything the programmers have time to implement.

Crysis has what seems to be some realistic explosions, NOTHING in Mafia 2 is realistic, every single bullet impact in those video's looks worse than games that have been out for 5 years, so how can you say no game has used this level of "physics" and that this is make or break for Physx, if it is, its already a break, because its ruddy terrible.


This really is becoming very silly, you've gone from if you know what you're looking for this is "night and day" with everything else.

To oh yeah I missed the(ludicrously obvious, instantly recognisable) massive massive flaws that actually make the physics seem less realistic than many many other games. To its designer error(which is likely experienced Nvidia developers who would be the people most capable of getting the best out of the API), to, this is make or break because no game has done it to this level before.

You're making it up as you go along, as per usual, and you're doing the fairly usual thing of explaining away any criticism, badly, then just moving on and claiming victory...... oh, yeah thats designer flaw(not engine the engines more capable than anything else, which of course, has yet to see proof in a single game) thats a great excuse, I'll move on and claim this is the largest scale implementation of physics in any game ever...........



THe fact is Anandtech(I assume after reading my posts here ) posted an article what must be pushing 2 years ago now about the fact that game changing physics would essentially be called tier 1, or intergrated, or level 1 physics, and Physx has yet to effect any game in this(none tech demo pap from them), all physx does is add a few more particles, mostly COMPLETELY UNREALISTIC in the vast majority of titles, which does little more than add load to the amount of rendering required basically killing performance.

Things like, massively realistic interaction of the enviroment with the character, walking into boxes which interact perfectly, something Rroff claims gives massive immersion and is game changing, that I've yet to see from a physx game, SHOULDN'T add to the gpu load, the box is drawn static or moving, the interaction is something that should be done BEFORE anything is sent to the gpu to be rendered.

That would be tier 1/level 1 physics, again, I've yet to see physx effect a game in this way. People are using physx(badly) for added graphical effects, nothing more or less, its the least "physics" use of physics possible.

Characters interacting with more items is simply more complicated to get right, will create more bugs and be more difficult to code and most importantly, take MORE TIME to code, above and beyond what most people have available to them.

I mean with Batman they simply removed completely and utterly standard smoke, leaf/wind/paper effects and a little wall damage, and reincluded it under the name of physx, again entirely nothing seen before, but somehow at a higher cost than any other game that uses the same effects.

Physx is a big PR scam, if it wasn't, other games wouldn't end up with the same quality and scale of effects or physx, after 4-5 years + would offer something new, they don't.

 

[Gashman]

so what are these things Physx is capable of that Havok, Cryengine2/3, etc. aren't capable of..? i mean playing through Crysis and Warhead the enviroment seems pretty interactive, foliage moving as you walk past, blowing stuff up and debris falling in a seemingly random but realistic manner, bullets moving foliage, etc. that seems like more physics than any Physx game i have ever came across, and Havok is another great example, Company of Heroes for example uses Havok does it not? that game is getting on in age and it still impresses with its in-game physics even now, the way buildings are damaged by tanks, etc. is still just as good as anything in Batman: Arkham Asylum... so personally unless someone can give me some hard evidence of why Physx is worth a damn im of the same opinion as drunkenmaster on this one...

Edit: even more so when you go on the tube and watch videos of massive towers of barrels and stuff falling in cryengine2, great stuff...and all the barrels interact in a realistic manner, and i know it doesn't run in real time but lets be honest here? with Physx if you stack 30,000 barrels up then nail the bottom barrel its not exactly gonna run at 30+FPS is it...