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Physics X - ... A few questions...

AshD93

AshD93

AshD93

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Joined
21 Oct 2009
Posts
1,613
Hi guys, just a few questions...

I'v noticed a lot of people talking about Physics X (or something similar) and wondered what it was... its seems to revolve around Batman: Arkham Asylum...

a) Is it only available in Batman: AA?

b) Is it only possible with N-Vidia Graphics Cards?

c) What is so special about it?


I am asking as the rig I am going to create is planned to have a 5250 with a second in Crossfire mode when I get the cash... and if the N-Vidia cards have better features, it may be worth waiting... Basically, I don't want to fork out a whole load of cash to realise the next day that there is something better.

Thanks for all replies in advance.

Ash
 
Do some research on non-biased websites. Don't take the advice/opinions of the people on this forum (and in particular the people who lurk in this section) because you'll usually learn nothing other than how to be a fanboy.
 
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A) There are other games that make use of Physx - just not many
B) Yes unless its run on the CPU which is a lot slower
C) Not a great deal other than extra stuff flying around in explosions etc
 
Here you go:

a) No, there are more games using PhysX - CLICK

b) Yes, unfortunately. But there is a way to use a Nvidia PhysX card along with Radeons as main GPUs.

c) Basically - Physics in games ;) - CLICK

I wouldn't make a judgement whether it's worth or not.
 
Mr Krugga, thanks for the links... the vids really helped... I got admit, if its making the effect I think its making, it is a very nice little touch... Whether it is worth it and whether I will notice it is a completely different story... I think with my budget, I will stick with the Ati card... hopefully, I can start getting the parts around christmas time...

Thanks to everyone who commented.
 
Physx is a physics engine designed to run only on NV hardware. It can run on ATI's hardware, or cpu's, but for obvious reason's NV don't allow it.
There are other games that use it, but Batman is probably the best example of it, and the best game that uses it.
The physics engines have a lot of potential to improve the gaming experience. Physics can be viewed as the interaction with objects in game. Realistic car crashes, explosions or simple things like throwing an object etc.

The problem here is that if a developer designs a game to use physx for anything important(other than graphical effects) then game will only work on an NV card and that part of the game can't be ported to consoles either. The industry is moving to using OpenCL as the common framework that will work across all gpu's/cpu's and probably next gen consoles.
 
PhysX is a software library, originally developed by a company called Novodex, quite simply, it allows developers of games to use a well developed and optimised library in order to handle the calculation of many physics aspects of their games (i.e. you pick up a bottle and throw it, the PhysX library accurately calculates the trajectory etc of that bottle and the force it generates when it hits something, stuff like that).

Novodex PhysX was bought by a company called Ageia, who had new plans for it. They released the "PhysX" hardware card, which was in fact a simple vector processor on a board with 128MB dedicated memory. They altered some aspects of the PhysX engine so that it could be run on the PhysX card, this offloaded the physics calculations from the system CPU, however the cards were too expensive and the uptake of game devs using physics libraries was too slow. They nearly died, so NVIDIA bought them, their hardware and the PhysX library.

NVIDIA then set about altering the part of the PhysX library which allowed the code to be run on the PhysX card, so that it uses NVIDIAs CUDA stream processing language. With the current release of the PhysX SDK (2.8.3), this CUDA implementation is actually quite limited, with only certain aspects of the library able to be accelerated, and large restrictions on the usage of the library if the developer does so.

Not sure if that little history of PhysX is of any use to you, but I thought it migth be interesting to just set straight exactly what PhysX is.

At its heart, it is simply a well developed and mature physics calculation library that runs on your computers CPU, i.e. any PC, with any graphics card, can run it as long as it has the PhysX system software installed (any new NV driver automatically installs it, but its available as a seperate download for ATI users as well). However, for machines that have NVIDIA cards, very limited aspects of the library can currently be acceleratd using an NV GPU. With the 3.0.0 release of the SDK, devs are being promised that the CUDA implementation will be massively improved, with all aspects accelerated and the "scale" of the physics simulatons the engine can handle greatly improved.
 
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Basically it has the potential to be big, but because Nvidia insist on keeping it to themselves it just ends up being a wet fart. Shame really.
 
Thanks for all the input. That history is interesting. Its a shame that N vidia are keeping it too themselves... After googling some stuff, it turns out that it can be used with Ati's like mentioned. Not sure about its performance though... but thanks anyway.

Ash
 
AshD93 said:
Hi guys, just a few questions...

I'v noticed a lot of people talking about Physics X (or something similar) and wondered what it was... its seems to revolve around Batman: Arkham Asylum...

a) Is it only available in Batman: AA?

b) Is it only possible with N-Vidia Graphics Cards?

c) What is so special about it?


I am asking as the rig I am going to create is planned to have a 5250 with a second in Crossfire mode when I get the cash... and if the N-Vidia cards have better features, it may be worth waiting... Basically, I don't want to fork out a whole load of cash to realise the next day that there is something better.

Thanks for all replies in advance.

Ash
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have a look here at the video and see the difference for yourself:
http://firingsquad.com/hardware/batman_arkham_asylum_physx_performance/page2.asp

i wouldnt play the game without physx, its am amazing addition the the already awsome atmosphere of the game.
 
Cyber-Mav said:
i wouldnt play the game without physx, its am amazing addition the the already awsome atmosphere of the game.
Click to expand...

Really?

I mean I watch that video and all I see that impresses me is the scarecrow parts with the floating rocks and the flying paper looks alright.

The rest of it just make the scenery look like it's made out of styrofoam, I mean tiles breaking when someone falls on them? how does that work?


I'm not trying to play down physics, I just don't understand the hype around these particular physics effects, they just strike me as needlessly added so that Nvidia has as many things to go "Oh but ATi can't have THIS as well!" when they, yes again, talk about Batman.
 
It's not worth considering any of nVidia's current cards.

"PhysX" isn't the definition of "Physics" in games. There will be physics engines that run on any GPU.

In fact, these are currently in development.

ATi have nVidia beat in every area currently, so you're effectively throwing your money away by buying them.

As for the people saying "don't listen to people on here as they're fanboys", they are trolls themselves and I would advise you to pay them no attention as they take disagreeing as a personal insult.

You're not allowed to criticise nVidia without someone throwing a hissy fit about it.

PhysX has potential, but not when it's controlled by nVidia and only runs on nVidia GPUs.

That's like having games that only work on an AMD CPU, it's crazy, it'll never become a staple feature when you need specific brand hardware to run it.
 
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Fenris said:
Really?

I mean I watch that video and all I see that impresses me is the scarecrow parts with the floating rocks and the flying paper looks alright.

The rest of it just make the scenery look like it's made out of styrofoam, I mean tiles breaking when someone falls on them? how does that work?


I'm not trying to play down physics, I just don't understand the hype around these particular physics effects, they just strike me as needlessly added so that Nvidia has as many things to go "Oh but ATi can't have THIS as well!" when they, yes again, talk about Batman.
Click to expand...

its things like the paper folding and moving around as you walk over it, thats the thing about physics, you cant really get the immersion of it by looking at screenshots, videos to some degree provide a better idea of how physics are improved. when your actually playing the game thats when you realise these effects have more than just visual appeal. smashing people onto the floor and having tiles break are very satisfying since it makes the impacts "feel" more harder and intense and gets you pulled more into the game.
this is what sets the difference between the console and pc versions of this game. if your system can have physics enabled then by all means enable it and enjoy the game. if not well its still a great game and by all means do play it and hopefully you can make a return to the game one day and play it the way its ment to be played. ;)
 
ejr22 said:
Do some research on non-biased websites. Don't take the advice/opinions of the people on this forum (and in particular the people who lurk in this section) because you'll usually learn nothing other than how to be a fanboy.
Click to expand...

Care to elaborate on what non-biased means? Non-biased to who? Regarding what?

What you should have said is "truthful/reputable websites" and actually linked to some too. Ash might have some difficulty in finding what appears to be a "non-biased" tech website, as nVidia is receiving a lot of hate lately (most deserved of course). The way you say it makes it appear as if you're saying "don't listen to anything that's negative as it's biased" which isn't true at all.

Your comment just seems like a cheap chance to bring out the fanboy brush again and start painting people with it.
 
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Cyber-Mav said:
its things like the paper folding and moving around as you walk over it, thats the thing about physics, you cant really get the immersion of it by looking at screenshots, videos to some degree provide a better idea of how physics are improved. when your actually playing the game thats when you realise these effects have more than just visual appeal. smashing people onto the floor and having tiles break are very satisfying since it makes the impacts "feel" more harder and intense and gets you pulled more into the game.
this is what sets the difference between the console and pc versions of this game. if your system can have physics enabled then by all means enable it and enjoy the game. if not well its still a great game and by all means do play it and hopefully you can make a return to the game one day and play it the way its ment to be played. ;)
Click to expand...

More harder indeed. :p

What Fenris said though is very valid. While breaking tiles is nice, it may as well not be there if they're pretending tiles break so easily.

I though PhysX was achieving realistic physics effects in games, not "everything breaks when you interact with it, isn't that cool?".

I think physics in games is great and I can't wait until they become more mainstream as I'm not investing in nVidia just for PhysX.

I can't wait until there is an open standard, well I can't wait until the open standard comes out, as we all know that it's currently in development.
 
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