Vehicle dynamics simulation strikes me as somewhat different to a perhaps less complex simulation of a repeating object such as grass or hair. Not to mention the tyre simulation which is a whole other order of complexity. GPU's good for calculating/simulating recurring less complex objects while CPU's better for calculating/simulating one very complex one?
None of the current leading simulations, RFactor2, iracing, Assetto Corsa, Project CARS, Raceroom Racing Experience, Game Stockcar Extreme use the GPU for physics simulation that I know of.
You can find more on Project CARS tyre model:
http://www.wmdportal.com/projectnews/inside-project-cars-seta-tire-model/#more-6739
Its nothing new, i'm sure PC does it very well but its actually been done before on racing games as far back as 15 years ago.
There is nothing strenuous about it, the game calculates the physical state of the tyre based on predefined parameters and feeds that back to the player, a CPU can make millions of such calculations a second which is massively more than it needs to for such a task, this type of Physics started out on the
one core 250Mhz PSX and it was quite good all things considered.
Anything that is an interactive object has physical properties, the engine knows where it is in real time and space, something as simple as a rotating wheel reacting to user input is physics.
That cylinder i'm shooting at is physics, it even knows where its being hit and reacts accordingly, hit it on the left it flicks to the right, hit it at the bottom it stops spinning or spins backwards, it even know how hard its being hit.
When you make these things you give these objects mass, density, gravity, air resistance..... properties with in its world.
It does not require massive calculations for all that to work, in 1998 it may have been a little hard going, but with the compute power both Intel and AMD CPU's have today even in the lower mid range its easy.
Its only if you use methods and API's from the 1990's is where you might need a GPU, and if the GPU is one of your proprietary products then your onto a winner.
Here is something you see in one Vendors brand of games and that Vendor says you need the compute power of their GPU's to do it.
Erm? no you don't.
