NVIDIA To Showcase PhysX Content 56
Early next week, NVIDIA will release the GeForce Experience Pack to demonstrate the 'PhysX' engine it bought from AGEIA earlier this year. The pack is free, and it will contain a stand-alone action game, maps for Unreal Tournament 3, and various demos. Gamasutra notes that the UT3 maps are "designed to 'fundamentally change' the game's mechanics."
of course they want to use physx (Score:1)
they want to use physx because as is clear right now, nobody other than Nvidia can use it 100% accurately yet.
I seem to recall an israeli group getting it working on a radeon 4850 and doing fantastic, but overall this is the real reason it's promoted.
Thus, in effect, its like how nvidia refused to support DX 10.1
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they want to use physx because as is clear right now, nobody other than Nvidia can use it 100% accurately yet.
Maybe because NVIDIA acquired AGEIA, which is the company that made the original PhysX cards.
That's a bit like saying "Nobody other than Microsoft can do .NET 100% accurately yet," only moreso, because at least Microsoft is pretending .NET is portable. I'm not sure PhysX was ever meant to be. (Consider the -X ending, implying DirectX, rather than something like PhysicsGL, or PhysL, implying OpenGL -- you know, the actually portable industry standard for graphics.)
Re:of course they want to use physx (Score:5, Informative)
(Consider the -X ending, implying DirectX, rather than something like PhysicsGL, or PhysL, implying OpenGL -- you know, the actually portable industry standard for graphics.)
...Or maybe PhysX just sounds a hell of a lot better than PhysL?
PhysX is actually not connected to DirectX at all; the PhysX SDK is even available for the Playstation 3 [tgdaily.com] and Linux. [sys-con.com]
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...Or maybe PhysX just sounds a hell of a lot better than PhysL?
Wow, I can't believe I didn't notice... Yes, "Physics" sounds better than "Fizzle"...
Re:of course you want to use PhysL (Score:1)
PhysL is a more accurate description of the product that was originally released by AGEIA tho..
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Yes. Microsoft is the first company to ever use the letter "X" to mark something. Every other name, such as UNIX and Wormhole X-Treme! [wikipedia.org] is just copying them.
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ahaha...I can just see Jack frowning.
but I digress.
anyways, don't forget...Microsoft (one of the employees at the time) coined the executable file format on DOS/Win to be "marked" with "MZ".
either way, the PhysX CUDA thingie only makes sense if you have more than one compatible Nvidia product (8xxx/9xxx/2x0), especially if you can't run them in SLi mode (or don't want to).
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PhysL (Score:2)
rather than something like ... PhysL
I may be wrong but I think naming your product Fizzle might make it a hard sell. Perhaps DampSquib(tm)?
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Actually it's because long ago before PhysX was owned by AGAIA, it was called "NovodoX".
Obviously this name sucked ass to some management types, so they decided to change it to something more appropriate and more importantly, more descriptive.
It's a Physics library, so there's where the "Phys" part comes from, the X is clearly a holdover from "NovodoX", probably as a way of indicating that it's the same library, just with a different name.
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I wonder what the demo will be... (Score:3, Funny)
Let me go out on a limb and take a guess that the demo will consist of a bunch of boxes falling or other things we've already seen in games that seem to work just fine without PhysX chips for some reason. Except they'll note that since it's handled by the PhysX processor to the CPU doesn't take a hit. Then everybody will applaud and cheer, and PC gaming will continue to stagnate.
Re:I wonder what the demo will be... (Score:5, Informative)
The pack will feature NetDevil's Warmonger (pictured), a complete action game allowing players to use destructive powers to destroy walls, floors, and whole buildings to open new paths or close existing ones.
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Madness! Yet another techology used for destruction...
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physics-realistic, hentai-style
You hope for the impossible and the contradictory.
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I wouldn't call myself an expert by a long shot, but I myself made a [url=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v438/neoKushan/Random%20Program%20creations/newtexts.png]simple app[/url] that had "lots of boxes falling" around the place and it worked fine without PhysX hardware or other. It was completely unoptimised as well, yet on a fairly limited machine I could have hundreds of boxes colliding all over the shop without much of a frame drop.
I'm not bragging or trying to sound "kewel", I'm just saying that it'
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Ahh fuck, I accidentally used BBCode instead of HTML.
I'd post the proper link here, but in retrospect I'd rather not risk my photobucket account getting slashdotted, so anything to thin out the numbers of potentially curious people...
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"Perhaps with some hardware acceleration, we'll see some really destructible environments in games."
These days I have very little faith in games. All this physics acceleration is just a gimmick to make money. Game companies aren't into making fun or innovative games anymore, they're all about graphics and gimmicks. So you can blow up walls, big deal. You could do that in Blood, but it didn't require any special hardware to do it. Plus Blood was actually f-u-n.
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No offense, but how was this modded informative? The task you sent was simple enough, let me know when your boxes turn into spheres that start off rolling down a bumpy hill, that each have their own weight values and fall into a simulated cloth that tears only when given a certain amount of kinetic energy.
Yes, I briefly touched the PhysX SDK, and the things it can do is far more than just box simulation. 6 degrees of free
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OH well in that case, you'll be glad to know that everything within my pissy little demo was completely independant of everything else. Every single box you see there could have it's own mass, forces, attenuation, etc. just for the sake of simplicity I only made two different types.
I could also adjust the gravity on the fly as well as all the above mentioned attirbutes of every new box "shot". Oh and I have spheres. Of different sizes.
And I didn't use PhysX.
And the whole point I was trying to make was that
Does the physics feed back into the gameplay? (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of what Ageia has done so far involves particle systems for fire, explosions, and water. It's all part of the rendering; none of the Ageia-driven objects feed back into the game play. Have they gone beyond that?
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Technically speaking, visuals can have a profound effect on gameplay.
That said, I'm also waiting for someone to do something interesting with hardware-accelerated physics.
Re:visuals VS. gameplay (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, they're used as a substitution.
Poorly, yes, but they do also affect gameplay directly, when used properly.
For a really trivial example, try adjusting the crosshairs on your favorite FPS. Most gamers I know like to use a little dot, dead-center in the screen, to show exactly where the bullet is going to go (assuming the gun is accurate). But just try turning it off for a moment -- are you even playing the same game? The difficulty just went up a hell of a lot.
Try that all around -- toggle HUD displays and see what happens.
For a more relevant example, take lighting. People like to say that HDR adds nothing to gameplay -- and to some extent, they're right. But say someone has a sunset to their back -- how are you going to aim at all into that lense flare? Whereas they can see you just fine -- in fact, you're all lit up by the setting sun -- better duck down quick and find some shadow. And maybe sneak up behind them, and reverse that situation.
For an extreme example, the visuals and controls can be designed as a gameplay gimmick -- take the final level of Beyond Good & Evil. (SPOILER: Having your character be as messed up in the head as if she'd been drugged has a profound impact on gameplay, and this was, in fact, the single hardest moment in the game for me.)
And finally, let's take the best game I've played in a long time -- Portal. It's about gameplay, right? Everyone will tell you, it's a whole new paradigm of gameplay about portals.
Well, what if those portals were just blue and orange circles. What if you couldn't see through them. Would the gameplay be at all the same? (Play through with the developer commentary if you need it spelled out for you.) What if it wasn't for the visual cue of white-ish walls to show you where you can legally place a portal?
And would it be the same game without GlaDOS? Or the theme song?
Yes, I realize GlaDOS wasn't that impressive visually -- I'm talking about her voice. My point is that everything about the game has the potential to change the way it's played. And you will never know how little or how much until you actually get people to play it. Honestly, did anyone at Id imagine rocket jumping, before someone else discovered it?
And yes, it does suck when visuals are used as a substitution for gameplay. With few exceptions, the visuals do not make up for the gameplay.
(I'll make an exception for Final Fantasy, which are worth watching, even if they're more like a season of anime with a crappy RPG minigame squeezed in.)
But that is not a reason to immediately dismiss any eye candy as completely useless, without giving it a moment's thought.
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The problem is, hardcore game players will take advantage of the multiplayer game system settings, and turn off all the extra visual effects that make it hard to see other players (don't need fog, lens flare, smoke effects, high-resolution detail, light haze, high screen resolutions) and which slow down frame rate.
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hardcore game players will... turn off all the extra visual effects that make it hard to see other players (don't need fog, lens flare, smoke effects, high-resolution detail, light haze, high screen resolutions) and which slow down frame rate.
However, if these effects are being used to influence gameplay, you could require them as a baseline.
At which point, if "hardcore" gamers figure out how to disable them, they're no longer "hardcore", they're "cheaters".
As for the rest of us, consider two possibilities: First, console shooters up the ante -- you now have to modify the hardware in order to cheat in this way, and there's no argument that your framerate would be affected (everyone's framerate is affected in the same way).
And second, just WTF di
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"I can't think of a particular game where the physics were essential to the gameplay"
Portal.
QED.
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http://www.elastomania.com/ [elastomania.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_(computer_game) [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Does the physics feed back into the gameplay? (Score:5, Informative)
Feeding advanced physics back into gameplay creates a compatibility barrier.
True. But there's also a parallelism problem and a lag problem. Particle systems where the particles don't interact with each other parallelize easily. In other words, blowing stuff into little bits is easy to make run fast. Big-object collisions don't parallelize well; you need intercommunication between adjacent objects. This is transitive, which turns a parallel problem into a sequential one. Worst case: "Now let us all join hands around the world", or, "Everybody take hold of the rope and pull". Very few games do physics well enough that two players could pick up an object, one lifting each end, and move it realistically. I'd like to see a game where a raid team has to cooperate to pick up a boat, carry it to the water, and get it launched in the surf zone, timing the launch so they don't get pushed back onto the beach by a wave. That would be a good feature in any "special ops" game; SEALs train for weeks to get that particular skill nailed.
The lag problem is that the graphics pipeline normally runs behind the game engine, and the game engine doesn't wait for it. If some physics out in the graphics pipeline has to feed back into the game engine, either the game engine has to wait, which slows it down, or the effect has to be introduced into the game engine a few cycles late. In some cases that works; you could have a game where snow was falling and snowdrifts affected skiing or driving. That would work fine if the snowdrift updates reached the game engine a few cycles late. But large-object collision detection and response can't be processed late, or the results not only look awful, you get fly-throughs and instability.
(I used to do physics engines. I'm responsible for the "ragdoll falling downstairs" cliche (1997)).
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I've been playing around with Entanglar [dunnchurchill.com] lately - and while I woudn't say they've "solved" the multiplayer physics sim issue (and whether it would scale to 3D), the alpha build theyve got up would certainly at least cover your boat scenario on LAN.
Definitely the couple of prototypes I've been messing around with work a lot better than say Garrys Mod. The funny asteroids-without-guns sample they include lets you get two people pushing the same box around. Presumably it would all go to shit beyond 50ms of lag
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Most of what Ageia has done so far involves particle systems for fire, explosions, and water. It's all part of the rendering; none of the Ageia-driven objects feed back into the game play. Have they gone beyond that?
Someone could have, but then they'd be cutting themselves out of 98% of the game market. With nVidia now owning it they'll only be cutting themselves out of half the market. It's tough to design something like that when you must have a non-PhysX mode too. It's no big secret what cards people have and how often they buy new ones. If they want PhysX in games, they need to start pushing out PhysX-capable cards and build a market base. Software makers aren't going to make a game just for those who recently boug
The problem (Score:2)
Is that if I make something that alters gameplay in a fundamental way require a PhysX card, then I make my game available to only a small amount of people. It's kinda like 3D cards back in the day. While various games supported them, none required them. Not enough people had them. As more and more got them, it because a worthwhile venture to make a game that required one.
So supposing that enough graphics accelerators are made to support PhysX, then maybe companies will start using it for core gameplay. Howe
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Video's showing performance would be more useful (Score:2)
I'm trying to decide whether a GTX 280 is worth the price. These demo's are only any good if you already have a physx capable card.
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NEgative nellies.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Not holding my breath... (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember, many moons ago, when the PhysX cards were gaining some king of industry momentum. I wouldn't call it acceptance, but it definitely wasn't a complete disregard either.
I think one of the big problems here is that between AMD and NVIDIA there are only two major market forces -- both of whom are no where near on a lovey-dovey level, and definitely no where near sharing ideas (read licensing) stuff between them. So if NVIDIA gets this PhysX stuff working from AEGIA, marvelous, but it will be completely ignored by the ATI/AMD crowd. And if the better share of 50% of the marketplace is ignoring this, it is simply not in game designers' best interests to waste development time and money on something.
Really, I could see this type of technology being similar to the PS*2* HDD -- barely ever used.
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Re:Not holding my breath... (Score:4, Informative)
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Which makes perfect sense - if you're the only vendor for something like that, then it'll either never take off or take off very slowly (unless it's truly revolutionary) as games won't require it because too few people have it. So, you help your competitors develop an offering - perhaps keeping the best tech to yourself as you do so. Now the availability of compatible cards is much higher, there's more chance games will use them, more chance people will buy them, and so more money for you. Especially as you
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PhysX Matters in City of Heroes (Score:5, Informative)
Both player super powers and quite a bit of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles have been designed or retrofitted for PhysX capabilities in mind.
For example, when a fire blaster sends a bad guy to the burn ward, bits of flame and whatnot fly around, catching on nearby terrain or even other players or enemies. The same things happen with electric and other blasters that have a big visual 'splash'.
My earth controller leaves lots of stones and pebbles lying around. Enemies, players, and my stone golem have to wade through these and kick them out of the way to get to where they're going. When her wind powers kick up, the rocks frequently roll around in the gusts.
Anyone who uses firearms in Paragon, Rhode Island or in the Rogue Isles generates LOTS of brass. If you're not careful, they'll pile up around your feet and go scattering when you walk around. If a flier-type happens to go around them, they'll be blown around by his wake.
Perhaps the most dramatic use of PhysX in player powers is the 'Propel' power. This allows some telekinetics and gravity control types to throw bits of the terrain around (summoned out of pocket-space, of course). It's frequently possible to litter a zone with 'Propel Junk', that you have to shove out of the way to get anywhere. It's quite a fantastic thing to knock out a gangster with a ballistic fork lift. Gravity control just does bad things to physics particles in general, such as spraying piles of the forementioned casing brass all over the place.
A flier who tears through a tree will see lots of leaves and maybe a branch or two swirl behind in his wake.
The real bonus to PhysX is ragdoll model physics. When you punt someone hard enough to send them flying, they often land... awkwardly. It takes a few seconds for a mook who's just been skipping along the pavement by his teeth to pull himself back together. A favorite bonus is to knock an enemy into a railing. You can often leave them helpless, hanging by their feet or even their head in some rare cases.
PhysX in City of Heroes uses the CPU-only dll by default, but will also work with an add on Aegia card or with the newer CUDA drivers from nVidia.
old stuff? (Score:2)
Isn't this simply the stuff ageia released a while ago before nVidia bought them? And nVidia is now simply re-releasing them (after they pulled the content from te website) to show off their PhysX support for Geforce 8+ cards.
For those that don't want to wait... (Score:3, Informative)
For those that already have a Geforce 8 or 9 card and don't want to wait for Nvidia's demo.
Head on over to http://www.warmongergame.com/ [warmongergame.com] and grab the game. I'd also recommend heading over to Guru3d and finding some BETA drivers that enable PhysX support for the 8 series cards and newer PhysX drivers.
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If it gets /.'d
http://www.fileplanet.com/182564/180000/fileinfo/Warmonger-Gold-Install-(Free-Game) [fileplanet.com]
http://files.filefront.com/Warmonger+Operation+Downtown+Destruction/;9142023;/fileinfo.html [filefront.com]
http://files.totalgamingnetwork.com/file/4835/Warmonger.exe/ [totalgamingnetwork.com]
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/863/Warmonger_-_Operation:_Downtown_Destruction_Full_Game.html [techpowerup.com]
http://www.gamershell.com/news_43755.html [gamershell.com]
http://www.chip.de/downloads/Vollversion-Warmonger_29641300.html [www.chip.de]