Why should Physx matter?!

[ShrimpBrime]

If we where to make games as real as possible, would Physx matter?
Could we get particle counts up that high on multiple explosions?
Body Parts..... dang Zombies.

 

[Khonjel]

Leaves, grass, hair, clothes flowing with the wind (with their shadows as well), sign me up. And not just for the main character but for every NPCs as well.
Cars and vehicles with realistic physics and body roll, please!!!
Realistic audio engine, I beg you devs.
While I laud advancement in ray tracing and it's implementations on lighting and reflection calculation, I'd really love if devs put same effort in sound design and overall physics. Sometimes I dream of making an ultra realistic physics engine and making it free for everyone. So every game could have "small details" like GTA V that Vucko100 guy on YT loves to point out.

Btw anyone have any example of a game that has realistic enemy ragdoll. From my limited experience it's either weightless puppet or limited animation like pick up on shoulder and drop every body in same pose and position.

 

[agent_x007]

Can't you install PhysX standalone software on AMD system (here's legacy version that runs on CPU only : LINK) ?
Source : LINK.

 

[cucker tarlson]

one of the best technologies that made it to games in the last decade.
loved it in control,witcher and arkham knight.control and batman especially.
not many developers use it tho and amd fanboys hate it.

it's heavily used it lords of the fallen too,but I just played a couple of hours.

 

[agent_x007]

I wonder how Ryzen 3950X would handle it, when run in "CPU only" mod...

 

[newtekie1]

Physx is still used in a lot of games, just not hardware accelerated Physx. But I believe it is still the default physics engine included with Unity, so pretty much every Unity game uses it. Sadly, I don't think there has been any recent games that have used hardware accelerated Physx.

I think there is a big gap for a company to come in and develop a physics engine that uses GPU compute that works on both nVidia and AMD.

 

[theoneandonlymrk]

If we where to make games as real as possible, would Physx matter?
Could we get particle counts up that high on multiple explosions?
Body Parts..... dang Zombies.

Somewhat interested in beter physics but you can stick Any walled garden on the top shelf on the right up huangs ass, proprietary doesn't work.

Open standards across pc, console and Mobil is the only progressive solution ill buy into with money.

 

[windwhirl]

Open standards across pc, console and Mobil is the only progressive solution ill buy into with money.

Agreed. I want better physics too, but must be either open or brand agnostic.

 

[Vayra86]

I remember when 'flag physics' on good old ageia drivers had me looking and playing with just that for a few hours. I remember how Borderlands and Warframe impressed me big time with particle physics.

PhysX just screams underused and underrated technology to me. Its a huge game changer in making a visceral experience, it helps remove the fixed asset reality of game environments, makes it alive. In TW3 its mostly Speedtree that does a similar thing. But yeah physics matter bigtime and need much more widespread use IMO.

 

[Vario]

I do think it was pretty nice on Just Cause 2 and AC4 Black Flag. Since then, I haven't encountered any instances where the hw accelerated physx is used I think. Along with not installing Nvidia Experience and not installing Nvidia HD Audio, I also don't check the box for PhysX when doing the Nvidia drivers.

 

[Razrback16]

I always enjoyed the PhysX effects in games like Arkham Knight. Definitely feel like it's not used enough in games.

 

[lexluthermiester]

PhysX just screams underused and underrated technology to me.

Agreed. Seriously under-utilized. If NVidia had been smart they would have licensed the PhysX IP to all GPU makers and made it an industry standard feature set.

 

[silentbogo]

Physx is still used in a lot of games, just not hardware accelerated Physx.

Physx has been an essential part of Hairworks/Gameworks for some time now, and there are tons of titles utilizing hardware-accelerated particle effects, fluid dynamics, cloth, hair, flex effects etc. The only reason we don't hear about it, is because all reviewers disable anything platform-bound for testing, and regular people disable it for the sake of better performance (frames over eye-candy). Basically everyone pretends PhysX does not exist.

Realistic audio engine, I beg you devs.

It's already here. Few months ago there was a demo on YT of a new path-traced audio engine (RTX-based). I think it's already streamlined into VRWorks and exists as a plugin for UE4.

I remember when 'flag physics' on good old ageia drivers had me looking and playing with just that for a few hours. I remember how Borderlands and Warframe impressed me big time with particle physics.

What we really need, is more games that use destructible environments and interactive objects. Assuming you've tried Cellfactor on your PPU, you know what I'm talking about.
The closest we've got these days, is some obscure Microsoft-backed title which runs destruction on the Azure cloud. Can't even remember the name of it...

Agreed. Seriously under-utilized. If NVidia had been smart they would have licensed the PhysX IP to all GPU makers and made it an industry standard feature set.

I think after many versions and iterations PhysX is too CUDA-dependent. Plus, we already know that AMD and NVidia have very different ideas about Async Compute and workload balancing.
Our only hope is Vulkan rewrite of Bullet, but even with that it still lacks lots of features, including ease of integration with popular game engines.

 

[Vayra86]

I still vividly remember these gems

Its a whole box of trickery, but the impression/illusion of actual physics is there. Still in a top 5 of most intense shooting experiences IMO.

And then this.

Somebody said ragdolls... U WOT MATE. Here is a game that mocapped literally every single thing

Its stuff like this that confirms to me the infinite amount of lazy crap we get in games today. 'Better graphics'... yeah right. You upscaled some textures... The above was real dev work. Not so much fantastic games, but eye openers nonetheless.

All possible on a measly PS2 from back when the DVD was state of the art, go figure. Worth emulating sometime Although I do see lots of graphical glitches in Path of Neo emulations.

 

[biffzinker]

Agreed. Seriously under-utilized.

Havok physics still exists, so might have something to do with that as well.

List of games using Havok - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Havok (software) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ShrimpBrime]

So which Physx games where favorites?
What really stood out most?
Example fluid and cloth vs particle count ect.

 

[Splinterdog]

I have PhysX installed on my system, even though I don't have an Nvidia card.
Is there any point in keeping it?

 

[Vayra86]

I liked it a lot in this game because of the sterile look it had. It really stood out when stuff happened, and made shooting extra special, which it was supposed to be too in the game's concept.

Also... LOL

 

[ShrimpBrime]

I have PhysX installed on my system, even though I don't have an Nvidia card.
Is there any point in keeping it?

Not really no.

 

[silentbogo]

So which Physx games where favorites?

I think RoboBlitz. It was the very first game w/ hardware-accelerated PhysX that saw an actual release date. Spiritually - Cellfactor: Revolution, but it was never officially released. All we've got after Ageia acquisition, is a shitty free-to-play multiplayer shooter for PS3 (with all effects cut-down and a huge downgrade in graphics).

I have PhysX installed on my system, even though I don't have an Nvidia card.
Is there any point in keeping it?

Not necessary in most cases. Most games are version-dependent, so usually the game itself comes with required PhysX libraries.

 

[Chloe Price]

I liked it a lot in this game because of the sterile look it had. It really stood out when stuff happened, and made shooting extra special, which it was supposed to be too in the game's concept.

Also... LOL
View attachment 139374

I died :'D

Damn, I guess I've played ME with a Radeon card since I've never even noticed any cloth etc., time for a replay

 

[lexluthermiester]

Havok physics still exists, so might have something to do with that as well.
View attachment 139368

List of games using Havok - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Havok (software) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I was not aware of this. Thank You for sharing. I have a few of the games in that list and often though that the physics felt "right". Very interesting!

 

[biffzinker]

I was not aware of this. Thank You for sharing. I have a few of the games in that list and often though that the physics felt "right". Very interesting!

PCgaming wiki lists Halo Reach as using Havok which is owned by Microsoft (Havok.)

Interestingly though Halo Reach is using Unreal Engine 4. I was browsing through the directory, and PhysX is still included.

 

[Dinnercore]

My favorite PhysX title was Sacred 2, because it added a much more in depth weather system with particles like leaves flowing with the wind and interacting with your spells and skills.

The biggest problem was the huge performance hit on this already poorly running title for my PC back in the day. I only had a GTX260 and it really struggled with it.
Since then I never really noticed it when it was in a game, like Borderlands etc.. It rarely stood out, like it does in the fancy tech-demos.

Personally I don´t think we NEED more of it. Especially since PhysX is NOT physics, it´s just a kind of SDK that nvidia stapled a trademark on. Every game can have a detailed physics simulation and it can be done on the CPU or GPU side, no matter if AMD or Nvidia. It is always a question of how much attention a developer is willing to put into such a physics system and if it can really stand out as a gameplay element, like destructible cover for shooters like Battlefield Bad Company 2.

What I want to see more is a use of detailed physics simulation in general. Not necessarily PhysX. But that is only because I´m a huge nerd for those things, I love it when there is a dynamic simulation going on, even if a pre-rendered explosion would achieve the same or better visual effect.

 

[Chloe Price]

The discrete Ageia card was far more interesting.