Should PHYSX be universal? (both ATI & NVIDA)

I hope PhysX is entirely removed.

Its not like anything is stopping ATI from implementing PhysX...

As I explained a while back, given the extra bus length most graphics cards have over a CPU (32/64 vs 128/256), Physics calculation is far more suited for GPU's, as a single LOAD operation can load more data at one time (Example: Using a 32 bit setup, each 32 bit register can hold one 32 bit integer. Using a 256 bit setup, a single 256 bit register can hold (256/32 = 8) 32 bit integers). As such, considering the mathametical formula needed for accurate physics effects, I doubt a CPU can even load integers fast enough to gain an acceptable framerate. A large data bus is a requirement for any non-linear mathematic functions, and modern CPU's lack the bus length needed to send many values in a single operation.

hmm.... Havok? isn't that mainly CPU? when did it do GPu?

Physx is not just gpu limited. Nvidia opened physx to anyone that wanted to implement it. it is available for ps3, xbox 360, wii, iphone to name a few. Havok does not support hardware physics acceleration but they are working on ati stream that is basically like cuda which will enable hardware acceleration.
http://www.havok.com/content/view/17/30/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhysX
http://nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_home.html

Bull ***, this is flame bait if i ever saw it, google the topic, it has been discussed to death.

PhysX creates an overhead that adds yet more cost to Nvidia gpu's at a time where they simply cannot afford luxuries.

Would ATI have liked to use it for free a year ago, perhaps with royalty payments to Nvidia? Maybe. Would that have helped make PhysX take off? Most certainly. Did it happen? No. Why didn't it? It's just another in a long line of terrible mistakes Nvidia have made in the past year.

For this discussion, that statement is incorrect, X360, Wii and iPhone have no more access to PhysX than a PC with an ATi graphics card, it's all CPU-dependant physics, and not GPU-accelerated physics. Even the PS3 uses it's CELL FPUs to emulate a PhysX PPU, thus robbing it of core resources.

GPU-accelerated PhysX is not open to anyone who wants to implement it, it's tied to CUDA, and then if you want to work with both only THEN can you have it. Not quite as open as other options are making themselves. However the threat of Havok has made nV talk about porting PhysX to OpenCL.

Havok isn't on stream, it's using OpenCL, and so it's not tied to ATi or nV in the same way that PhysX is tied to nV's CUDA. S3 could simply write their OpenCL drivers and run Havok, whereas to run PhysX they have to ask and agree to run CUDA on their hardware to thus enable PhysX.

The time for PhysX seems to have passed. If they made a truly 'killer app' implementation when they had the stage to themselves maybe they could've brought people into their closed eco-system, however time has allowed others to perfect their implementations and provide the promise of universal support. PhysX as it stand either has to adapt to equal those benefits or still take a final kick at the killer-app can.

Sofar NONE of the implementations mean much of anything, because their implementation are as 'realistic' for physics as virtual reality is anywhere near virtually real.

but its still PhysX, although not hardware-accelerated like what you just said.

The 360 has PhysX support? I thought it was an ATI GPU

Software and hardware physx support are two different things as has been pointed out, this topic is unfortunately about hardware physics for the millionth time, also unfortunate is that some people can't read.

Why can't Havok touch that? There is no reason to believe the new Havok we see in the coming months won't be just as advanced as PhysX is now. Heck, there is no reason to believe that the current havok being implimente into the upcoming blizzard games wont be able to look like that given the right cpu/gpu. PhysX doesnt have any special powers, physics is just math afterall. The only reason Havok games don't show off physics as real as every day life is that that kind of computation required excessive parallel computing and it has to be stripped down to run a game.. the reason so many whant to do that sort of thing on the GPU.

Being a physicist I see computer simulations of real world physics every day. We have had programs that can effectively produce perfect physics in certain systems, such as convection in a star (we are talking calculating the motion of billions and billions of particles in a fluid) or the climate, for decades, and the equations for a hundred years. The only difference between what I ran on a super computer in school that took 3 days to compute and Havok/PhysX is that the latter are dumbed down to support their particular computing limitations. Obviosuly when you provide the engine with a more suitable coputing platform you can get more realistic simulations out of it for the same performance/ calculation time investment. Also, taking 3 days to render the next frame wouldn't be nice..

No, they certainly are not, I'd kill for a game as immersive as deus Ex with todays graphics...

That being said though, it certainly would be cool to play a game with physics calculations equal to the sedement deposit and movement, or metal deformation I do at times.. (Ya I know it sounds lame). But imagine a game where sand behaved like sand or a building bends and folds into itself realistically!

It does bother me though that people think PhysX is something special. Its all the same math.. sure there is something to be said for an efficient program with tricks here and there to avoid useless computation.. but you can't patent calculus..

I supose lame is par for the course on a computer hardware forum

Speaking of the course.. it sure is ncie outside today, maybe get some golf in after work and see some real physics in action

do you actually play a videogame?

lets take race driver grid for example. the "debris effect". you approach a corner differently if its loaded with debris from a crash, as oppose to one that is clean.

same with fightnight round 3, the "facial effects" alone with let you know if your opponent is gonna hit the canvass any second.

the same way with any "real time explosion effect" from a nade/bomb/GL, the proximity of the explosion will let you determine the safe distance (ie, the old cs, cs:source, cod4, cod5 to name a few, quake3's old rocket launcher is also a good example).

well the statement you posted above is correct if you're still hell bent on playing text-based games, which is so 1991.

you are lame.

Have you been under a rock this last few years?

The whole point of this physics hype was that it was meant to bring extra gameplay physics. Ever since half life 2 was released people have been wanting more and the gpu was meant to allow that, not some graphical effects that can be done quite easily enough by a cpu, yes, nvidia will tell you you need the gpu to do it but what they won't tell you is that the cpu plus some extra effects added on can do the same thing at a fraction of the calculation cost.

The only reason a gpu is needed is to do accurate physics which will effect gameplay, this ius what this whole topic has been about for years but so many sheep follow nvidia and accept there failings.

Get a brain and do some reading, this is not about efects, effects do not need accuracy they need high powered gpu's for graphics not calcs.

Until gameplay physics arrive which make a difference and cannnot legitamitely be done on a cpu(i.e not a bunch of useless extra calcs added in) then this whole subject is worthless as far as gaming is concerned.

Sigh, go and read all the previous physics posts, you may learn something.

Gpu's being used for something other than graphics has been around for a while and we have been discussing it's possibilities here including gpu based physics.

Long before nvidia bought ageia there was there physx card but there was also support for havocfx, which was the effects based gpu physics. That still wasn't good enough then, and isn't now.

Like i said ever since halflife 2 and before people have been wanting more realism in games and gpu's seemed the perfect hardware to help deliver it.

Physx does not equal physics. This whole debate will not end till we have a way to implement physics that matters.

Oh and whilst i am an Ati fan, i think you are misreading my personal quote, ati forever has nothing to do with stating i am a fanboy and all to do with me not calling ati AMD.

RIP ATi *salutes*

The ATi branding is gone, therefore as far as many are concerned they are "dead."

Where the hell are you getting this idea that i am saying there should be no in game physics?

Also, who the hell cares about physx, i am talking about gpu physics.

You seem to think that shiny effects are a good thing, they ain't. Shiny effects do not need physics calculations, gameplay physics require calculations and we need something that can deliver those.

Effects, do not need to be exact, they can be done on a cpu no problems, you do not need the power of a gpu to do that sort of calculations.

Tell me this, how can an effect be useful if it does not change anything in the game and why do you need a gpu do do it.

Physics, must affect the game, if i shoot something, for it to be physics, it must interact with an object, not jsut show an effect of interacting without any consequence.

I do not think you actually understand what we are debating.

because its add something to the experience? unlike you i'd rather enjoy the game. instead of telling myself "oh bummer! i cant be enjoying this, its not calculated the way its supposed to be!".

i played the first part of medge with physX on (i mistakenly forgot to turn it off), the shattering glasses, which surprised me as i have an ATI card, added a sense of rush, especially when the chopper was approaching on the side of the building shooting at me. it sort of told me: "you gotta go quick buddy, bad guys are coming at ya", it lead shortly to a BSOD though. now if you're going to argue that, it doenst make a difference because of some calculation conundrum that you're trying to explain, tell that to yourself because i aint buying that crap. it did make a difference in my GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE.

im debating about the crapazoola that you're preaching. effects=\ gameplay. along with some other physics issue. what about you? still blaming the hammer and nails for a crappy house?

i do, i just dont get what warrants the terms useless and "dont matter" to the current "effects" based physics implementation that you're crying about. the only response i get from you is "calculations". i really dont understand why the fanboys are blaming an API instead of the people who're using it, i really dont.

and you honestly think that the link you posted above is gameplay physics? because according to you nvidia failed somehow. dont phsyx has a demo similar to that? but then again i have to find a tech demo from any tech company that looked bad. those are what tech demos are supposed to do, tell half of the story, impress the onlookers. and 3 years and counting we still dont see any similar implementation from ati in any videogame to date and yet nvidia failed.

years is crapazoola, where talking gpu-based physics here, the first consumer level (which is the only part im interested in, because thats the one that concerns me, im a gamer not, a nuclear physicist) only came up last year. and if you somehow wasted your time discussing/debating "unreleased" hardware/software about gpu-based physics 10 years ago i wouldnt care, you and your buddies mustve flooded an awful amount of FUD.

and you mustve missed something, everything you see inside your lcd panel is an "effect". graphics effects / sound effects / physics effects. so gameplay physics is indeed an effect. you cant recreate nature inside a videogame, at least not yet, but we're getting there.

what concerns me is this:

fire up half-life2, shoot a bottle of wine. now what consequence would you want to see? to have jesus come up after shooting it?

wow, okay, this is indeed getting out of hand...
hell, this makes me laugh. I created a thread to see what people know whether Physx can be used in more games, and it turned into this stupid bickering contest between this "strangestranger" guy and some other guy.

who cares about calcuations? for all i care, it looked pretty good compared to standard CPU physics. How about the box in HL2? i noticed it only breaks into a few breakaway pieces? What about it breaking into more pieces based on how you destroy it? There's nothing wrong with improving something at all.

What use would a box breaking into a few more pieces be?

Shrapnel from a grenade yes, but as of right now, gpu's don't do that, they may show lots of pieces but that is not physics, it has no impact on anything else.

That is my point, making things appear to smash inot smaller pieces is not an advance, you do not need to calculate the positions of each of those pieces unless they do something, right now, you ony need to calculate maybe a few and then generate 10 other pieces t follow it, doesn't take massive amounts of power and you couldn't tell the difference if it was done by a cpu or gpu.