PhysX support

[Rockdog]

Now that Nvidia has added PhysX support for its current batch of 8, 9, and 200 series cards is it time to revisit this? I would think that this SIM of all things could benefit from a dedicated physics processor and the gritty realism it can add. I think that GVs and Ships would benefit the most, but it would also make little things like a rip in the wing that much more interesting.

How about it HTC?

[Lukanian-7]

Wow, That Was A Really BAD CHOICE To Put That Up Luckily Noones Eaten You Alive Yet, Not Only Do People Not Like Graphics In This Community But Even I Who Has Asked For Eye-Candy-type Requests Oppose This, ugh A Video Card Can't Make That Stuff Happen I'll Just Leave It At A

I Disagree

(Sorry For Being A Dick)

[mechanic]

personally i thought the physx stuff worked well on 3D action games but it is meant to give a 'more real' feel to the obviously cartoon gameworld. While AH is also quite cartoon based, IE nice and colourfull and well defined, it also has a hard worked physics model that gives a far more real feel to the game than something that is designed to give a gobal realism punch to any format of 3D game rather than flying specificaly. I may be talking out of my arse of course.

[Motherland]

I'm not sure how this works, but it sounds like it could take some of the strain off of your CPU?

[mechanic]

Does it mess with the games programming or just enhance 3D rendering? The only thing ive seen it on was a pirate game and it wrecked my frame rates just looking at an area of water. From what i understood it was coded into the game and then also installed onto your system and only compatible with games designed for it. Sounds like a nightmare for your average ah2 player.

[Rockdog]

It turns an unused gpu into a dedicated CPU for physics computations. it allows game developers to make the world inside the game more interactive by assigning physical properties to all objects. instead of a building in town having only two states 100 percent and destroyed, you would see real damage to the structure.  Drop a bomb on a fuel depot and see barrels flying through the air in a realistic way. ships that sink because of holes in the hull instead of sinking because the damage reached a predefined threshold cuing the sinking animation.

physics add realism to simulations, not eye candie.

[mechanic]

would the game then still run on 64mb internal vid cards as it does quite comfortably at present?

[Yossarian]

It turns an unused gpu into a dedicated CPU for physics computations. it allows game developers to make the world inside the game more interactive by assigning physical properties to all objects. instead of a building in town having only two states 100 percent and destroyed, you would see real damage to the structure.  Drop a bomb on a fuel depot and see barrels flying through the air in a realistic way. ships that sink because of holes in the hull instead of sinking because the damage reached a predefined threshold cuing the sinking animation.

physics add realism to simulations, not eye candie.

In that case, I would LOVE for this to be added!!!!!!!!

[Rockdog]

would the game then still run on 64mb internal vid cards as it does quite comfortably at present?

I'm sure they could still support the old as well, but come on, it's time.... WHile you are at it, toss out the tape drive, and that 4 megs of 32 pin you paid a fortune for.

[Noir]

PhysX can be used without having a late nvidia card, its just that the cpu will do all the work.

[Denholm]

would the game then still run on 64mb internal vid cards as it does quite comfortably at present?

Probably not, since those cards don't have the PhysX GPU.

[rabbidrabbit]

It would be nice to see.

[Vulcan]

Drop a bomb on a fuel depot and see barrels flying through the air in a realistic way. ships that sink because of holes in the hull instead of sinking because the damage reached a predefined threshold cuing the sinking animation.

physics add realism to simulations, not eye candie.

physx cannot add realism to simulations, only twitcher games.

[Krusty]

The physx allows you to program more crap in there than your CPU can handle. If you don't have the hardware you're not going to see the benefit. You might even take a major hit if you're trying to process it all without this hardware.

On top of that it brings up many questions. If the presence of the card gives more realistic interactions, what does the absence do? Will you experience things differently than the guy shooting at you? Will you be in 2 places at once because on the other end there's no physx card to keep up with you? Also, what of all the "CHEAT!! He turned off his physx card!!!" cries that come up so folks can aim with ease.


No, I don't think it will work. Not only for the reasons above, but because the game has to be coded from the ground up to take any advantage of it, and AH is not. That would require a major from top-to-bottom recode of everything that interacts with anything, particles, light, whatever. That's just not going to happen any time soon for AH.

[Chalenge]

I dont know what it would do in AH but in GRAW the Physx card made only minor improvements in graphical effects. I read in an review before buying the ASUS Physx card that the processing would allow users in the immediate area of a PhysX user to also see improvements but I never played it online. I have seen some improvements in Crysis from using the 8800s with the PhysX drivers added and since the 4870 X2 those improvements are not so visible. I think any particle system like smoke and flame could benefit from PhysX but I asked about it (two years ago?) and was told the lower end systems would have issues (I may have imperfect recall on that).