Recent articles about Metro 2033 have revealed so much technical details (about engine itself, and PhysX components specifically) so, one would think, nothing new can be added. However, recent interview with Chief Technical Officer Oles Shishkovstov by PCGamesHardware.com has something to offer:

PCGH: It could be read that your game offers an advanced physics simulation as well as a support for Nvidia’s PhysX (GPU calculated physics) can you tell us more details here? Does regular by CPU calculated physics affect visuals only or is it used for gameplay terms like enemies getting hit by shattered bits of blown-away walls and the like?

Oles Shishkovstov: Yes, the physics is tightly integrated into game-play. And your example applies as well.

PCGH: Besides PhysX support why did you decide to use Nvidia’s physics middleware instead of other physics libraries like Havok or ODE? What makes Nvidia’s SDK so suitable for your title?

Oles Shishkovstov: We’ve chosen the SDK back when it was Novodex SDK (that’s even before they became AGEIA). It was high performance and feature reach solution. Some of the reasons why we did this – they had a complete and customizable content pipeline back then, and it was important when you are writing a new engine by a relatively small team.

PCGH: What are the visual differences between physics calculated by CPU and GPU (via PhysX, OpenCL or even DX Compute)? Are there any features that players without an Nvidia card will miss? What technical features cannot be realized with the CPU as “physics calculator”?

Oles Shishkovstov: There are no visible differences as they both operate on ordinary IEEE floating point. The GPU only allows more compute heavy stuff to be simulated because they are an order of magnitude faster in data-parallel algorithms.

As for Metro2033 – the game always calculates rigid-body physics on CPU, but cloth physics, soft-body physics, fluid physics and particle physics on whatever the users have (multiple CPU cores or GPU). Users will be able to enable more compute-intensive stuff via in-game option regardless of what hardware they have.

Pay attention to last paragraph – Metro 2033 will feature true multi-core implementation of GPU PhysX content – feature that most PhysX titles are lacking currently ? We are curious to see if this will really work, and since game has already gone gold, we’ll learn that very soon.

Eurogamer.net website has published some very interesting materials, related to upcoming Metro 2033 title.  Firstly, they revealed full specifications of proprietary technology behing Metro 2033, known as 4A Engine, which is called even by its developers “one of the most advanced engines on the planet”.

You can read full specs here, and we’ll quote only part related to engine physics system:

Physics System
Powered by nVidia PhysX technology, can utilise multiple CPU cores, AGEIA PhysX hardware, or nVidia GPU hardware.

* Tightly integrated into the content pipeline and the game itself, including physical materials on all surfaces, physically driven sound, physically driven animations
* Rigid body and multi-jointed constructions. Breakable fences, walls , sheds and other objects. Thousands of different physical entities simulated per frame.
* Cloth simulation, water physics (including cross-interactions)
* Destruction and fracturing, physically based puzzles
* Soft body physics on selected special game entities
* On hardware-accelerated PhysX platforms engine implements full physically correct behaviour of particles such as smoke, debris, etc.

For dessert – Metrospective, interview with 4A Games chief technical officer Oles Shishkovtsov about game engine optimizations and platform specific features.

Metro 2033 is coming out March 16 on PC and Xbox 360, PC version will include 3D Vision, DX 11 and GPU PhysX support.

Read the rest of this entry »

EVGA GTX 275 CO-OP PhysX – unique dual card with GTX 275 (G200) and GTS 250 (G92) GPUs – combined on one PCB. While GTX 275 is doing graphics work, GTS 250 is dedicated solely for PhysX. Several benchmarking articles were published on the web today:

EVGA GeForce GTX 275 CO-OP PhysX Edition: Physics Onboard by Xbit Labs

Includes package and PCB design overview, power consumption, noise level and GPU temperature measurements, lots of tests with GPU PhysX (Dark Void, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Darkest of Days) and non-PhysX (Crysis Warhead, Fallout 3, etc) games.

Update: recently, this article was expanded – few new GPUs and Hybrid PhysX system (ATI HD 5850 + NV GT220) added to tests.

Read the rest of this entry »

We are proud to announce our new line of articles, called “PhysX From Inside Out” – view on PhysX SDK from developer’s perspective, within the bounds of certain PhysX based applications.

Or first, pilot article, is dedicated to RayFire Tool – awesome destruction plug-in for 3ds Max. Mir Vadim, RayFire Tool sole developer, has answered some of our questions about  RayFire history and PhysX SDK role in plug-in development.

Read The Article - PhysX From Inside Out: RayFire Tool

P.S. I’ve counted on small interview firstly, but Mir Vadim has sended a huge post-mortem like material – must read for every RayFire user and admirer.

Thanks Mir !

Lately, Metro 2033 is more and more often referred as starting title for new GF100 GPUs from Nvidia – due to it’s truly next-gen graphics engine, with DX 11 support and, of course, intensive usage of Physx SDK and hardware accelerated PhysX effects – aspect we are most interested in.

Yuriy Saschuk, 4A Games engine programmer, has joined us today to answer some questions about Metro 2033 in-game physics in general, and PhysX specifically.

PhysXInfo.com: How much physics is involved in gameplay ? Do players have ability to carry physical objects or drag corpses ?

Yuriy: Physics in Metro 2033 has more demonstrative, than gameplay affecting, nature. It’s supposed to enhance game, make it more diverse, realistic and exciting. But actual gameplay isn’t focused on physics.

You can’t carry or throw objects – we’ve decided that there is no need for this, but enemies (and player too) can receive damage as result of certain physical interactions.

PhysXInfo.com: Will Metro 2033 contain destructible objects, and in what quantity ?

Yuriy: Our engine supports destructible environments, and this component is used in the game.

PhysXInfo.com: Tell us a bit about hardware PhysX support in the game. Presence of appropriate Nvidia GPU will simply increase the fps numbers or add some exclusive effects ? Will GPU PhysX content have influence on gameplay ? Which advanced physics effects will be included ?

Yuriy: PhysX hardware acceleration capability of Nvidia GPUs will add performance in the first place. There are two physics modes in Metro 2033 – basic and so-called, “Advanced PhysX”, which will include both enhanced, more detailed effects from basic mode and some additional physics features. Advanced PhysX mode requires appropriate Nvidia GPU to run properly, meanwhile, it will not affect gameplay, just add some immersion.

Or engine support cloth and fluid simulation. By “fluid simulation” we imply various particles system, like lighter- and heavier-than-air gases, smoke, dust, debris from bullet hits, not only liquids.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today NDA relative to new Nvidia GF100 (Fermi) GPU was partially lifted , and major websites have already published their technological previews of new architecture (without game benchmarks yet). Certain details on GF100 PhysX potentiality and PhysX Technology were stated accordingly, and here is our sum overview:

GF100 Preview by GURU 3D specifies GF100 physics computing capabilities – 2x times faster then GT200 arhitecture in Dark Void, and up to 3x in PhysX Fluid simulation.

“NVIDIA GF100 Architecture and Feature Preview” article by hothardware.com adds new details on Supersonic Sled demo.

The Supersonic Sled Demo uses GPU particles systems for smoke, dust, and fireballs, PhysX physical models for rigid bodies and joints, which are partially processed on the CPU, tessellation is used for the terrain, and image processing is used for the motion blur effect.

Particles are strewn about and objects like a shack, bridge, and rock ledge crumble as the sled jets by. Hundreds of thousands to a million particles can be on the screen at any given time, all being managed by the GPU.

Read the rest of this entry »

Year ago AMD’s opinion on PhysX was clear enough – it will die, if it remains a closed and proprietary standard.

Recently Bit-tech.net has published massive interview with Richard Huddy, AMD’s Worldwide Developer Relations manager, on game development,  competition’s progress, DX11 and other technologies. Of course, few words were said about PhysX – let’s focus on that and see what has changed for the past year.

About Batman Arkham Asylum (Link)

[Nvidia] put PhsyX in there, and that’s the one I’ve got a reasonable amount of respect for. Even though I don’t think PhysX – a proprietary standard – is the right way to go, despite Nvidia touting it as an “open standard” and how it would be “more than happy to license it to AMD“, but [Nvidia] won’t. It’s just not true! You know the way it is, it’s simply something [Nvidia] would not do and they can publically say that as often as it likes and know that it won’t, because we’ve actually had quiet conversations with them and they’ve made it abundantly clear that we can go whistle.

However, PhysX is a piece of technology that changes the gameplay experience and maybe it improves it. What I understand is that they actually invested quite a lot, Nvidia put in a hefty engineering time and they tried to make a difference to the game. So, in that aspect, I have respect for it; it’s a reasonable way to handle the situation given the investment in PhysX. Nvidia wanted a co-marketing deal and put forward PhysX, and Rocksteady and Eidos said, OK, as long as you do it – which they did.

Our commentary: It’s now hard to call PhysX irrelevant, when you have played Batman, isn’t it ? Another interesting part is different look on that ATI-NV PhysX licensing situation.

About ATI+NV PhysX setups ban (Link) | Nvidia’s position

They don’t want to QA it. The PC is an open platform, though – you’re meant to take any two parts and put them together. Intel don’t say “we’re not prepared to QA our CPUs with Nvidia or AMD’s graphics parts” when they obviously spend time QAing them because you want to build a system that works.

Our commentary: Yes, it’s looking, let’s say, not right for us too. That’s why we are doing our best to support PhysX Hybrids idea.

Read the rest of this entry »

Finally, it’s time to tally up a total – here is our brief summary on what PhysX Technology has achieved over the past year.

. GAMES

To be honest, situation with GPU PhysX games was not as good as Nvidia promised us previously. Far from “25 [games] between January and March 2009“, not to mention that previously announced hardware PhysX support was suspended in some titles, like Bionic Commando or Terminator Salvation.

Though, past year has brough us some memorable PhysX games, like Mirror’s Edge, Sacred 2, Cryostasis and, of course, Batman: Arkham Asylum. 7 titles with GPU PhysX content for 2009 -  in total.

Speaking of CPU PhysX – it’s adoption was growing rapidly, mostly thanks to asian developers and their countless MMOs. First iPhone games with PhysX engine saw light of day in Q1 2009 – now their library include more then 25 titles.

Read the rest of this entry »

PCPOP.com website has published a bunch of benchmarks where GT 240, low-end 40nm GPU from Nvidia, is used as dedicated PhysX card alongside with GTX 260. System used for tests.

Performance with PhysX content, running on dedicated GT 220  (marked yellow on graph) is compared  to a single GTX 260,  calculating graphics and PhysX effects simultaneously (marked green).

Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Cryostasis

Star Tales

Read the rest of this entry »

Hardware website PCPOP.COM has published an overview article about various GPU technologies and features, like 3D Vision, Stream, Eyefinity, OpenCL, etc. Article itself isn’t valuable much unless you know Chinese, but it has interesting poll included, with question “In addition to gaming performance,  which technologies are you interested in ?” and decent number of votes already.

Users put features like low noise and power consumption  (功耗、发热、噪音、节能) in the first place, DX11 support goes second, hardware accelerated PhysX on third place, Anti-aliasing (抗锯齿技术) comes fourth.