End of the year is proper time to gather some statictics and summarize what PhysX SDK has archieved in past 4 years. So, we woud like to present our new article “Popular Physics Engines comparison: PhysX, Havok and ODE“, in which we are trying to compare PhysX SDK with other physics engines presented on the market not in terms of features, quality, performance or something like that – but released game titles.

Article includes basic statistics for Bullet and Newton physics engines, and advanced statictics for PhysX SDK, Havok and ODE – released games quality, platform distribution, and release dynamics for past years.

Using a mid- or low-end GPU as dedicated PhysX card is quite popular idea today (even among ATI owners), while PCI-E bandwidth requirements for dedicated PhysX GPU are not absolutely clear. Everyone knows, that x8 and even x4 would be enough, but what about PCI-E x1 ?

PCPOP.com has published article today, that investigates PhysX performance of GTX295 + 9800GT setup, with 9800GT used in PCI-E x1/x4/x8 cases (unnecessary pins were taped).

And, surprisingly, even PCI-E x1 usage isn’t affecting performance as much as it should at a glimpse.

You can read rest of the article here

BTW, users with old mobos (or lack of free full scale PCI-E slots) are asking sometimes – “What if I just put my old 9600GT in PCI-E x1 slot ? Would that be enough for PhysX ?“. Now they have some clarity. Of course, mechanical “adjustment” will be needed to make it fit, that can result in GPU/mobo malfunction, so we don’t recommend even to think about it until you are clearly sure.

ChrisRay at Nvidia.com forums has prepared excellent guide on multi GPU SLI/PhysX setups, that details  various modes for SLI and PhysX configurations. Must read for everyone (especially newbies) who wants to make their 2-Way/3-Way/Quad SLI work properly with PhysX.

You can read the Guide here

InsideHW has published fine article about hardware PhysX acceleration, with some benchmarks included.  Games (Batman Arkham Asylum, Darkest of Days and Mirror’s Edge) overview part isn’t much detailed, and only three GPUs were tested (GTS250, GTX260, GTX285), but this article is good read if you want to get in touch with current GPU PhysX posture.

Batman Arkham Asylum

Darkest of Days

Mirror’s Edge

You can read rest of the article here

Question “How Ageia PhysX PPU can handle newest GPU PhysX titles ?” is still interesting for some people, ATI owners for example. NinjaLane has published PhysX Performance Tests – The way games should be played article, that includes benchmarks of old Ageia PhysX PPU card along with Nvidia GPUs.

While PPU is still good at Unreal Tournament 3 and Mirror’s Edge, it has insufficient power to run latest titles like Batman Arkham Asylum with smooth framerate.

You can read rest of the article here

Back again on banned ATI+Nvidia PhysX configurations situation.  Initially, all the hype was based on e-mail from customer care support, while Nvidia official motives were undisclosed.  In order to bring some clarity, we’ve asked Nvidia for commentaries a while ago and finally recieved some answers:

PhysXInfo: Is it true that PhysX capabilities of NVIDIA GPUs and/or Ageia PPUs are disabled with newest drivers when a Non-NVIDIA (AMD) graphics card is present in the system?
Nvidia: It is true that running an NVIDIA GPU for PhysX with an AMD GPU for graphics is not a supported configuration. This mode was inadvertently turned on in a beta version of our Win7 drivers and on some older XP drivers. AMD does not support PhysX for their customers, and we don’t QA this configuration. With no QA, it is risky to run this configuration so we removed this capability in a recent driver release.

PhysXInfo: Can you please explain to us what factors have led to such decision?
Nvidia: Today NVIDIA’s GPU and PhysX drivers are interconnected to optimize performance. In the future we expect this interdependence to deepen. This alone makes it difficult to support a third party GPU.

In order to make sure our customers have a great experience, we QA every release of our PhysX or Graphics drivers by testing approximately 14 NVIDIA GPUs for graphics processing with 8 GPUs for PhysX processing on 6 common platforms with 6 OS’s using 6 combinations of CPU and memory. This is over 24000 possible configurations. While we don’t test every possible combination, it should be clear that the work and cost to NVIDIA is substantial. AMD does not support PhysX for their customers. Adding AMD GPUs would significantly increase the necessary work and cost for NVIDIA. We prefer to invest in inventing new technologies that give our customers great new experiences.

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Driven by Joe Andresen from SUN Microsystems, this 51-minute long video lecture is part of Sonoma State University colloquium. Talk is covering some aspects about how PhysX SDK works in standart game engine environment as physics engine,  how to organize engine pipeline and rendering system correctly, etc – might be interesting for starting programmers.

Source: CSUSonoma

It’s disputable issue, is Batman Arkham Asylum that long-awaited killer-ap for hardware PhysX technology, but one is undoubtedly – supplementary PhysX effects are very well done, and can greatly increase overall game immersion level. Unfortunately,  heavy PhysX content requires appropriate Nvidia GPU, to help you understand which one – we’ve prepared an overview of PhysX benchmark articles, available on the web.

[17.09.09] Batman Arkham Asylum: PhysX or not PhysX by Revioo.com

Worth viewing article as it contains PhysX comparison videos, and benchmarks with variety of hardware (main – 9800GTX, GTX275, GTX280, dedicated – 8600GT, 9800GTX, GTX275)

[17.09.09] Batman Arkham Asylum Physx Preview by Chris Ray

This article is focused on multi-GPU (SLI, Tri-SLi, quad-SLI) configurations, and include some comparison PhysX screens too.

[21.09.09] Batman: Arkham Asylum – PhysX benchmarks with comparison shots and video by PCgameshardware.com

Contains comparison screenshots and video for in-game benchmark, and some perfomance testing for different PhysX settings as well.

[22.09.09] Batman Arkham Asylum — pořádná akce s PhysX by PCtuning

Massive and interesting overview – benchmarking results with decent amount of AMD and Nvidia GPUs, and even CPU influence tests.

[25.09.09] Batman nVidia PhysX Analysis by DriverHeaven

Probably, best article available currently. Decent descriptive part (videos included), and great benchmarking with various configurations (different CPU, varied PhysX GPU setups) tested.

[25.09.09] Optymalne karty graficzne do Batman: Arkham Asylum. PhysX, porównanie wersji PC, X360 i PS3 by benchmark.pl

Article with a small part related to GPU PhysX perfomance.

Read the rest of this entry »

Interview with Nvidia about PhysX at WJPF news radio will start in one hour – at 1 PM CST.

Live stream is available at WJPF website (click “listen live” button at the right)

After the interview, Hi Tech Legion will provide more in-deph view into the PhysX technology.

User Keysplayr over at AnandTech forums is doing interesting research – he is testing recent hardware accelerated PhysX games (like Batman and Cryostasis) with various GPU configurations (single and different dedicated cards), trying to find out what GPU is best suited as dedicated PhysX accelerator.

Click to view Keysplayr’s article

Be sure to check it regularly, as more content is coming.

Discussion thread at AnandTech forums