In Mafia II, as you may notice from our comparison video, clothing simulation on main character (Vito Scaletta) is present regardless to APEX PhysX settings, main difference is in Cloth detalization and used technologies – standart PhysX Cloth (APEX PhysX Off) and more advanced APEX Clothing module (APEX PhysX Medium/High).

Clothing detalization is mostly determined by number of vertices, forming a physical cloth mesh.

So, just for curiosity, we decided to count them in Mafia II (with help of AgPerfMon profiler), using different APEX PhysX settings and various Vito’s suits.

Leather Jacket.

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Everyone who played Mafia II will eventually notice, that enabling special APEX PhysX content will not only bring you flowing clothing and particle debris, but also significantly reduce framerate – even if you have a proper NVIDIA GPU and latest PhysX System Software.

Update: APEX Clothing in numbers

While preparing our PhysX tweaking guide we have discovered that physically simulated clothing on characters is affecting performance the most. Why that ? Cloth is one of the basic effects, used intensively in many GPU PhysX games – just remember Mirror’s Edge and it’s countless tearable banners and flags. Two answers come to mind:

• Clothing simulation in Mafia II is so detailed and so high-resolution, that only top dedicated GPUs can run it at proper fps.

Unlikely. Even in most intensive scenes total cloth vertices count is not exceeding 8000, while framerate is crawling around 20 fps – on GTX 470.

• Clothing simulation is running on CPU, while it is supposed to be hardware accelerated on GPU.

Plausible. Some users, measuring utilization of dedicated PhysX GPUs, have made same conjecture.

Combine it with facts that a) Cloth in PhysX SDK is not using all available CPU resources by default b) Clothing is heavy computational task in any case – and you’ll see the probable reason of poor performance. Let’s check this theory.

PART I – MAFIA II BENCHMARK.

For the first part of tests we’ll use benchmark, built into Mafia II, running with two sets of APEX effects – Clothing only (Particles are disabled using methods from tweaking guide) and Particles only (Clothing is omitted) – and PhysX acceleration enabled/disabled from NVIDIA Control Panel.

Settings: 1680x1024, AO/AA On, AFx16, APEX High. System: C2Q 9400, GTX 470, 4GB RAM, Win 7 x64, 198.32 GPU drivers, PSS 9.10.0513

Interesting results. While Particles are benefiting from GPU acceleration without doubt, PhysX switch is not affecting Clothing simulation at all.

It seems our assumption was correct – APEX Clothing is calculated on CPU in any case – but let’s confirm it with some deeper research.

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We are completing our overview of APEX PhysX content in Mafia II by this video,  showcasing most noticable effects based on APEX Particles module.

Previous comparison video, dedicated to APEX Clothing module, is available here.

APEX Particles effects are including:

• Various dynamic debris (concrete fragments, glass pieces, wood splinters, etc) from bullet impacts.
• Additional physically simulated chunks from explosions, car crashes, wheel slip, trash cans, mailboxes and other destructible objects.
• Vehicle tire burnout effect -  realistic fluid smoke, which reacts to environment and character/NPC movement.
• Up to 3000 (APEX Medium settings) or 10 000 (APEX High settings) unique particles on screen.

Sum: You can find dynamic particles almost in every single GPU/PPU PhysX game, but in Mafia II particle effects are close to their perfection – realistic collision simulation, various particle types (for both graphical mesh and physical behaviour), LOD based resource management (particles are not dissapearing over time, like in earlier games) – and, most important, pretty decent performance.

If your system can handle such effects, we recommended to leave them enabled, or you’ll loose significant piece of game’s immersion.

Finally, keep an eye on Mafia II GPU PhysX info mini-site for additional information and comparison screenshots.

Mafia II, likely most important GPU PhysX title for this year, was released just a few days ago, and as usuall we have prepared some PhysX comparison materials.

This particular video is focused on how APEX Clothing module is used the enhance game experience.

Update: Part II, dedicated to APEX Particles effects, is released.

Update #2: APEX Clothing in numbers

In general, APEX Clothing content includes:

• Much more detailed (you can even notice how wrinkles are formed), fully simulated clothing for main character – Vito Scaletta.
  Standart PhysX Cloth is still being used on consoles and PC (APEX Off settings), but in comparison to APEX Clothing based simulation (APEX High and Medium settings), it is looking chunky and crusty.
• Dynamic clothing for additional characters (Joe, Derek, Steve, etc) and some NPCs, instead of simple skinned mesh.
• Several supplementary effects, like cloth reaction to the wind and shockwaves from explosions.

Sum: High-resolution clothing simulation is nice looking, immersive and promising technology. However, in Mafia II resources are used not optimally – hardly noticable, but very demanding clothing simulation on NPCs can bring your system to knees.

Fortunately, PhysX tweaks discovered for Mafia II demo are working nicely in final version too. Following this guide, you can easily tweak amount of APEX Effects (for example, disable clothing simulation for NPC, but leave it for Vito) and find a compromis between visual fidelity and performance.

Also, keep an eye on Mafia II GPU PhysX info mini-site for additional information and comparison screenshots.

Mafia II is about to hit the shelves in US, and since it is, probably, most heavyweight title in 2010 GPU PhysX games line, we can expect a lot of detailed reviews about APEX PhysX special effects, added to the game.

We’ve already posted an benchmarks overview for Mafia II Demo, so let’s focus on final version now:

[23.08.10] Mafia II: Perfection for NVIDIA’s Graphics Plus Technologies ? by HardwareCanucks

APEX effects decription and comparison are pretty basic, and only two GPUs [GTX460/GT240 dedicated] were used for testing, but enough attention was paid to CPU scailing [i5/i7] and CPU usage graphs.

According to benchmarks results, Mafia II is pretty playble on CPU even with APEX set to High.

Conclusion:

In the past NVIDIA and their developers took an incredible amount of flak over the use of GPU-processed physics due to the utter lack of optimizations the PhysX API had for the CPU. With Mafia II’s use of the open-minded APEX routines, a corner seems to have been turned because we finally see that it is possible to run these calculations quite smoothly with only a few hiccups on a multi core CPU.

The GPU is still more efficient at physics processing but in some cases you will likely want all of the rendering horsepower it brings to the table. This feature is still nothing more than eye candy but if you can run it, we suggest you do so because it does increase the overall believability of certain scenes.

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Mafia II demo version was released only few days ago, but several websites have already prepared some benchmarking and testing articles, focused on APEX PhysX part of the game.

Update: Mafia II Final version – PhysX Reviews roundup.

[11.08.2010] Mafia II – Public Demo GPU test by gamegpu.ru

Russian article. Includes game overview and detailed testing part, with various settings and used ATI/NV GPUs.

[11.08.2010] Mafia II Performance Benchmarks: PhysX and 3D Vision Tested by HiTechLegion

Decent review, with some PhysX benchmarks. Author’s conclusion – “I would rather trade graphical quality than play the game in its highest settings with PhysX disabled.”

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Yes, all that dynamic clothing and particle effects are cool, but actuall performance of Mafia II with APEX PhysX effects set on “Medium” or “High” isn’t very fascinating – even GTX 480 users may met some annoying fps drops and lags. Fortunately, there is a way to tweak APEX content a little.

Note: Interested in how exactly APEX Framework is being used ? Visit Mafia II GPU PhysX profile page for additional information.

Important: Mafia II may have some issue with PhysX System Software installation. If you experiencing major slowdowns, reinstall it using 9.10.0512_SystemSoftware package from \Steam\steamapps\common\mafia ii – public demo\3rd folder.

You also may wanna try new 9.10.0513 PhysX drivers

Most performance is devoured by APEX Clothing module (why ? because it is running on CPU, not on GPU), that is responcible for realistic clothing simulation on main and several NPC characters.

Update: tweaking APEX Particles effects

Update #2: following tweaks will work with final version of Mafia II

If you can live without flowing Vito trenchcoat and woman’s skirts, you can simply follow the path

\Steam\steamapps\common\mafia ii( – public demo)\edit\APEX

and delete (don’t forget to backup) directory named as

Cloth

This will remove  certain APEX assets, and character clothing will revert to static skinned mesh (like with APEX set to “Off“), but all particle effects will stay !

Result ? No more realistic cloth, but huge fps increase. 70 average fps vs 25 fps without this trick (APEX set to High, single GTX470 is used, GPU PhysX enabled).

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If you haven’t played Mafia II demo, and still wondering what are differences between APEX PhysX effects setting, we have prepared a small video, showcasing several APEX settings using built-in benchmark.

Update: Tweaking PhysX in Mafia II – huge fps increase without noticable difference.

Update #2: comparison PhysX videos for final version, covering APEX Clothing and APEX Particles modules usage in details.

As you may notice, when APEX is set to “High” – a lot of dynamic particles (impact debris, chunks from explosions, smoke) are added, and simulated clothing for characters as well. Detailed effects description is available here.

Unfortunately, this one is not even close our usual detailed comparison videos, so – our apologies.

Full scale APEX Effects comparison is planned only after Mafia II release.

While you are waiting for Mafia II Demo, planned to be released just in a few hours, you can read the preview of APEX/PhysX content, prepared by Techgage in their “Taking a Look at Mafia II and its PhysX Use” article.

Demo includes “Benchmark” mode, and that’s how it’s look like:

Update: Our PhysX Comparison video using built-in benchmark. In addition, APEX comparison and showcase videos roundup.

Update #2: Tweaking PhysX in Mafia II – huge fps increase without noticable difference.

Update #3: Mafia II Demo – PhysX Benchmarks roundup

Update #4: Mafia II GPU PhysX profile – comparison video, screens and other additional info.

APEX/PhysX Features:

• Physically simulated clothing for main character and additional characters
  • Custom wind simulation that creates a more dynamic movement of clothing as the characters walk around and interact with the environment.
  • Force fields from explosions and interact with clothing, making those explosive moments even more immersive
• Up to 3,000 unique particles on screen at any given time (10,000 at High settings).
• Particle effects including dynamic collision, mass and kinetic simulation, and force fields from explosions that move and displace particles along its path.
  • Destruction particle debris from cement, wood, glass, dirt, and more
  • Weapon impact that creates dynamic smoke and kinetic persistent particles
  • Garbage moves and exists in the world of Empire Bay and reacts to effects like force fields and character interactions
  • Tire burnout while driving produces dynamic smoke and particles including fluid movement simulation and particle velocity and trajectory
• Character clothing on all character models is rendered entirely on the GPU when using a dedicated PhysX card which can be anything from a GT 240 to a GTX 480.

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New “Behing the scenes” video, covering technological aspects of Mafia II engine merges today on GameTrailers.

It includes several details on animation, AI, lighting system, and, of course, physics engine and destructible environments (which are based on PhysX SDK too) – but, unfortunately, no new information about GPU PhysX/APEX content.