Eager to see what kind of GPU PhysX games can one expect in 2013?

Welcome Warframe – online free-to-play third person shooter/slasher, being developed by Digital Extremes, a company that has brought as games such as The Darkness 2 and Dark Sector.

Update: official PhysX trailer available

As wielders of Warframes, ancient combat exoskeletons, players will have to fight their way, with swords and guns, through procedurally generated levels across the Solar System.

Intense cooperative PvE (up to 4 players) gameplay of Warframe is complemented by several MMO-style features, such as crafting system, upgradable equipment and weapons, boss raids, etc.

Warframe is based on the last generation of Digital Extemes’ in-house engine – Evolution Engine – which features not only very nice, DX 11 enhanced visuals, but also PhysX SDK 3.2 and APEX 1.2 integrations.

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NVIDIA has released an official trailer, that demonstrates how hardware accelerated PhysX particle effects can enhance the visual look of Hawken, free-to-play MMO mech shooter.

Update: full GPU PhysX support will be enabled in March 5 patch

Hawken incorporates two types of physical effects – APEX Turbulence based particle simulation, and also more common impact debris and weapon effects.

While basic particles were available since the release of the game in December (you can check out our preview for more detailed information), Turbulence effects will be fully enabled in Hawken after a short period of time.

However, one can get an idea of Turbulence even today, by setting

"PhysXLevel = 2"

in game’s .ini file

\Users\Documents\My Games\Hawken\HawkenGame\Config\HawkenEngine.ini

In addition, be sure to check out the “Hawken: Advanced PhysX Effects Coming Soon To Free-To-Play First Person Shooter” article at GeForce.com for more detailed description of current and upcoming GPU PhysX effects in Hawken.

During the closed beta, SOE’s PlanetSide 2 has shown us some impressive GPU PhysX tech, such as APEX Turbulence based particles, running on a newest PhysX 3 engine.

However, the hardware PhysX effects have not made it into final release of the game, happened several months ago, as it was decided to enhance some aspects of their implementation.

Now, the wait is nearly over. According to Tramell Ray Isaac, Sr. Art Director of PlanetSide 2 in SOE, GPU PhysX support will be re-enabled in the game with next big update, coming January 30, 2013.

Update: GPU PhysX effects were postponed once again. Mr. Tramell has refused to provide another release date.

Update #2: There is a way to force the PhysX effects to appear in a current state, but is it worth it?

Update #3: GPU PhysX is now officially enabled in PlanetSide 2

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NVIDIA has released yet another set of bug-fixes for PhysX SDK 3.x

Update: PhysX SDK 3.2.4 is available

• General
  • Quaternions passed through the API are now considered valid if their magnitude is between 0.99 and 1.01.
  • Fixed crash when running out of memory on creation of a triangle mesh.
  • For applications using floating point exceptions, the SDK will now mask or avoid exceptions arising from invalid floating point operations (inexact and underflow exceptions may still be generated).
  • Fixed a bug with recursive use of the PxScene read/write lock.
  • Fixed a shutdown bug with very short lived threads on Linux platforms.
  • PhysX version number in error messages now printed in hex for easier reading.

• Broad Phase
  • Fixed a broad phase crash bug that occurred when deleting shapes with bounds very far from the origin.

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