Be sure to check out our recent  PhysX comparison video for Star Trek: D-A-C title.

Carmageddon XNA Physics Test 2 by 1amStudios

Carmageddon remake using XNA and PhysX SDK. Sweet !

physX perfomance test by noxytrux

Perfomance test of rigid body simulation inside custom OpenGl based engine.

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Surprisingly, but recently released PC version of Star Trek: D-A-C title has never-mentioned-before additional GPU PhysX content. Effects are minimal – extra debris emitted by damaged ships and very very slight difference in explosions, you probably will not even notice. As always, we’ve prepared short comparison video, showcasing game with enabled and disabled PhysX option:

GPU PhysX Info mini-site for Star Trek: D-A-C is located here

P.S. interesting is completely silence from Nvidia (not a single mention for past year) – are they ashamed of Star Trek: D-A-C (you can’t call this game good PhysX title) or is this surprise for them too ?

After several weeks of delays, beta version of PhysX 2.0 plug-in for 3ds Max is finally available for testing. We’ll simple quote Gavin Kistner, PhysX Max and Maya plug-ins Product Designer:

The extranet we want to use to distribute the beta PhysX Plug-in for 3ds Max is taking longer than expected to finalize. However, I’d love to get beta testing underway sooner rather than later. To that end, if you would like to be a beta tester for the plug-in (supporting Max 2008, 2009, 2010 on 32- and 64-bit OS), please send me an email. I’ll get you the plug-in if you will in turn give me feedback.

Send an email with subject “PhysX Plug-in for 3ds Max Beta” to “gkistner@nvidia.com“, and include your real name, email address, and company that you’ll be using the plug-in for. Optionally, I’d also love to hear what you intend to use the plug-in for: content development for PhysX-based games; developing for other real-time simulations; improved simulation for standalone rendering; or just repeatedly smashing wrecking balls into brick silos and watching them fall.

Source: Nvidia Developer Forums

Update: PhysX plug-in v2.01 for 3ds Max released

Accessibility of PhysX SDK binary PC version was changed recently. PhysX SDK is still free but no longer available for public download,  to get access to SDK and tools you must register an account at PhysX Developer Support website and wait until it’ll be approved. As we were told, that will help Nvidia to “have more insight into how it (SDK) is being used.”

Actually, that’s how things were organized in Ageia times. Support forum, as well other PhysX pages will remain on their current places.

Our PhysX Developer account registration guide

With recent release of UDK we can expect increase of activity at indie community, new mods/games and new videos as well. You can find one example below.

10th issue of WeeklyTube, by the way. How time’s getting along.

Unreal Fracture Test by raven67854

Test of UDK’s fracture tool. Rigid body dynamics is handled by PhysX SDK.

Cloth by Grraw

Simple and effective demonstration – stack of boxes and cloth with enabled self-collision. PhysX SDK and Ogre 3D.

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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

Attack of the 50ft Robot!, developed by students at DigiPen Institute of Technology, is great example of well-formed indie title. Game takes place in 1950s B-movies style setting, spiced with black-and-white old projector postfilter. Chased by tanks, helicopter und ufos, Giant Robot, controlled by player, grinds whole city in return.

Fast every building can be smash to pieces, and massive-scale rigid body dynamics is handled by PhysX SDK.

Gameplay trailer

You can download Attack of the 50ft Robot! here (158 mb)

Unreal Development Kit (UDK), a free version of the Unreal® Engine 3, the software development framework used to create computer and video games, 3D simulations, etc, was unnounced today. UDK is free for noncommercial and educational use, and is already available for download.

Not to mention, UDK’s physics system, like in Unreal Engine 3, is based on PhysX SDK.

You can find more details at UDK homepage or NVIDIA UDK page.

PhysX Visual Debugger, tool that allows you to visualize, debug, and interact with your PhysX SDK based applications, was updated to version 1.1.8. PVD supports the current PhysX SDK release (2.8.3 Version) and all previous versions.

Release notes
1. Support both left-handed and right-handed coordinate systems.
2. Fixed bug: The PVD crashes when a delete object operation is undone.
3. Fixed bug: The camera operations (Zoom to Fit, Center at the Selection, and Track the Selection) are working properly with groups of objects.
4. Fixed bug: The selection now works with cloth and soft bodies.
6. Fixed bug: Scrubbing back would sometimes fail.

You can download PhysX Visual Debugger here

We’ve finally (better late than never) uploaded our PhysX comparison screenshots pack for Batman Arkham Asylum. Like screenshots for Darkest of Days title, these are triple-screens, covering differences between High, Normal and Off PhysX in-game settings.

While inequality between High and Off PhysX settings is obvious, High vs Normal difference is not so evident: comparing to High PhysX settings, there is less dynamic smoke and spider webs, ground fog is missing, some cloth banners are unavailable, only like 1/3 amount of leaves is present on Normal PhysX settings.

You can view all screens at Batman Arkham Asylum GPU PhysX info mini-site

or watch our PhysX comparison video