Certainly, many of you will agree that the addition of GPU PhysX effects to PC games has a positive influence on overall gaming experience and immersion in such titles. But how difficult is to attach hardware accelerated physics effects to a game?

Today, with the help of David Schoemehl, Manager of GPU PhysX Content in NVIDIA, and Johnny Costello, Technical Artist, we will try to give you a brief “behind the scenes” view on the process of enhancing games with extra PhysX content.

PhysXInfo.com: Hi, Johnny and David. Can you please introduce yourself?

Johnny Costello: My name is Johnny Costello, I’m 29 years old and am a native to the Midwestern United States. I went to college at Savannah College of Art and Design and received my B.F.A. in game development. I have been a technical artist at NVIDIA for about two and a half years. During that time I have worked on several GPU PhysX titles such as Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City, Mafia II, Dark Void, and Alice: Madness Returns.

David Schoemehl: My name is David Schoemehl, I joined AGEIA in 2006 as an applications engineer and was the project manager on Warmonger. Since the purchase of AGEIA by NVIDIA in 2008 I have led or supported several shipping GPU PhysX titles and demos including Batman: Arkham Asylum, The Samaritan Demo, Sacred 2, The Great Kulu Demo, and Alice: Madness Returns.

My current title is Manager of GPU PhysX Content and I am responsible for aligning NVIDIA’s engineers and artists to support developers on GPU PhysX engagements. I also work closely with Epic Games to ensure a solid integration of GPU PhysX/APEX features in UE3.

PhysXInfo.com: Johnny, what is your task as a PhysX technical artist?

Johnny Costello: My tasks can change a lot from day to day, but usually I’m working on a game title in some capacity. Our goal at NVIDIA is to provide the tools that developers need in order to add great GPU features to their games. So I spend much of my time working with developers to help guide them as they use our technology to create exciting content.

Depending on the structure of a particular engagement I may also work alongside the developer to create GPU PhysX content. Then there are other days where I help design and review our tools and production workflows.

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New version of Hybrid PhysX mod was released today by GenL – yet another round of confrontation between Hybrid PhysX community and NVIDIA.

Release Notes:

1.05ff – 26/10/2011:
- added support for fixing new limitations introduced in 285.xx drivers and PhysX System Software 9.11.0621
- mod will now delete all application 3D settings profiles from NVIDIA Control Panel (prevents problems with known PhysX games)
- updated old patterns

As revealed in latest interview, NVIDIA still has no plans to support AMD + NV PhysX systems officially, but admits modified drivers as opportunity for users to achieve desired result.

For download, FAQ and installation instructions please refer to Hybrid PhysX thread at NGOHQ

Almost four years has passed since NVIDIA aquired Ageia and presented their version of hardware accelerated PhysX Technology. However, anyone who is watching GPU PhysX progress closely can say, that so far it has not shown any significant advancement – but is the fight already lost or is it just taking time to harness up, but will ride fast?

We got a chance to chat with Tony Tamasi, Senior Vice President of Content & Technology in NVIDIA, Ashu Rege, Vice President of Content & Technology, and Rev Lebaredian, Director of Engineering, to clear up these questions, and recieve some insider information on future development plans for PhysX SDK and NVIDIA APEX toolset.

PhysXInfo.com: Over last years, amount of GPU PhysX games is actually decreasing. There were five games in 2009, three in 2010 and so far only one in 2011. How can you explain that?

Tony Tamasi: It was a choice on our part. We had a large amount of resources we could otherwise dedicate to content, but we needed to advance the core technology. We needed to get PhysX 3 done, and we needed to get APEX done to the degree where it is usable by game developers. We had to put a lot of resources there, which meant that some of those resources weren’t directly working on games.

But in the long term, game developers can actually use PhysX and APEX, and make use of the GPU without significant amounts of effort, so that a year or two years from now more games will come out using GPU physics.

Alice: Madness Returns - most recent GPU PhysX title

Rev Lebaredian: When we initially acquired Ageia, we made a big effort to move many games over to GPU PhysX. We learned a lot in that period of time: getting GPU physics into games, what are the problems, what works and what doesn’t. That gave us the opportunity to regroup, refocus, and figure out how to do it correctly.

We made a conscious decision. After we did a bunch of PhysX and APEX games in 2009 and early 2010, we said “Ok, we have learned enough, we need to sit down and focus on finishing APEX and changing it based on what we just learned, as well as PhysX 3”. Doing as many titles as we were doing before was just going to slow us down.

It made more sense to slow down the content pipeline but get the tools right, but that puts us in the position when once those are complete, it is actually less work for us to get PhysX in games.

This slowdown has not been because of any problems. It is something that we have decided to do.

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NVIDIA has has published a nice video, that is showcasing technical demo called “Glowball”, running on their next quad-core mobile chip known as “Project Kal-EL” or Tegra 3, presumably.

Glowball demo features some complex (for a mobile device) real-time dynamic lighting and shadowing effects, and decent level of PhysX based physics calculations – rigid body barrels and drapes, fully simulated as cloth obejcts.

Cloth simulation is partically interesting: scene contains 10 drapes, likely 100-150 vertices each, affected by gravity and board movement, calculated simultaneously – new kind of physics effects for mobile devices. This tech can be used not necessarily for flags or banners, but for dynamic clothing on characters, for example.

Demo was running on PhysX SDK 2.8.4.5.

Update: More physical demos on Tegra 3 platform

Mobile devices are interesting environment for PhysX SDK to evolve and adapt, so we are eager to see how things will play out in this direction.

If you know PhysX only as GPU accelerated physics effects for PC games, lack of news and announcements of new GPU PhysX titles may give you an idea that NVIDIA has decided to drop support for PhysX completely. Forum threads like “Is PhysX Dead?” or “Physx dead?“, popping up from time to time, are indicating – users are worried.

We were able to contact NVIDIA and Mike Skolones, product manager for PhysX, has revealed us the company’s plans regarding PhysX Technology.

PhysXInfo.com: Is PhysX still playing important role for NVIDIA ? Are you planning to use and evolve the PhysX Technology over the years, or thinking about abandoning it in a favor for other solutions ?

Mike Skolones: PhysX has been and continues to play an important role for NVIDIA, as well as for the thousands of game developers who use PhysX for physics simulation across a broad range of platforms, including PC, Xbox360, PLAYSTATION 3, Nintendo Wii , iOS (including iPhone, iPod, and iPad), OSX, Linux, and Android (including NVIDIA Tegra™ devices), MMO servers running Linux and Windows; OSX ports; and Windows games, where GPU-accelerated advanced simulation is poised for continued growth.

Monster Madness - one of the fist games that utilizes PhysX SDK on Android platform

More importantly, because PhysX continues to be the choice of developers for integration into world’s leading commercial game engines, including Unreal Engine 3, Trinigy, Unity, Torque, Gamebryo, Lightspeed, Hero, and Dark Basic, not to mention other internal tech engines which also use PhysX, designers and artists know they have compelling development platforms they can immediately take advantage for making their games that much more realistic and interactive.

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NVIDIA has prepared a “surprise” – fully upgraded and rewamped Developer Zone.

Among with full set of new features and content, PhysX section was renovated too (previously, certain parts were staying without update for years).

Browsing through new website, we have found some intersting data, never revealed before – for example, APEX FAQ states that:

What APEX modules are available?

APEX 1.1 will include Turbulence and APEX 1.2 will include APEX Destruction with GPU Rigid Bodies. If you are interested in Turbulence or Destruction with GPU rigid bodies, please email us at apex-beta@nvidia.com.

APEX 1.0 Beta was released to public several weeks ago.

Several updated pages we recommend you to visit:

Main PhysX page

APEX Page

APEX FAQ

NVIDIA and Epic Games are teaming up this week at Game Developers Conference to showcase latest additions to Unreal Engine 3, like DX 11 support and NVIDIA APEX Framework integration.

“Thanks to NVIDIA’s excellent cross-platform physics technologies and DX11 expertise, we have enhanced Unreal Engine 3 to bring unprecedented new levels of realism and demonstrate what the next generation of gaming will be,” said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games.

Alpha and beta versions of certain APEX modules were used in UE3 based games previously (Dark Void and Batman Arkham Asylum), but now full APEX toolset will be available to all UE3 licensees and UDK users as well, and can be used to create high-fidelity physics content (character clothing, for example) even in CPU PhysX and console games.

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GenL has released new 1.04ff version of Hybrid PhysX mod – now it works with 257.21 GeForce drivers and newer.

Update: Hybrid PhysX mod 1.05ff is available

Description:

This mod will enable hardware PhysX support for NVIDIA GPU, when non-NVIDIA GPU is used as a primary display device.

• intended only for WDDM 1.1 OS (Windows 7) and NT5 WDM OS (Windows XP/2003).
• only for multi-vendor multi-GPU configurations.

1.04ff – 29/06/2010:

• removed support for fixing GeForce driver binaries as current 256 series don’t need this (dropped support of all older 19x series drivers)
• added support for fixing a new limitation in PhysX System Software, introduced in 9.10.0223 (aka 9.10.0528/9.10.0529)
• added extra optional command line files (nvsvc and PhysX related)
• removed most of gfx/sfx stuff (the mod is now tiny and no more requires 96dpi mode)

You can download Hybrid PhysX mod 1.04ff from our server (not available, use NGOHQ instead)

Q: Why do we need both v1.03 and v1.04ff, which should I use?
A: If you are not going to use anything older than 257.21 – forget about v1.03 and use v1.04ff. The mod v1.03 is intended for old 19x series and 9.10.0222 (+older) PhysX SS.

If you update any component from the [old] 19x.xx and/or 9.10.0222 (+older) to [newer] 256 series and/or 9.10.0223 (+newer) – you should apply the mod v1.04ff afterwards. The mod v1.04ff will not help with 19x series GeForce driver.

For download, FAQ and installation instructions please refer to Hybrid PhysX thread at NGOHQ

Update: 1.04ff mod works with 258.69 Beta; 258.96 Beta/WHQL; 259.09; 259.31; 259.32; 259.47 WHQL; 260.63 Beta; 260.89 Beta/WHQL; 260.93 Beta; 260.99 WHQL; 261.00 Beta GPU drivers and 9.10.0224; 9.10.0512; 9.10.0513; 9.10.0514 PhysX System Software

Users at NGOHQ Hybrid PhysX Mod 1.03 discussion have discovered awesome fact – with recent 257.15 GeForce/ION drivers combo ATI + NV PhysX setups are working without need to apply any modifications !

Quoting GenL, Hybrid PhysX mod creator

I’m seriously amazed… seems like you are right! I just didn’t test it yesterday because i saw a user report saying otherwise on another site, but now i’ve tested it by myself on Windows XP and Windows 7 x64 – it really works “out of the box” with 257.15.

In Windows XP i’ve just extended the fake desktop, and on Windows 7 i created one non-extended – that’s all i needed to get GPU-PhysX working. And even more surprising – timebomb issue is gone too, at least for its normal time interval (~30 seconds in FluidMark).

Originally, Hybrid PhysX configurations were officially blocked by Nvidia in Q4 2009.

Update: video from TweakPC, showing Hybrid system working with 257.15 drivers. In addition – tests by Geeks3D

What’s this – accidental mistake or permanent change, ticket to the bright future for Hybrid PhysX systems ?

Update #2: unfortunately, this was just a bug.

Yes, this is a bug in the latest build of PhysX that was packaged with the driver. We’ll be fixing this issue ASAP – the WHQL driver launching in early June won’t have this issue. – NVIDIA.

Shame on you, Nvidia. Anyway, we still have Hybrid PhysX mod.

Update #3: official statement from Nvidia

The fact remains that the investment to do a full QA cycle on this AMD/NVIDIA hybrid GPU configuration is beyond what NVIDIA can support at this time. The cost of maintaining AMD/NVIDIA hybrid configurations is larger than the development expense for PhysX, and I do expect that there are games and configurations where this type of system just won’t work.

Use comments to this post to provide your feedback.

KitGuru website has brought us news that Manju Hedge, former CUDA and PhysX Solutions Vice President (previously – CEO and co-founder of Ageia) has left NVIDIA to join AMD.

Our own sources at NVIDIA are indicating  – this information is truthful.

However, according to our data, Manju departure won’t affect PhysX (he hasn’t been working on PhysX for over a year) or CUDA development process in NVIDIA, and his new roll in AMD won’t be connected to game physics related projects (instead, Manju is going to be involved in ISV recruitment).

Update: Pursuant to latest press-release, Manju Hedge will lead AMD Fusion Experience Program.

Update #2: from X-bit Labs article

In particular, [Manju Hedge] will manage the developer relations teams that help independent software developers (ISVs) to implement program code optimized for heterogeneous multi-core microprocessors.

We want to thanks Manju Hedge for awesome work on PhysX front and wish him best of luck with this new assignment !