It is time to summarize what PhysX Technology has achieved in year 2011, recall the most memorable events and releases.

. GAMES

GPU physics acceleration still can not gain enough momentum – only two games with support for GPU PhysX effects were released this year, this is the lowest result since Ageia was aquired.

One may call this an agony, but NVIDIA has told us that it was “conscious decision” – time was taken to develop and improve underlaying technology (PhysX SDK, APEX, DCC tools), thus sacrificing ability to create content and  integrate it into many games.

It was promised that we will see “more GPU PhysX games next year than you did this year” and even “a lot more in 2013″.

Meanwhile, both GPU PhysX titles released this year were pretty interesting by themselves:

• Batman: Arkham City, one of the best games with hardware PhysX support.
• Alice: Madness Returns, which is a decent game too and is certanly worth more than two Darkest of Days.

PhysX SDK as physics engine is still widely adopted by developers – over 45 PC console and games were released this year, according to our database.

. PHYSX SDK & TOOLS

Looking on the SDK Development you can say where all resources were spent – brand new PhysX SDK 3.0, rewritten from scratch, optimized and enhanced with new features, was released in Q2 2011, followed by SDK 3.1 and SDK 3.2 Beta. 6-months release schedule was introduced and so far is impeccably fulfilled.

PhysX 3 is a strong technological foundation, that will ensure further expansion, evolution and success of PhysX as physics engine.

NVIDIA APEX 1.0, high-level scalable framework build on top of PhysX SDK, was also revealed for public along with UDK integration, however it can not boast with same release dynamics – new APEX 1.1, promised to be delivered this autumn is now postponed till 2012. APEX 1.2, fully based on PhysX SDK 3, is also supposed to be released next year.

DCC PhysX plug-ins went throught three versions – 2.6, 2.61 and 2.7 – but during this period several compatibility problems and significant delays of releases were faced.

. MISCELLANEOUS

MassFX – new physics simulation solution, using PhysX SDK engine, was introduced in Autodesk 3ds Max 2012, thus replacing Reactor system, which was based on Havok physics. Rigid Body simulation functionality of MassFX was pretty strong along with better performance, however many users were unhappy with reduced functionality set in comparison to Reactor.

According to yearly survey by Game Developer Magazine, PhysX SDK is preferred physics middleware solution for traditional (big-budget) developers.

PhysX Research Team has showcased some new interesting technologies and prototypes. Some of them will appear in future versions of PhysX engine.

After a long break, new 1.05 version of Hybrid PhysX mod was released to support recent drivers and GPU PhysX games in AMD + NVIDIA configurations.

. . .

Well, that is all for now.

Happy New Year to everybody !

We have added a set of comparison PhysX screenshots for Batman: Arkham City, which in pair with previously released comparison video are completing our GPU PhysX Profile for this title.

You can view comparison screenhots, video and additional info at Batman: Arkham City – GPU PhysX Profile page .

Batman: Arkham City, sequel to award winning Arkham Asylum title and second GPU PhysX game this year, has finally hit the shelves worldwide.

Update: Batman: Arkham City – GPU PhysX Profile

As usually, we are proud to present you our PhysX review and comparison video, showcasing extra physical effects that can be found in PC version of the game.

Can't view the video ? Watch alternative variant on Vimeo

Some technical details, like difference between PhysX settings, were already revealed in our preview article, so let’s give a score to different aspects of GPU PhysX implementation and compare them to previous Batman: Arkham Asulum title:

All effects are done accurately, with diligence – you will not see jerky or buggy behaviour (within physics engine limitations, of course), art is fine, almost everything is configured correctly. However, some particle effects could be done better – for example, it is not appealing to see when glass shards are jumping all over the place like they were made out of rubber.

PhysX effects are scattered all over the game and accumulated in a places you will visit during main storyline (for example, you won’t see dynamic paper sheets on a random street).

Overall amount of extra physics content is similar to Arkham Asylum, but the components differ: you won’t see many “environmental” cloth objects, like all those banners and flags that can be teared appart with batarang, but in return APEX Clothing module is used extensively to simulate dynamic clothing on characters, including hoodies and coats on thugs, pants on russian twin-clowns, costume of Bruce Wayne, etc.

SPH smoke, steam and fog are rare in this game, but other particles (physical debris, shards, splinters, sparks) can be encountered much more frequently. All boss battles are enhanced with unique particle effects, for example.

As a good tradition, there is psychedelic level with lots of GPU Rigid Bodies. Looks gorgeous, actually, without PhysX effects this scene feels not nearly as vivid and spectacular.

GPU PhysX effects are certanly enhancing gameplay experience, giving it a little more depth, color and vibrance, either by providing  momentum to the battles through particle debris or making the environment more believable with interactive objects.

If you are not expecting from PhysX content something it is not supposed to be (game changing or gameplay affecting feature), you will be satisfied.

At the same time, GPU PhysX support is showing a little progress in this title. Particles, cloth and stuff – we have already saw it in a games before. While PhysX effects in original Batman have received the top score, today we are forced to deduct a few points (back in 2009 most of the effects were fresh and innovative, but now “more of the same” content did not impressed us that much).

As always, hardware accelerated PhysX effects are requiring a powerfull NVIDIA GPU, however this time framerate with PhysX enabled is unusally stable (without infamous issues like spontaneous slowdowns in Alice: Madness Returns or half-GPU physics in Mafia II). On our single GTX 580, framerate was holding on 50-60 fps even in extensive PhysX scenes and never dropped below 30 frames per second.

Nevertheless, we are thinking that GPU PhysX requirements are over demanding, giving the level of physical effects found in the game.

Also, additional PhysX effects are slightly more friendly to CPU calculation this time (in case if you don’t have NVIDIA GPU), you even will be able to play certain parts of the game normally, but smooth gameplay is still a dream.

Hybrid PhysX owners will be pleased to hear that new Batman is compatible with such systems.

Update: PhysX benchmarks roundup

Great game with a good level of GPU PhysX support. Once again, main reason to choose PC version over the console ones.

Batman: Arkham City tests the patience of PC gamers with several release delays, but will try to wheedle them with DX 11 Graphics and PhysX Technology.

Update: GPU PhysX in Batman: Arkham City - review and comparison video.

Recent comparison trailer gave us a glimpse of extra physics effects, and now we want to provide you with some additional details on what to expect from GPU PhysX content. In addition, new comparison PhysX video was released as well.

As usually, it will be possible to adjust level of in-game physics via “Hardware Accelerated PhysX” option in game’s launcher. There will be three settings:

PhysX Off: all GPU accelerated effects are disabled, only standart CPU physics (like ragdolls) is used.

PhysX Normal: enables additional particles effects (debris, volumetric smoke and steam, etc) and destructible environments.

PhysX High: includes all effects enabled withing “Normal” settings as well as realtime cloth and clothing simulation.

PhysX particle effects, most widely used type of content in GPU PhysX titles, will find their place in new Batman game. Scattered across Arkham City, they will consist of:

• Interactive SPH-smoke from fire extinguishers and smoke pellets, dynamic steam and fog.
• Ice particles for Freeze Gun and Freeze Grenade.
• Interactive debris from destructible thrown objects, like stools and vases.
• Environmental specific particles: molten and electrical sparks, coal debris, chunks, etc.
• Extra particles jutting from destructible objects like breakable glass, tiles and walls.
• Forcefields for explosions that will push particles away.

Interactive smoke and debris from Batman’s explosive gel

In addition, PhysX cloth effects are emulating the behaviour of fabric and clothing to make Batman and his enemies more realistic, as well as lend realism to environments. They will include:

• Simulated clothing on characters: coats and hoodies for Penguin, Two Face, and Joker’s thugs; Bruce Wayne’s jacket, pants, and tie.
• Dynamic paper: eviction and office papers, posters, x-ray sheets, museum tickets, etc.
• Money littering the floor of the vault (Sewer level).
• Leaves on the ground.
• Various interactive cloth objects throughout the game: rugs, banners, curtains, flags, ropes, bunting.

Banknotes are simulated as invidial cloth pieces, affected by character and weapon movement

But beauty comes with a burden, performance wise – GPU PhysX effects, especially coupled with DX 11 features like tesselation or HBAO, can bring frame rate to its knees if your GPU is not fast enough.

Various tesselation settings

Following table (based on NVIDIA testing) provides recommended baseline settings for specific GPUs to ensure the comfortable combination of playability and features (average frame rate of 40-55 frames per second and minimum 35 fps).

Batman: Arkham City is set for launch on November 22 in US and November 25 in EU.

Don’t forget to visit PhysXInfo.com soon after game’s release for comparison PhysX video, screenshots and detailed overview.

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.

PhysXInfo.com: So NVIDIA APEX is supposed to give developers the tools for easy creation on physical content in games, and you will receive GPU PhysX support as a byproduct. Is this idea working already?

Rev Lebaredian: It won’t be 100% free. Anytime you’re going to change the quality of something, you’re going to have the artists and level designers do a little bit of work to tweak it so it will look right.

Sure, let’s say if you have clothing you can just increase the number of vertices or increase the number of bodies for something with destruction, but most likely they going to want to tune it at different levels.

What we are trying to do with APEX is minimize that work. If you spend 10 hours putting together a set of assets for consoles, it shouldn’t take you another 10 hours to do the GPU stuff, maybe an additional half hour—depending on the developers and game in question obviously.

Tony Tamasi: And  I can actually tell you for sure, when we first started on the GPU PhysX effort, it often took more time to do the GPU physics work than core physics work, which is not the right balance. So we have to get the balance to make it incremental effort.

Ashu Rege: If you compare some games with APEX and GPU PhysX from one or two years ago, with some other games we are working on today, we have improved by 4-5 times in terms of less man-hours of work to get GPU PhysX done.

PhysXInfo.com: So how many GPU PhysX games are we going to see in upcoming years?

Rev Lebaredian: I think you’ll see more GPU PhysX games next year than you did this year, and I would expect to see a lot more in 2013. PhysX 3 and APEX are now just getting integrated–that’s why you see that kind of lag.

Tony Tamasi: We’ve also taken steps to integrate it [APEX/GPU PhysX] in major engines, like UE3—that enables a lot more developers to be able to use it out of the box now. When we did the GPU titles in 2009, essentially we have to do that integration each time. So there should be a large increase in GPU physics content just because it’s easier.

PhysXInfo.com: And for how long are you planning to further develop and use PhysX Technology?

Tony Tamasi: As long as we can see!

Ashu Rege: The interesting thing is that we haven’t even touched, frankly, the surface of the cool new things that can be done in many directions; things like heightfield fluid simulation, better cloth–I mean, there are so many different improvements, for both algorithms and technology as well as improvement for the tools so developers can integrate these features much faster.

So yes, we keep working.

PhysXInfo.com: Is the fact that GPU PhysX is exclusive to NVIDIA some kind of barrier for GPU PhysX adoption?

Rev Lebaredian: It is not a secret that most of game developers are concerned about consoles. PC for them is a smaller SKU usually, so PhysX not running on competitor GPUs  does not really matter that much to them.

Tony Tamasi: For every title we have worked on; for every one that I’m aware, that was never a reason for someone to use or not to use GPU PhysX.

PhysXInfo.com: Do you have any plans to port GPU PhysX to DX11 (Direct Compute) or OpenCL?

Rev Lebaredian: No plans to do it. Maybe if there will be a good reason for that in the future, but there is no current plan.

PhysXInfo.com: So developers are not asking you to port GPU PhysX to OpenCL?

Tony Tamasi: Nope.

Rev Lebaredian: No.

PhysXInfo.com: Are GPU PhysX effects going to be friendlier to multi-core CPUs in the future?

Tony Tamasi: You can use multi-core CPUs in PhysX 2.8, but it requires a lot of extra work to do that.  In PhysX 3 most solvers are parallelized across as many threads as are available.

Rev Lebaredian: It is usually not possible to get linear scaling with increasing numbers of CPU cores automatically. It is not reasonable to expect that if you’ll throw 8 cores at it, it will be 8 times faster.  However, we’ve done a lot of work in PhysX 3 to maximize usage of multiple CPU cores whenever possible.

PhysXInfo.com: What do you think about Hybrid PhysX? Isn’t it for good?

Rev Lebaredian: Good at what cost?

Supporting it would be a huge amount of QA for us, and it would be weird too – if we’ll find a bug in AMD’s drivers, what will we do?

Ashu Rege: For the foreseeable future we will not supporting it officially. If it works- it works, if some guys can figure out how to make it work – great for them.

After discussion of common topics, we have moved to more specific questions regarding PhysX SDK and NVIDIA APEX toolset.

PhysXInfo.com: New PhysX SDK 3. Has it already equals the hopes or was it waste of time, which has created more problems that it has solved?

Tony Tamasi: As far as I can tell, every developer we talked to is happy with it.

Rev Lebaredian: We have had developers demand to use it over 2.8, and that’s actually accelerated our plans for getting APEX working with it.

PhyXInfo.com: So developers now prefer PhysX 3 over 2.8?

Rev Lebaredian: Yes.

Ashu Rege: We build it to satisfy all their needs, so it would be really strange if they won’t use it. And we will be continuing to improve it to meet what developers are asking for.

PhysXInfo.com: Will PhysX SDK support next-generation consoles in the future?

Rev Lebaredian: Here is what we can say: we will always support all platforms that are relevant to our developers, so when the next generation consoles will become a reality, we will be on it.

PhysXInfo.com: Will PhysX SDK remain focused on games/game development area only?

Tony Tamasi: The focus is games. People can use it for visual effects or for manufacturing–that is awesome. And if we can do some incremental work to enable them, we’ll do that when we can, but the focus is games.

PhysXInfo.com: Are you thinking about enhancing PhysX/APEX product line with additional middleware packages, for animation or AI simulation, for example?

Ashu Rege: We work closely with our partners, with Natural Motion, with Autodesk, with game engine guys, but we are not interested in participating in that market; making money selling software. So it is not our goal to enter all of these areas.

PhysXInfo.com: What is the current development course for NVIDIA APEX?

Rev Lebaredian: We have decided to currently focus on two modules that have the highest priority for game developers – Clothing and Destruction.

EvE Online: APEX Clothing will make your hair long and silky

PhysXInfo.com: When we are going to see APEX with PhysX SDK 3 support? What are going to be the benefits, in comparison to current APEX with SDK 2.8?

Rev Lebaredian: Internally we already have version that works with PhysX 3. That’s one of the things on the roadmap. APEX 1.2 is going to be the first version of APEX we’ll release that will support PhysX 3.

Essentially, the benefits will be all the benefits that you get from PhysX 3 – better performance, and we’ll have all new features, new solvers, and all that kind of stuff.

PhysXInfo.com: Are you planning to port APEX to mobile platforms?

Rev Lebaredian: Yes.

Ashu Rege: Internally, we already have all of those working.

Tony Tamasi: And as soon as mobile devices will support CUDA, we’ll have GPU computation on mobile devices too.

PhysXInfo.com: APEX Destruction 1.1 will include fully functional GPU Rigid body solver (you were able to see in Art Gallery demo at GDC 11) – can you provide more details about it? Is this already finished technology or first iteration with many improvements to come?

Rev Lebaredian: We’ve done a lot of work on it since the Art Gallery demo last GDC.  It is more robust now, and behavior is better.  It is essentially the same, or maybe in some cases even better quality than the rigid body behavior in PhysX 2.8

Ashu Rege: We are at the point right now where we have three baseline things working–behavior, robustness and performance. We are continuing to enhance and improve it, especially on the performance front. It is using the exact same API [as CPU RB], except some pieces of the API are not implemented yet, so things like joints are not done.

Art Gallery demo was featuring GPU Rigid Body physics with up to 10 000 individual objects

PhysXInfo.com: What other features are planned for future versions of APEX Destruction?

Rev Lebaredian: There are lots of things we want to do with Destruction, real-time fracturing instead of pre-fracturing, all kinds of stuff. There are a lot of things in the plan and we have ideas on how to implement a lot of them, but what ends up driving features is the content. We work with game developers, see what it is they want, and we will change the priority based on demand.

PhysXInfo.com: New clothing solver was introduced in PhysX SDK 3.1. How does it compare to the previous one?

Tony Tamasi: It is faster and more stable, but it is not complete in terms of the feature set that is in PhysX 2.8, but we are adding those in the future.

PhysXInfo.com: Are you going to expand this new solver with all the missing functionality, or add additional specialized solvers in the future?

Rev Lebaredian: For collision geometry and similar features, we’ll expand the same solver. We haven’t decided yet, if we’ll want to introduce tearing for example.  That is a likely candidate for a different solver, because it never quite solved this problem correctly anyway. Sometimes it is better to have different solvers that solve different problems.

PhysXInfo.com: Will it support multi-core CPUs to the full extent?

Tony Tamasi: Yes

PhysXInfo.com: Are you planning to add this new clothing solver to 2.8 PhysX SDK?

Rev Lebaredian: The plan is if the developers are using PhysX 3.1, they can just use the new solver. If the developers are using 2.8 and they can’t switch to 3.1 for whatever reason, we can take the solver and make it build with APEX, so that they can continue to use PhysX 2.8 for all of their normal physics stuff and also use the 3.1 cloth solver with APEX Clothing.

PhysXInfo.com: Is authoring pipeline going to be different for new solver?

Rev Lebaredian: There are some modifications we’ve made. The parameter space is different and there are some new features, like tapered capsules for collision geometry–we obviously had to change DCC plug-in to support that.

PhysXInfo.com: When are we going to see new clothing solver in action?

Tony Tamasi: In games shipping next year.

As for us, all of the above sounds trustworthy enough and yet promising.

And what do you think ? Tell us in comments.

First trailer, showcasing supplementary GPU PhysX content for upcoming Batman: Arkham City title in comparison to normal “console” physics layer, was revealed today.

Update: PhysX in Batman: Arkham City article at GeForce.com

Some effects, like SPH smoke, cloth banners and “dynamic” paper, are familiar for us from previous Batman game, others, like intense particle effects, are promising new experience and immersion.

Slightly delayed PC version of Batman: Arkham City is set to be released at November 18, 2011.

In a recent interview to PCGamesHardware.de, Ben Wyatt, technical director at Rocksteady Studios, has revealed some technical details about PhysX implementation and GPU PhysX support in upcoming Batman: Arkham City title.

Let’s overview disclosed facts briefly:

• Batman Arkham City won’t use PhysX 3, but PhysX SDK 2.8.4 instead.
• GPU PhysX content will be able to run on CPU, but with significant performance drop (typical GPU exclusive content type, we presume).
• APEX Destruction (destructible objects and walls) and APEX Clothing (clothing simulation on characters, dynamic paper and leaves) modules will be utilized.

Since APEX Particles module was not mentioned, it seems that GPU accelerated particles (smoke, debris) will be based on default PhysXParticleSystem implementation (like in Alice: Madness Returns).

Update: english version of the interview from PCGamesHardware.com

PCGH: Will the PC version of Batman: Arkham City like Batman: Arkham Asylum utilize Nvidia’s PhysX API including support for Physics calculated on the GPU?

Ben Wyatt: Yes. Like Batman: Arkham Asylum, the PC version of Batman: Arkham City will feature realistic smoke, debris, leaves, and paper using GPU PhysX. There will also be features not seen in Batman: Arkham Asylum including clothing on characters.

PCGH: Which of the different APEX modules do you use (Apex Clothing/Particles (Destruction/Turbulence for fluids)? Can you give a short description where in the game APEX will be applied?

Ben Wyatt: APEX destructibles are used in the PC version for breakable elements in the game including breakable walls and objects that get thrown during fights. APEX clothing is used in the PC version for several of the characters you’ll encounter in the game and for simulating effects like paper and leaves. APEX clothing was also used for many of the cutscenes which can be seen on all platforms.

PCGH: What are the visual differences between physics calculated by CPU and GPU (via PhysX/APEX)?

Ben Wyatt: The extra PhysX effects in the PC version of the game add another dimension of realism to the game. When fighting as Batman or Catwoman, you will see walls break into splinters, paper and debris get kicked up, smoke respond realistically, and clothes on the thugs you fight.

PCGH: Are there any features that players without an Nvidia card will miss? What technical features cannot be realized with the CPU as “physics calculator”?

Ben Wyatt: All PhysX and APEX features can be run on the CPU or an NVIDIA GPU, but you can expect the game to run much slower without NVIDIA GPU acceleration when the additional PhysX effects are enabled. An NVIDIA GPU is recommended for all the additional PhysX features.

PCGH: Do you plan to use the latest PhysX SDK 3? Which advantages do you see compared to previous versions?

Ben Wyatt: Batman: Arkham City uses PhysX 2.8.4.

PC version of Batman: Arkham City is supposed to be released in first weeks of November, 2011.

Metro: Last Light is a sequel to Metro 2033 – highly acclaimed survival-horror shooter, released in March 2010. In addition to decent atmospheric story and great visuals, Metro 2033 was also supporting GPU PhysX.

Recent video interview with Huw Beynon, Communications Lead at THQ, reveals some details about PhysX effects (with emphasis on X) in new Metro: Last Light (starting 6:16).

“Huge amount of particle effects“, cloth physics and destructible environments were mentioned. According to our other sources, namely GPU PhysX support (since CPU PhysX will be used in any case) in this title is highly plausible.

Lets hope that this time hardware PhysX content will be not that subtle, as in in previous game. Metro: Last Light is planned to be released in 2012.

Alice: Madness Returns, highly anticipated sequel to original American McGee’s Alice, and first game with GPU PhysX support for this year. As always, we have prepared comparison PhysX video – for your viewing pleasure.

Update: PhysX benchmarks roundup

Update #2: Comparison PhysX screenshots available

GPU PhysX content in Alice: Madness Return can be characterized as “Particle Madness“. In a good way – this game contains probably most rich and diverse physically simulated particle effects, of all games with hardware PhysX support. From habitual and universal debris, chunks, smoke and dust (emitted either by player’s weapons or enemies) to environmental particles (dynamic leaves, ash, bubles, etc) and place-specific effects.

Physical simulation of goopy oil-like substance, that is spawned when black “Ruin” beings are damaged or killed, requires a special notice. During intence fights, up to 10 000 SPH fluid particles, which are colliding with level geometry and reacting to player’s movement, can be processed simultaneously.

In addition, two APEX modules  – APEX Destruction and APEX Clothing – are utilized for some minor effects:

Stone slabs, chessboards and rocks can be smashed to pieces thanks to APEX Destruction module.  Scenes, containing such objects are looking simply amazing, but unfortunately, you’ll face them only few times for the entire game.

APEX Clothing effects are so subtle, that we even haven’t included in the comparison video. Several pieces of simulated cloth and “dynamic” newspapers – you’ll be able to see them all in first 15 minutes of the game walkthrough.

Overall level of PhysX support can be adjusted via in-game settings:

PhysX High includes all additional GPU PhysX effects, described and showcased above.

PhysX Medium is less demanding for system resources – amount of physical particles is lowered, chunks from destructible objects are disappearing faster, SPH Fluid simulation is disabled.

PhysX Low -  basic CPU physics, similar for PC and consoles. Interesting note: physically simulated clothing and hair for Alice are not part of hardware PhysX content, and are not affected by PhysX settings (moreover, it is not even using PhysX engine for simulation).

Sum: Alice: Madness Returns is showing particularly good level of GPU PhysX support.  Definitely worth a play and, actually, PhysX effects may be the main reason to choose PC version over the console ones.

Keep an eye on GPU PhysX Profile page for comparison screenshots.

For additional details we recommend you to familiarize yourself with “Alice: Madness Returns: PhysX Graphics Comparison” article at GeForce.com

UPDATE: How to squeeze a bit of performance with GPU PhysX enabled.

Alice: Madness Returns is indeed showing top grade PhysX effects, but is also very demanding for resources – in certain scenes (for example, while you’re shooting oil-dropping “Ruins” with Pepper Grinder, that is producing a lot of physical particles itself) overall framerate may drop to 20 and lower fps, resulting in unpleasant gameplay. That is what we’ve faced with our single GTX 470, and we saw reports on low performance from people with GTX 560+ GPUs (dedicated PhysX GPUs seems to work better, however).

Hoping to obtain some performance increase,  we’ve tried different combinations of PhysX related parameters, that can be found in game’s .ini files. Unfortunately, this game is not using APEX Particles module for particle effects (90 % of all GPU PhysX content in this title are particles), but some older PhysXParticleSystem implementation – it is not affected APEX resource budget settings (which are functioning properly) and promising “ParticlePercentage” parameter, that is supposed to define global particle LOD, is simply not working (so we can not say “hey, spawn us only 1/3 of all particles” and expect 3x performance increase).

Moreover, due to game structure, we can not disable particles effects one by one (like we did in Mafia 2) – for example, volumetric smoke from Pepper Grinder, which is big resource hog.

Finally, we came up with following settings:

File:

\Documents\My Games\Alice Madness Returns\AliceGame\Config\AliceGame.ini

Set:

[Engine.WorldInfo]

MaxPhysicsSubsteps=4

To perform less physics calculations per frame (default for UE3 – 5, default for Alice – 10).

Next, File:

\Documents\My Games\Alice Madness Returns\AliceGame\Config\AliceEngine.ini

Set:

[Engine.Engine]

PhysXGpuHeapSize=128

PhysXMeshCacheSize=16

To increase amount of GPU memory, allocated by PhysX calculations (default – 64/8).

In addition, you might also want to decrease number of rigid body chunks, produced by destructible APEX objects (but they can be found only on several game levels).

[SystemSettings]

ApexDestructionMaxChunkIslandCount=50

ApexDestructionMaxChunkIslandCountHigh=150

For PhysX Medium (default – 150) and PhysX High (default – 500) settings.

To check out if our tweaks will have any practical effect, we used a scene from the beginning of “Chapter 1 – Assemblage” level – an intense fight with “Ruins” (6-7 Malicious Ruins + 1 Menacing Ruin = a lot of SPH Fluid) using only Pepper Grinder (a lot of particles and volumetric smoke).

PhysX is set to High. System: C2Q 9400, GTX 470, 4BG RAM, Win 7 x64. Measured with FRAPS.

As you may see, there is no significant difference in performance, but framerate is smoother, without large fps drops.

Two last things:

- If you are not satisfied with “PhysX High” settings, switch to “PhysX Medium” – that will disable fluid simulation and scale down particles effects.

- By default framerate in Alice is capped by 30 fps. To remove it, you need to set “bSmoothFrameRate” to “False” in “AliceEngine.ini”. But in this case your framerate may bounce from 100+ fps to 30+ fps (in intensive PhysX scenes) and back, so it will result in unresponsive and choppy controls. Thus, we will recommend to keep Smooth option enabled.

If you’ll have any ideas on more performance tweaking, let us know.

In a recent promo video for upcoming GTX 560 GPU, NVIDIA has spoiled next game with support of GPU accelerated PhysX effects – Alice: Madness Returns, sequel to American McGee’s visionary classic “Alice” title.

UPDATE: Comparison GPU PhysX video

Starting at 1:34, comparison PhysX sequences are showcased. According to the video, GPU PhysX content in Alice will include (following list may be not full) destructible environments..

..volumetric fluid effects (for example, oil-like fluid from damaged enemies)..

..and additional smoke and particle effects.

According to GeForce.com article, single GTX 560 or similar GPU will be enough to play this game in Full HD with GPU PhysX effects set to High.

Alice: Madness Returns is due to be released June 14, 2011