PhysX SDK 2.x
From PhysX Wiki
| NVIDIA PhysX SDK 2.x | |
| |
| Latest public versions | |
| Windows: | 2.8.4.6 |
| Linux: | N/A |
| Mac OS X: | 2.8.4 |
| Windows RT: | N/A |
| Android: | N/A |
| Official page | |
NVIDIA PhysX SDK 2.x (PhysX Software Development Kit, versions 2.3.0 - 2.8.4) - physics simulation engine, currently owned and developed by NVIDIA. Supplementary tools like DCC plug-ins, profilers and debugging applications are included.
Supported plaforms: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Android and iOS.
PhysX SDK is widely adopted by developers - over 300 released games are using it to simulate in-game physics, also PhysX is integrated into Unreal Engine 3, Unity 3D, Gamebryo and others game engines.
Contents |
Features
PhysX SDK 2.x - Release Notes
- Hardware acceleration (available only on Windows PC platform)
- On NVIDIA GPUs - only cloth, softbody and fluids (for SDK 2.7.3 and above)
- On Ageia PhysX PPUs - full scene with certain restrictions (for SDK 2.8.1 and below)
- Rigid body dynamics
- Collision primitives (capsule, sphere, box, plane, heightfield, convex)
- Various joints types (spherical, revolute, prismatic, cylindrical, fixed, distance, pulley, 6-dof)
- Ragdolls
- Continuous Collision Detection
- Collision groups and collision filtering
- Materials and friction model
- Raycast, sweep, trigger and overlap test collision detection
- Deformables
- Cloth and clothing simulation
- Support for cloth attachments, self-collision and tearing
- Metal cloth deformation model
- Softbody simulation
- Support for softbody attachments, self-collision and damping
- Particles and Fluids
- SPH (Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics) or simple (without interparticles collisions) simulation
- One-way and two-way interaction with cloth/softbodies/rigid bodies
- Platform specific optimizations
- Multithreading control
- Asynchronous stepping support
- PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii optimizations
- Character controller
- Auto-stepping feature
- Character controller is provided with source code
- Vehicle dynamics
- Raycast cars
- Joint based suspension
- Special WheelShape object with tire friction model
- Volumetric Force Fields
- Support for various shapes (sphere, capsule, box, convex mesh)
- Force functions to control both amount and direction of forces
Licensing
PhysX SDK 2.8.x platform availability is organized as follows:
| Platform | PhysX SDK Binary |
| Windows PC | Free for commercial and non-commercial use without restrictions |
| OS X, Linux*, Android* | Free for non-commercial or educational use. Free for commercial use if gross revenue, associated with application, is less than $100K. |
* available by request
For more details on PhysX SDK source licenses, paid support options or other supported platforms (consoles, mobile devices) please refer to PhysX SDK Access page or contact NVIDIA via PhysX Licensing e-mail
Free PhysX SDK binary versions can be accessed through Developer Support Center - registration required.
If you are experiencing trouble with registration of PhysX Developer account, please refer to our registration guide.
Please Note: only Windows and Linux binaries are available for immediate download. Binary versions for other platforms are available upon request.
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Important note. Before using PhysX SDK 2.8, make sure to familiarize with PhysX SDK EULA. |
Additional tools
- AgPerfMon tool provides performance profiling capabilities.
- PhysX Visual Debugger has ability to capture and record data from PhysX SDK, for further debugging and analysis.
- DCC plug-ins for 3ds Max and Maya are supporting PhysX scene export.
- APEX Framework, that sits on top of PhysX SDK, can be used for creation, authoring and scaling of high level physics effects, like objects destruction, dynamic character clothing and particle effects.
Version history
Originally, PhysX SDK was known as NovodeX physics engine, developed by Swiss company Novodex AG. Ageia has acquired Novodex AG in 2004, with all the personnel and software developments. Novodex SDK v. 2.3 with PPU support was renamed to PhysX SDK.
After Nvidia bought Ageia in February 2008, PhysX SDK was augmented to achieve hardware physics acceleration on Nvidia GPUs.
| Version | Release date | Description |
| PhysX SDK 2.8.4 | August 16, 2010 | This SDK features improved CPU/PS3/Xbox 360 cloth solver (up to x2-x3 performance gain), driverless model, SSE2 support, extended GPU memory allocation control and various bug-fixes. |
| PhysX SDK 2.8.3 | October 1, 2009 | 64-bit support, hierarchical position based dynamics solver and constrained cloth functionality (for APEX Clothing) were added. In this version was removed support for Ageia PhysX PPU. |
| PhysX SDK 2.8.1 | March 30, 2008 | Includes bug-fixes, and new parameters and features for joints and AABB tree prunning structures. At the time, custom CUDA code was added to PhysX SDKs 2.8.1, 2.8.0 and 2.7.3 to support GPU acceleration. |
| PhysX SDK 2.8.0 | February, 2008 | New Force Fields system was added. Character Controller source code was provided. Additions to contact report, multi-threading, cloth and cooking features. Added support for fluids and Xbox 360 and PS3. |
Other notes
- After introduction of PhysX SDK 3.x, SDK 2.8.x will be supported for titles already in development, but is otherwise deprecated.
- PhysX SDKs versions from 2.3.2 to 2.8.3 are requiring installation of software package called PhysX System Software on both developer's and end-user's machine to operate properly. PhysX SDK 2.8.4 has introduced new driverless model, and is not binded with PSS installation anymore.
See also
External Links
Benchmarks
- The Evolution of PhysX SDK, performance-wise (PhysX SDK 2.8 vs SDK 3.x vs Bullet 2.81 benchmarks)
- Multithreaded performance scaling in PhysX SDK (PhysX SDK 2.8 vs SDK 3.3)
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