PC Games Hardware Exclusive tech interview on Metro 2033, Asks lots of questions about Physics and PhysX

• March 8, 2010
• Written by Mark
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PC Games Hardware has done a really nice and in-depth interview about the technology being used in Metro 2033 with Metro 2033 Producer Oles Shishkovstov. The interview goes really in-depth on pretty much every technical aspect of the game from from the game engine being used,DX11, Multi-CPU support and the Physics/PhysX being implemented in the game along with the different features being implemented into the console and PC version of the game. Read the entire article at PC Games Hardware here. We have been pretty excited about Metro 2033 and any news related to it since when released it is supposed to be a PhysX and graphics showcase for NVIDIA.

be sure to check out the previous posts we have made about Metro 2033:

Post Apocalyptic Shooter Metro 2033 to feature Advanced PhysX effects
Metro 2033 Technical Q&A Covers The PhysX Being Implemented In The Game
New PhysX Powered Metro 2033 Screenshots Released
New PhysX Powered Metro 2033 Story Trailer

From the PC Games Hardware Metro 2033 technology interview:

PCGH: It could be read that your game offers an advanced physics simulation as well as a support for Nvidia’s PhysX (GPU calculated physics) can you tell us more details here?

Does regular by CPU calculated physics affect visuals only or is it used for gameplay terms like enemies getting hit by shattered bits of blown-away walls and the like?

Oles Shishkovstov: Yes, the physics is tightly integrated into game-play. And your example applies as well.

PCGH: Besides PhysX support why did you decide to use Nvidia’s physics middleware instead of other physics libraries like Havok or ODE? What makes Nvidia’s SDK so suitable for your title?

Oles Shishkovstov: We’ve chosen the SDK back when it was Novodex SDK (that’s even before they became AGEIA). It was high performance and feature reach solution. Some of the reasons why we did this – they had a complete and customizable content pipeline back then, and it was important when you are writing a new engine by a relatively small team.

PCGH: What are the visual differences between physics calculated by CPU and GPU (via PhysX, OpenCL or even DX Compute)? Are there any features that players without an Nvidia card will miss? What technical features cannot be realized with the CPU as “physics calculator”?

Oles Shishkovstov: There are no visible differences as they both operate on ordinary IEEE floating point. The GPU only allows more compute heavy stuff to be simulated because they are an order of magnitude faster in data-parallel algorithms. As for Metro2033 – the game always calculates rigid-body physics on CPU, but cloth physics, soft-body physics, fluid physics and particle physics on whatever the users have (multiple CPU cores or GPU). Users will be able to enable more compute-intensive stuff via in-game option regardless of what hardware they have.

Read the rest of the article at PC Games Hardware here.

Tags: 3D Vision, AGEIA PhysX, AGEIA PhysX hardware, ATi, Breakable fences, DX11, DX11 Feature Set, GPU PhysX, Hardware PhysX, hardware-accelerated PhysX, Metro 2033, Metro 2033 PhysX, Nvidia, nVidia GPU hardware, PC, PhysX, PhysX Destruction, PhysX Fluids, PhysX Rigid Body, THQ, Xbox 360