Taking a Look at Mafia II and its PhysX Use

• August 27, 2010
• Written by Mark
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Techgage.com has put together a nice article taking a look at the PhysX use in the recently released Mafia II. Mafia II makes extensive use of Apex PhysX and is now the new showcase for PhysX. In the article Techgage goes over the different PhysX features that have been implemented into the game and how they effect game play and bring a more realistic experience to the game. Read the rest of the article here.

From Techgage.com:

The Mafia II developers are said to have taken full advantage of NVIDIA’s Apex platform, which enables the ability to implement various PhysX modules, such as Destruction, Clothing and Turbulence, into a game rather seamlessly. I saw Apex in action this past January during CES, and I was left rather impressed (so impressed, that I really wanted to take the demo PC home with me).

In the game, there is no such thing as a “Low” PhysX setting, but rather just “Medium” and “High”. High is merely Medium, but with its particle count amped way up (from 3,000 to 10,000). Here’s a verbatim list of PhysX features:

• Physically simulated clothing for main character and additional characters
  • Custom wind simulation that creates a more dynamic movement of clothing as the characters walk around and interact with the environment.
  • Force fields form explosions and interact with clothing, making those explosive moments even more immersive
• Up to 3,000 unique particles on screen at any given time.
• Particle effects including dynamic collision, mass and kinetic simulation, and force fields from explosions that move and displace particles along its path.
  • Destruction particle debris from cement, wood, glass, dirt, and more
  • Weapon impact that creates dynamic smoke and kinetic persistent particles
  • Garbage moves and exists in the world of Empire Bay and reacts to effects like force fields and character interactions
  • Tire burnout while driving produces dynamic smoke and particles including fluid movement simulation and particle velocity and trajectory
• Character clothing on all character models is rendered entirely on the GPU when using a dedicated PhysX card which can be anything from a GT 240 to a GTX 480.

Read the rest of the article here.

Tags: APEX, APEX Clothing, Apex Destruction, Apex Physics, Apex PhysX, Apex Smoke, ATi, Console, Dedicated PhysX, GPU PhysX, Mafia II, Mafia II Apex PhysX, Mafia II PhysX, Nvidia, PC, PhysX, PhysX Clothes, PhysX Clothing, PhysX Destruction, PhysX Explosions, PhysX Toolset