NVIDIA has released the PhysX 3.0 SDK for developers and features a plethora of new improvements to the previous PhysX SDK. New features include support for streaming, larger levels, better multithreading support and more that you probably need to be a developer to understand. This is exciting though in hopes that we will start to see more PhysX features from this new 3.0 SDK implemented into games. Zogrim over at PhysXinfo has done a nice write up going a little but more in-depth about the new features of the 3.0 SDK, check it out here.
I am very pleased to announce the launch of a brand new version of the very popular NVIDIA PhysX SDK. The new PhysX 3.0 SDK is available to all registered developers on our developer support website located at: http://supportcenteronline.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=1949
PhysX is the world’s most pervasive physics solution for highly realistic and real-time simulation based effects for games, film and more. Version 3.0 of PhysX has been over three years in the making and features a new modular architecture and a completely rewritten PhysX engine. It provides a significant boost in overall performance, as well as efficient, reliable simulations across a broad spectrum of multi-core gaming devices – such as PCs, notebooks and gaming consoles, as well as emerging gaming platforms like handheld game devices, tablets, and smartphones.
PhysX 3.0 is available for all major gaming platforms, including PC, Xbox360™, PLAYSTATION®3, OSX, Linux and Android. PhysX 3.0 is designed to run on a variety of CPU architectures. Performance can be accelerated by any CUDA™-enabled NVIDIA GPU – including any GeForce 8-series or higher graphics card.
For more information on NVIDIA PhysX and APEX technologies, please visit: www.nvidia.com/physx.
PC Authority has published a fascinating article about why consoles and the technology they have inside, mainly the GPU are preventing developers from creating more and more games with the latest and greatest in technology such as DX11, and holding back the development of PC Games. The article details the fact that game developers are trying to target the widest range of users possible, for the time being these are the consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PS3, and it’s 5 year old graphics hardware and technology. This same rule applies to why developers are not wanting to take full advantage of PhysX, because since it only runs on NVIDIA hardware they simply cannot reach the widest user base possible. Read the rest of the article here.
Even selling points such as NVIDIA’s hardware PhysX acceleration aren’t as impressive as they sound. Again, because developers need to target a wide range of end users they cannot integrate technology like PhysX too heavily into their games.
Make the game too reliant on NVIDIA-flavoured hardware accelerated physics and the huge number of people who own ATI cards are excluded from the customer base. This has led to PhysX being a means to add a little bit of extra eye candy to a game in the form of flowing cloth and extra debris, rather than being an integral part of the game’s design.
A cool new video has surfaced on YouTube from GDC 2010 showing Nvidia’s Sarah Tariq talking about and explaining a new DX11/CUDA demo running on the new Fermi cards that shows off realistic hair with over 18,000 strands being computed with CUDA all on the GPU. Pretty fascinating stuff, the hair color reacts realistically to light and in the demo different levels of wind can be applied to the face to show off how the hair reacts realistically. Can’t wait to see stuff like tis really implemented into games and hopefully NVIDIA releases this tech demo when the new Fermi cards are finally announced or released.
Hardwareforyou.it has posted a really nice and in-depth, 10 minute long video to YouTube with detailed steb-by-step instruction on how to setup a hybrid PhysX system if you are running an ATI card as your main graphics renderer and want to install a second NVIDIA video card and use it for PhysX. Check it out below.
Despite the blockade with the latest nVidia drivers that prevent the use of PhysX in the system are detected if non-nVidia cards on some forums there is a guide on how to patch the drivers to use PhysX with an ATI card. Our video will be a testimony that the block from nVidia did not do anything other than to damage the same company.
For comments or info, you can post on our forum at http://www.hardwareforyou.it/forum
Well it is been a while since I have posted and need to get back into the swing of things, so I think posting these awesome UDK Apex PhysX destruction videos would be a good start. The NVIDIA APEX Destruction Project – Destroy Aarhus by Allingby is very impressive, an entire level that is 100%Read More
Futuremark has released a new Tech Demo showing off the next 3DMark that is going to be released sometime this year. I am not exactly sure what is going on in the demo but it has some cool particle and smoke effects. According to the press release “The visible particles and clouds of smoke inRead More
Several months ago I announced that I would be building a dedicated PhysX test system for the site to test out Hybrid PhysX configurations and do benchmarking and reviews. This past weekend I finally got around to playing around to putting it together. I got it up and running with Windows 7 and the GT430Read More
I have been excited about Hawken for awhile, not just because it looks like a great game but it will also be making heavy use of GPU PhysX as confirmed by the developers. Geforce.com has done a nice video interview with Bill Wagner of Meteor Entertainment at the recent E3 expo about the GPU PhysXRead More
I have been watching the development of Planetside 2 closely, not just because i was a huge Planetside fan when it first came out over 9 years ago but because SOE Announced PlanetSide 2 with PhysX support. We have not heard much else about it since the game with PhysX support was first announced, butRead More
INVERSION is a PS3 and XBOX 360 only title but it has caught my attention after watching the new “Inversion Powered by Havok Phyiscs and Havok Destruction” video uploaded to the official Havok Physics YouTube channel. The game makes extensive use of Havok Physics and Destruction. From the looks of it the Havok physics andRead More
Recruits is a new top-down indie shooter where “the players take charge of the Army’s newest soldiers to fight the war against their deadly Enemies.” There is a new video log from the developers showing off some cool features we would be interested in, physics and destruction! Recruits is being made with the Unreal DevelopmentRead More
A Sneak Preview trailer for Arma 3 has been released by Bohemia Interactive ahead of this weeks E3 2012. We have been excited for Arma 3 since it was announced that Arma 3 Will Implement PhysX for in-game Physics. This new trailer briefly mentions that the vehicles use PhysX simulation for the handling. Hopefully PhysXRead More
Now this is pretty cool, ARM has posted a video to YouTube from GDC 2012 showing the Havok Physics Vision Engine running on an ARM Mali GPU based Android tablet with the new Havok mobile tech demo and some cool Havok physics integration. In the video Peter Wos, a Software Engineer for Havok goes overRead More
Hawken is Adhesive Games’ upcoming free-to-play multiplayer mech combat game built with Epic Games’ Unreal Development Kit (UDK) and Unreal Engine 3. I first saw this game back when it was first announced and was very impressed with the visuals. Now I am even more excited and interested in this game with the recent newsRead More
PLA – Passion Leads Army is a Chinese Unreal Engine 3 game being developed by Giant Interactive for the Chinese military. There is a really cool DX11 benchmark included with the game that was announced by Jen-Hsun Huang at the recent NVIDIA Gaming Festival in Shanghai. The demo shows off some pretty cool cloth, particle,Read More
I posted this video a few months ago and then a few days later it went to private on YouTube for some reason, i sent a message to the HavokSimulation YouTube account with no response. Now this video of the tank destroying several buildings has been uploaded to YouTube again and hopefully this time itRead More
