FYI - Batman demo to download with PhysX...

[Nightcover]

Ok. I have a 8800GT With Physx on High I get no more than 5fps

[B.E.E.F.]

Dunno how long you are into gaming, I am not very keen on games today, but I was many years before, and let me tell you one thing - games 10 years ago, even 15 years ago had MUCH BETTER gaming experience. Today we have powerful hardware and nice graphics, but thats mostly an excuse for game devs to make CRAPPY yet good looking games. There is FAR MORE to a game than graphics and eye candy, there is something called STORYLINE, there is something called ORIGINALITY, and to me, a long time PC user and gamer, modern technology and high end graphics has actually taken more than it has given in terms of gaming experience.

I disagree. Mass Effect was good. Half Life 2 was good. Max Payne 2 was incredible.

.... and

that's about it.

[nsegative]

When you turn off physx some of the effects gone are total bull. I mean did they really have to remove static fog? It doesn't have to move :/. Also the cloth stuff could still be there as static, and exploding tile can be done on cpu. Actually even the cloth can be done without physx: look at ghostbusters for 360/pc and star wars for 360 and soon to be pc. They both have great physics that are comparable to physx and they both run even on consoles. The ps3/360 version of batman has no physics either.

[RejZoR]

The same was with Mirror's Edge. Without PhysX, broken glass dissapears even before it hits the ground. C'mon, you think we are so dumb we don't know that every other game could render that better... 8 years ago... But with PhysX, the glass breaks like the one in game Red Faction. That was ironically made 8 years ago. Runing completely on CPU as far as physics are involved. Who's kidding who?!

[Eastcoasthandle]

...The problem is physics is just incorporated as eye candy, eye candy is not bad, but it would be MUCH better if physics was implemented into the gameplay and resulted in more interactive games. People were asking "where are the games" when the PPU was launched, that piece of hardware is LONG DEAD now, and what we see doesn't really require a PPU, it doesn't even really require nvidia hardware in particular, the only thing is it uses an API that is closed and owned by nvidia...

When you turn off physx some of the effects gone are total bull. I mean did they really have to remove static fog? It doesn't have to move :/. Also the cloth stuff could still be there as static, and exploding tile can be done on cpu. Actually even the cloth can be done without physx: look at ghostbusters for 360/pc and star wars for 360 and soon to be pc...

The same was with Mirror's Edge. Without PhysX, broken glass dissapears even before it hits the ground. C'mon, you think we are so dumb we don't know that every other game could render that better... 8 years ago... But with PhysX, the glass breaks like the one in game Red Faction. That was ironically made 8 years ago. Runing completely on CPU as far as physics are involved. Who's kidding who?!

These statements are tough to counter. I recall back during Ageia's era that GPUs could do the same thing without a dedicated PPU card. My, how times have changed when they are doing the same but with video cards (to avoid the frame rate dips that many don't like).

[Eastcoasthandle]

The PPU was wimpy to begin with, even compared to the old gpus available at the time. Thats why nvidia bought the software tech and killed the hardware, a modern GPU can do that workload on the fly without breaking a sweat.


The lame thing is that developers got s great new technology to toy with. So they asked themselves the question "we have the technology, should we do something nice and thoughtful with it, or should we just make some cheap eye candy to brag about and promote nvidia in return for the $$$ they gave us to use their exclusive technology that leaves half of the gamers without actuall possibility to enjoy those features"

Guess what they picked? Also people who own ati hardware will have to pay the same price and yet get LESS for their money, as physix games are limited beyond whats necessary, as some users noted... Is this fair? I don't think so. And I personally, as an nvidia user am not affected, I speak for all the people that are. Would it kill a person to think about something different than his/her own ass? Or profit for that matter?

What I was referencing is that you could not get the same level of performance with a single gpu'd video card (not with this gen of single gpu video cards). Which is why I find it funny that they are doing what Ageia already did, use dedicated hardware.

[RejZoR]

I just hope that developers will put PhysX on cold with DX11 Compute Shaders and OpenCL. As far as eye candy is concerned, DX11 CS is a perfect candidate. All hardware supports it (well, will support it), it's widely established standard (DX that is) and is not bound to only one hardware vendor on software vendor who is bribed by hw vendors like NVIDIA just to make it exclusive to them. In the end i really don't care if some third software vendor offers an OpenCL accelerated physics (like SDK that game devs can license) and takes Havok and PhysX off the face of the Earth. If it gets widely used by game developers and is not bound to only one hw vendor, i'm perfectly happy.

[perkam]

Why don't we just call it "Batman Arkham Asylum: Nvidia Edition"?



Perkam

[trinibwoy]

In the end i really don't care if some third software vendor offers an OpenCL accelerated physics

Patience man, it will happen. One thing I would say though is that it will probably come from one of the established players. It's not like there are a lot of people in the gaming industry with expertise in advanced physics simulation to begin with.

[RejZoR]

Well, it's not impossible. I've seen many cases where 2 guys that just finished university established a small but successful company. In fact thats how Google and Microsoft were formed. And they are now one of the largest corporations on Earth. But if Havok will finally offer something and game devs grab that like they mean it, i don't care either.
As long as it works on all graphic cards, so we can finally see physics to evolve from useless garbage simulations to something that actually affects core gameplay.
Half-Life 2 had neither of that and it managed to put physics to a better use than NVIDIA ever managed till now. In fact they still haven't. That alone is more than dissapointing.

Also not long ago i was thinking that only ATI Streams sucks. And so i bought NVIDIA GF8400 GS, just as temporar solution for my dead Radeon. And guess what, selection of CUDA powered programs is just as crappy as number of PhysX games. I couldn't find anything useful that was accelerated by CUDA. Apart from bunch of more or less completely useless programs on CUDA Zone.

[Manicdan]

Patience man, it will happen. One thing I would say though is that it will probably come from one of the established players. It's not like there are a lot of people in the gaming industry with expertise in advanced physics simulation to begin with.

tell that to the makers of HL2, where physics isnt about looking good, its about how you play the game. turning off physics in HL2 would cause you to get stuck in quite a few places. now im not saying its awesome physics, im just saying its not there for the eye candy. i could see a future HL episode using DX11 built physics that could look just as good as nvidias current offerings, but work on any gpu.

[trinibwoy]

I couldn't find anything useful that was accelerated by CUDA.

The applicability of these technologies on the desktop is very limited to begin with. It's basically just video and image processing. The vast majority of GPU compute applications won't be mainstream applications (that's already the case today).

tell that to the makers of HL2

HL2 used Havok.

[trans am]

if its not BF2 pr mod. its not even worth playing. God that game is amazing!

[zanzabar]

I think he was referring to the Nvidia only AA. Though his proclamation that he won't play the game as a result is strange. Adding AA for Nvidia didn't take anything away from AMD users, so missing out on the game just because of that is just sour grapes or some sort of silent protest I guess. Though most UE3 games don't have AA anyway so just rename to Bioshock.exe as you're used to doing and call it a day.

i didnt say that i woudnt play it i said that i wouldent buy it

[trinibwoy]

i didnt say that i woudnt play it i said that i wouldent buy it

Haha, fair enough.

[JohnZS]

Am I the only person who enjoyed this demo?
I liked the Batman Films... to me this demo was quite fun, just a semi mindless punch and throw and do the cool tricks out of the films, comics and cartoons. In fact.. it was entertaining
Good to see Physx used too. What I do not understand though is how ATi cannot have FSAA too, I mean it is just a generic FSAA Direct3d 10 feature is it not?
Fair enough Physx (for now?) is nVidia only, but I assumed that on Vista and Windows 7 ATi DirectX10 GPU's are just as capable as nVidia DirectX10 GPU's for doing FSAA on the Unreal 3 Engine.. are they not?
Anyway, aside from that, and the restrictive camera and the non-remembering my control inversion preference it is a fun demo
John

[Calmatory]

i would rather see a game put all of my 8 threads to work. the day gamers use dual socket mobos would be awesome.

Practically impossible.

[Talonman]

Am I the only person who enjoyed this demo?
I liked the Batman Films... to me this demo was quite fun, just a semi mindless punch and throw and do the cool tricks out of the films, comics and cartoons. In fact.. it was entertaining
Good to see Physx used too. What I do not understand though is how ATi cannot have FSAA too, I mean it is just a generic FSAA Direct3d 10 feature is it not?
Fair enough Physx (for now?) is nVidia only, but I assumed that on Vista and Windows 7 ATi DirectX10 GPU's are just as capable as nVidia DirectX10 GPU's for doing FSAA on the Unreal 3 Engine.. are they not?
Anyway, aside from that, and the restrictive camera and the non-remembering my control inversion preference it is a fun demo
John

Yes, i love the Batman demo, and it is fun to play. (Looks good too)

[blaxtr3m3]

I love this game I can't wait for the full game ! too bad it was delayed

[saaya]

thx for the link talonman, gonna give it a try
where and how does batman use physix thjough? cant find any vids...

Nice, another we-can-make-this-10-year-old-crappy-physics-on-the-CPU-but-instead-let's-use-hardware-PhysX-so-NVIDIA-will-give-us-a-good-amount-of-money game!

yeah, it sounds suspiciously like that since the ps3 and xbox360 versions dont have physix... sounds like they glued it on afterwards for the pc version to get some money from nvidia...

we need nvidia cards to get msaa? 0_o
can you force it with the driver panel somehow or do they block msaa unless you have an nvidia card? :o

about darkest of days... where does it use physix?
i watched the youtube clips people posted here and i dont see any physix

the game looks really boring to me... reminds me a bit of call of juarez 2 which looks much better though... but coj2 gameplay is a bit... meh... still much better than darkest of days from those clips... looks reeaaallly boring and crappy imo... and the graphics... looks like dx7 (low polys, low quality textures) with nice pixel shader effects :P

[JohnZS]

Talonman and blaxtr3m3 are you playing with the XBox360 controller for Windows too?
Have you discovered the batring camera mode which you can access by pressing the Left Trigger to aim and the right shoulder pad to fire
Darkest Days isn't that bad saaya, granted it is not that good either, but it was quite fun to blat some people in the 1860's with an automatic machine gun from the future, those people with the one shot musket's did not stand a chance!

[blaxtr3m3]

Talonman and blaxtr3m3 are you playing with the XBox360 controller for Windows too?
Have you discovered the batring camera mode which you can access by pressing the Left Trigger to aim and the right shoulder pad to fire
Darkest Days isn't that bad saaya, granted it is not that good either, but it was quite fun to blat some people in the 1860's with an automatic machine gun from the future, those people with the one shot musket's did not stand a chance!

Sadly I'm Using the xbox360 controller on the xbox360
I'm still waiting for the gtx295 to arrive so I can enjoy the game.

[Talonman]

Talonman and blaxtr3m3 are you playing with the XBox360 controller for Windows too?
Have you discovered the batring camera mode which you can access by pressing the Left Trigger to aim and the right shoulder pad to fire
Darkest Days isn't that bad saaya, granted it is not that good either, but it was quite fun to blat some people in the 1860's with an automatic machine gun from the future, those people with the one shot musket's did not stand a chance!

I have the XBox360 controller...

I haven't tried it for this game yet, but I will...
Thanks for the tip.

[Talonman]

thx for the link talonman, gonna give it a try
where and how does batman use physix thjough? cant find any vids...

yeah, it sounds suspiciously like that since the ps3 and xbox360 versions dont have physix... sounds like they glued it on afterwards for the pc version to get some money from nvidia...

we need nvidia cards to get msaa? 0_o
can you force it with the driver panel somehow or do they block msaa unless you have an nvidia card? :o

about darkest of days... where does it use physix?
i watched the youtube clips people posted here and i dont see any physix

the game looks really boring to me... reminds me a bit of call of juarez 2 which looks much better though... but coj2 gameplay is a bit... meh... still much better than darkest of days from those clips... looks reeaaallly boring and crappy imo... and the graphics... looks like dx7 (low polys, low quality textures) with nice pixel shader effects :P

This is the best Batman video I found...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vINH6Z9kqgI

Darkes of Days is loaded with PhysX: Leaves, smoke everywhere...

It is prity good too, and also playable like Batman.

[Manicdan]

thanks for the vid talon, alot of pretty cool effects, the fog is a pretty new feature to games, i cant recall another that has fog that moves based on the player. however, its really such a joke how little they tried to add something decent for physics without a physx card. basically it looks like some objects like cloths and the fog can actually get in your way with physx on, depending on how they set up the maps. ill have to play the demo when i get a chance