FYI - Batman demo to download with PhysX...

[Talonman]

Yes, I did stop to think why zanzabar's minimum FPS are twice as high as others.

That is why I spacifically asked what CPU, at what speed.

You may be right, it could be just a driver thing, but I would have to see the numbers.

I may not be the best problem solver on the PC, but I did find how to remove the 60 FPS limitation in the game engine we were discussing.
That was a positive thing I thought.

[zanzabar]

ill post up the raw fraps from the 1st 2 fights (they are diffrent i tried to stay as similar i could but its random. i also have the frame record exchange files and can reproduce them all day (i can even do the demo in under 5mins now. and im on the latest drivers it performs worse than the older ones i was originaly on the ones from overlord2

no physX
Frames Time (ms) Min Max Avg
4863 65008 61 77 74.806


physX lvl1 cpu
Frames Time (ms) Min Max Avg
1808 77248 13 34 23.405


physX lvl2 cpu
Frames Time (ms) Min Max Avg
1613 115934 8 25 13.913

as u can see it is taxing but it is not lagging on the lvl1


i missed the request for specs, its an unlocked 720

[Final8ty]

Yes, I did stop to think why zanzabar's minimum FPS are twice as high as others.

That is why I spacifically asked what CPU, at what speed.

You may be right, it could be just a driver thing, but I would have to see the numbers.

I may not be the best problem solver on the PC, but I did find how to remove the 60 FPS limitation in the game engine we were discussing.
That was a positive thing I thought.

You say that you did stop to think but your reply with In the 12's.... Gasp! is not a considerate reply but a conclusion without any merit to why.

[JohnZS]

I can't believe the can of worms I opened with my .ini tweak for this game.
For those who are interested, and have QuadCores AND Bioshock you can also get the game to use it's havoc based physics engine to use all 4 of your cores, by default it is set to use 2 cores (or 2 threads as it says in the ini), but you can change this to 4, I believe the maximum value is 8, although I have never been able to test 8 threads for physics.

The Bioshock.ini for Bioshock on Vista and 7 is located in the following location C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Roaming\Bioshock\
Find the Havoc code and input the following to take advantage of your QuadCore

[Havok]

HavokNumThreads=4

Also don't forget to set UseMultithreading=True otherwise the setting will not take effect.
As for batman.... you can change the levels of texture filtering (anisotropy) however I am not convinced the FSAA this game uses is "proper" FSAA, just take a look at the prison bars in the first scene... are those jagglies?
John

[zanzabar]

the game says clearly "multi sample anti aliasing" so thats some MSAA not FSAA

[Talonman]

You say that you did stop to think but your reply with In the 12's.... Gasp! is not a considerate reply but a conclusion without any merit to why.

Sorry man... Sheesh. 12 FPS was shocking to me. I bet most aren't running at my 1920x1200 either?

Thanks for the CPU info zanzabar.

I still need to find the file in Batman to let it use 4 cores on my CPU. I believe I need to find UseMultithreading=True, from what John posted.

[JohnZS]

Same difference, different day.
Multisample is a type of FSAA as is Super Sampling. You then have different flavours such as Rotating Grids, Ordered Grids these are different techniques used for FSAA. AFAIK Deferred rendering (which this game uses) only supports shader FSAA (win all) or MultiSample FSAA under D3D10 conditions I belive the technical term is a floating point sample "hack", but I am not sure and don't feel like looking it up. The Unreal Engine elected to use Multisample FSAA using this "hack", the requirement of which is a Direct3D 10 Environment (Vista/7 + D3D10 GPU) however the game itself uses DirectX9 shaders (SM3)
John

[zanzabar]

adding this to the userengine.ini makes it seam smoother, i wish that i had a real bench or time demo


[DevOptions.Shaders]
AutoReloadChangedShaders=True
bAllowMultiThreadedShaderCompile=True
NumUnusedShaderCompilingThreads=4
ThreadedShaderCompileThreshold=4
bDumpShaderPDBs=False

[RPGWiZaRD]

With UT3 physx maps were also slow until I copied over PhysXCore.dll file (don't remember which version but wrong version and it could crash the game) from ageia physx folder to UT3 folder. Wonder if things are the same with this game, using exactly same config file scenario as UT3 and same engine settings etc.

It was a matter of like 25-30 fps vs 90 FPS+ on a 8800GT.

[Final8ty]

Sorry man... Sheesh. 12 FPS was shocking to me. I bet most aren't running at my 1920x1200 either?

Thanks for the CPU info zanzabar.

I still need to find the file in Batman to let it use 4 cores on my CPU. I believe I need to find UseMultithreading=True, from what John posted.

12FPS would be shocking to most people but would not make a song & dance about it & in the full context of your reply you weren't mealy pointing that out as you would not of said the other things in that reply.

[Talonman]

AFAIK Deferred rendering (which this game uses) only supports shader FSAA (win all) or MultiSample FSAA under D3D10 conditions I belive the technical term is a floating point sample "hack", but I am not sure and don't feel like looking it up. The Unreal Engine elected to use Multisample FSAA using this "hack", the requirement of which is a Direct3D 10 Environment (Vista/7 + D3D10 GPU) however the game itself uses DirectX9 shaders (SM3)
John

This is in my BmEngine file...

AllowD3D10=False

Setting that to True wouldn't help correct?

[JohnZS]

I did not notice any difference Talonman with it set to true or false.
IMHO this game is not quite yet finished, perhaps the full release would not be quite so restrictive to non-nVidia owners and also might have a few more features built in?
John

[RPGWiZaRD]

This is in my BmEngine file...

AllowD3D10=False

Setting that to True wouldn't help correct?

Don't know what it does for this game but for UT3 it basicly adds nothing visible improvement to the game, only slightly lower performance why tweakers site recommends it to be turned off if running on Vista/Win7.

[trinibwoy]

I did not notice any difference Talonman with it set to true or false.
IMHO this game is not quite yet finished, perhaps the full release would not be quite so restrictive to non-nVidia owners and also might have a few more features built in?
John

The best thing Nvidia can do for PhysX is let the advanced effects run on the CPU. It would reduce the amount of whining and it would let people directly see the performance improvements they claim to achieve with GPU acceleration. A lot of non-Nvidia users hate PhysX simply because they are completely blocked from accessing those effects. It would be wiser to let them run it slowly and maybe hook a few more people like that instead of generating all this bitterness.

[Talonman]

12FPS would be shocking to most people but would not make a song & dance about it & in the full context of your reply you weren't mealy pointing that out as you would not of said the other things in that reply.

Only because I thought we were trying to sell that there is no reason why PhysX couldn't run on the CPU in this game, every inch as good as it could on a GPU.

I might have tried to drive my point home a bit too much. Sorry.

When you posted that "NV can fool some of the people but not all of the people", I thought you were inferring that I somehow missed the boat on the animal speed of the CPU and PhysX.

I will try an be more congenial in my responses.

I did not notice any difference Talonman with it set to true or false.
IMHO this game is not quite yet finished, perhaps the full release would not be quite so restrictive to non-nVidia owners and also might have a few more features built in?
John

Thanks buddy.

Don't know what it does for this game but for UT3 it basicly adds nothing visible improvement to the game, only slightly lower performance why tweakers site recommends it to be turned off if running on Vista/Win7.

I will just keep it False then... Thanks

[JohnZS]

The best thing Nvidia can do for PhysX is let the advanced effects run on the CPU. It would reduce the amount of whining and it would let people directly see the performance improvements they claim to achieve with GPU acceleration. A lot of non-Nvidia users hate PhysX simply because they are completely blocked from accessing those effects. It would be wiser to let them run it slowly and maybe hook a few more people like that instead of generating all this bitterness.

I agree with you.
People then would turn it off if the frame rates were horrid, but then as soon as they get the nVidia hardware would turn it back on to not only enjoy the eye candy, but also the improved frame rates.
That is a great suggestion, the fact that these features are being "blocked" does suggest some sort of snake oil trick on behalf of nVidia?
John

[Final8ty]

Only because I thought we were trying to sell that there is no reason why PhysX couldn't run on the CPU in this game, every inch as good as it could on a GPU.

I might have tried to drive my point home a bit too much. Sorry.

When you posted that "NV can fool some of the people but not all of the people", I thought you were inferring that I somehow missed the boat on the animal speed of the CPU and PhysX.

I will try an be more congenial in my responses.

Your putting words into my mouth.
You assume far to much on this subject that everyone is saying something that they have not said.

People should not have to keep spelling it out to you every time they speak of physics on the CPU that the GPU is faster at it.

[Talonman]

Your putting words into my mouth.
You assume far to much on this subject that everyone is saying something that they have not said.

People should not have to keep spelling it out to you every time they speak of physics on the CPU that the GPU is faster at it.

Your a though man to keep happy...

Peace brother.

When I see numbers like this:

physX lvl2 cpu
Frames Time (ms) Min Max Avg
1613 115934 8 25 13.913

With level 2 PhysX, at a lower res than mine, with a fast CPU, one might consider that to be unplayable. Ave= 13.913 is probably hard to enjoy?

If a PhysX driver fixes that, good deal then...

[Final8ty]

The best thing Nvidia can do for PhysX is let the advanced effects run on the CPU. It would reduce the amount of whining and it would let people directly see the performance improvements they claim to achieve with GPU acceleration. A lot of non-Nvidia users hate PhysX simply because they are completely blocked from accessing those effects. It would be wiser to let them run it slowly and maybe hook a few more people like that instead of generating all this bitterness.

It would likely increase sales for them.
But they will still have to live with that people will think the CPU path is deliberately performance crippled because of what they have seen with Havok.

[RaZz!]

The best thing Nvidia can do for PhysX is let the advanced effects run on the CPU. It would reduce the amount of whining and it would let people directly see the performance improvements they claim to achieve with GPU acceleration. A lot of non-Nvidia users hate PhysX simply because they are completely blocked from accessing those effects. It would be wiser to let them run it slowly and maybe hook a few more people like that instead of generating all this bitterness.

but think about it again. there must be a reason why nvidia isn't doing exactly that. maybe it's because physx wouldn't be that much of a performance hit in most games at all if it's integrated properly?
don't get me wrong, i do think computing stuff like physics on a gpu will result in better performance, no matter what, but on the other hand i think a quadcore where a core is dedicated for physics calculation could work out very well as well.
maybe that's exactly what nvidia fears and why they locked down physx for their gpus only.

[trinibwoy]

It would likely increase sales for them.
But they will still have to live with that people will think the CPU path is deliberately performance crippled because of what they have seen with Havok.

but think about it again. there must be a reason why nvidia isn't doing exactly that. maybe it's because physx wouldn't be that much of a performance hit in most games at all if it's integrated properly?
don't get me wrong, i do think computing stuff like physics on a gpu will result in better performance, no matter what, but on the other hand i think a quadcore where a core is dedicated for physics calculation could work out very well as well. maybe that's exactly what nvidia fears and why they locked down physx for their gpus only.

Perhaps, but that's the thing. Havok doesn't do these things and it's the premier CPU physics library. All the examples of "impressive" Havok usage are simple rigid body effects that PhysX does on the CPU as well. So what are they afraid of? If Havok were to come out with a fast CPU solution for particle systems and cloth and fluid simulation they would have to beef up PhysX on the CPU anyway to compete. I can understand why they don't want to waste time optimizing for the CPU while there's no competition, but I don't see why they don't just let it run slowly instead of disabling it outright.

[JohnZS]

Perhaps, but that's the thing. Havok doesn't do these things and it's the premier CPU physics library. All the examples of "impressive" Havok usage are simple rigid body effects that PhysX does on the CPU as well. So what are they afraid of? If Havok were to come out with a fast CPU solution for particle systems and cloth and fluid simulation they would have to beef up PhysX on the CPU anyway to compete. I can understand why they don't want to waste time optimizing for the CPU while there's no competition, but I don't see why they don't just let it run slowly instead of disabling it outright.

Spot on, I agree with you, if anything low frame rates would "drive people to upgrade" instead of the blocked out closed shop whereby hacks can enable the technology and it is not...that slow (fair enough slower but not hideously slow).

IMHO nVidia went down this route because they know if they used very good physx effects it would require a dedicated GPU just for the physx alone. The "low/normal" details run fine on a GTX280 and I am sure they will also run fine on a QuadCore.

As I said above, it's like nVidia are pulling snake oil tricks

John

[Final8ty]

Perhaps, but that's the thing. Havok doesn't do these things and it's the premier CPU physics library. All the examples of "impressive" Havok usage are simple rigid body effects that PhysX does on the CPU as well. So what are they afraid of? If Havok were to come out with a fast CPU solution for particle systems and cloth and fluid simulation they would have to beef up PhysX on the CPU anyway to compete. I can understand why they don't want to waste time optimizing for the CPU while there's no competition, but I don't see why they don't just let it run slowly instead of disabling it outright.

Technically under the surface PhysX could do things on the GPU that Havok on the CPU could not do without a big hit, but on the surface PhysX does not seem to be doing anything that Havok on the CPU could not do because of the way that PhysX is being used ATM in games.
The same problem Vista faced with people only noticing the surface & not the under the hood work going on.

[JohnZS]

Exactly Final8ty, if Physx wasn't a "closed shop" nVidia would make more sales as people without dedicated GPU's and say those of the ATi persuasion would enjoy the "low physx details", but when they up the details to high and experience low frame rates they might consider upgrading to an nVidia GPU
As it stands it is little more than snake oil tricks and a right old farce. As proven by the ini tweak, Zanzibar was able to play at the same Physx level as me and I have a GTX 280!
John

[trinibwoy]

Technically under the surface PhysX is doing things that Havok on the CPU could not do with out a big hit, but on the surface PhysX does not seem to be doing anything that Havok on the CPU could not do because of the way that PhysX is being used ATM in games.
The same problem Vista faced with people only noticing the surface & not the under the hood work going on.

Yep, in the end what we see is what matters. Which is why it's in Nvidia's best interest to let everyone see what they're missing and judge for themselves. Right now, a lot of the "PhysX is crap" people have never even seen the thing in action for themselves and are basing their opinion on youtube videos or just lashing out in retaliation for being excluded.