Nvidia Fermi GF100 working desktop card spotted on Facebook

[SamHughe]

Nvidia invented Physx?

You are right, they didn't. I should have said, NVidia owns the technology.

[trinibwoy]

it matches the 5750, but can't match the 5770 and can't match the 5750 and 5770 power consumption, OC potential, features etc...

It doesn't have to. As long as it's cheap enough and good enough it'll sell. Nvidia sold gazillions of 5200's. If they can sell that they can sell anything.

[STaRGaZeR]

And if Crysis managed to model village houses collapsing from exploding barrels with a CPU, why other than "cheating" would some crumpled paper in Batman cause it to always go down to 15fps with a Radeon?

Maybe that's why even the most expensive PCs at the time couldn't run Crysis 60+FPS stable on enthusiast settings. Have you heard the phrase "Can this run Crysis?" Wouldn't you like being able to run this game at 100FPS with all eye candy enabled by only adding a 60$ secondary card?

Crysis running like on most hardware has nothing to do with its physics engine, it's GPU limited

[trinibwoy]

And if Crysis managed to model village houses collapsing from exploding barrels with a CPU, why other than "cheating" would some crumpled paper in Batman cause it to always go down to 15fps with a Radeon?

PhysX discussion aside, it's not the size of the objects that matter, it's the number of them. If a house collapses into a few pieces it takes far less processing power to simulate than a several dozen bits of paper. It's quantity, not size that matters You will never see a physics simulation running on a CPU that uses many objects - hence no realistic smoke, cloth or fluid simulations.

[Manicdan]

the cryengine 3 movie with the nuke going off looked pretty damn realistic to me.

the definition of real is not quite as simple as throwing together a great engine and put in some objects and characters. good games are probably handled by a director who knows how to give a real movie feel. raw processing power with no direction can "feel" like crap. there are so many little things that we ignore in every day life, that when missing from a game can quickly take away the experience.

[Piotrsama]

You will never see a physics simulation running on a CPU that uses many objects - hence no realistic smoke, cloth or fluid simulations.

If Nvidia keeps PhysX artificially running on a single CPU thread to kill performance when no NV GPU is present, then you are right.

[trinibwoy]

If Nvidia keeps PhysX artificially running on a single CPU thread to kill performance when no NV GPU is present, then you are right.

I didn't realize that Nvidia could dictate what's possible on a CPU. What's stopping somebody else from doing it? Why doesn't Havok have great fluid and cloth effects running on the CPU if it's so easy?

[Heinz68]

I didn't realize that Nvidia could dictate what's possible on a CPU. What's stopping somebody else from doing it? Why doesn't Havok have great fluid and cloth effects running on the CPU if it's so easy?

Well not everybody is investing big money in the TWIMTBG

[FischOderAal]

I didn't realize that Nvidia could dictate what's possible on a CPU. What's stopping somebody else from doing it? Why doesn't Havok have great fluid and cloth effects running on the CPU if it's so easy?

Interestingly it has gotten awfully quiet around Havok after they were acquired by Intel oO I remember them being the #1 physics engine

[Jowy Atreides]

Someone wake me up when something actualy happens.

[Heinz68]

Interestingly it has gotten awfully quiet around Havok after they were acquired by Intel oO I remember them being the #1 physics engine

Not so quiet with about 70 PC games and more coming. Intel invested $110 million in Havoc, they are not going to go away.
Havok Inks Longterm Deal with Ubisoft® ─ Becoming One of Its Major Middleware Providers Oct 6, 2009

[trinibwoy]

Well not everybody is investing big money in the TWIMTBG

What does TWIMTBP have to do with coding a physics engine? Or were you just not able to answer my question?

Interestingly it has gotten awfully quiet around Havok after they were acquired by Intel oO I remember them being the #1 physics engine

They're still the #1 physics engine AFAIK. Which is all the more reason to question why all these great effects aren't being done on the CPU if it's possible to do so?

[eric66]

Someone wake me up when something actualy happens.

right on bro everytime i enter this thread there is solme pointless discussion i think mods must close this thread until april or something

[Heinz68]

What does TWIMTBP have to do with coding a physics engine? Or were you just not able to answer my question?

2. Gimped

[STEvil]

I didn't realize that Nvidia could dictate what's possible on a CPU. What's stopping somebody else from doing it? Why doesn't Havok have great fluid and cloth effects running on the CPU if it's so easy?

They can also apparently dictate what is possible on a GPU (FSAA).


Try to keep up with the times

[Warboy]

the cryengine 3 movie with the nuke going off looked pretty damn realistic to me.

the definition of real is not quite as simple as throwing together a great engine and put in some objects and characters. good games are probably handled by a director who knows how to give a real movie feel. raw processing power with no direction can "feel" like crap. there are so many little things that we ignore in every day life, that when missing from a game can quickly take away the experience.

That wasn't a Cryengine 3 video, that was a CryEngine 2 video that was pre-scripted. So that nuke blast has already been debunked as not real time.

2. Gimped

Let me spell it out for you.

Hhhhaaaarrrrdddllllyyy

Want me to explain? Okay good, Hope you got a nice drink right now. Let's take a list of both phsyic's engine support list.

http://www.havok.com/index.php?page=pc


http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_all.html

Now let's compare them. But that's sorta hard to do.

But let's break it down. Some of the only Havok game's that looked appealing were Assassin's Creed, Half-Life 2, TimeShift, World in Conflict.

Now the PhysX list. Batman, Cryostasis, Mirror's Edge, UT3.

Both a very note-able list.

But from my experience with all these titles. I do have to say on a physic level and environment. PhysX takes the cake. UT3's Tornado effects, Mirror's edge glass, cloth and etc. Cryostasis for it's water and more. Batman for cloth,boxes,etc(?)

But the Havok games I listed were very good too. But not in such details as the PhysX games.

Assassin's Creed - Very simple cloth effects
Half-Life 2 - Fun for games like Garry's Mod and throwing boxes...
TimeShift - Very good water effects in my opinion, but that's it.
World in Conflict - Level physics and that's it.

(Note - I'm not stating they not very good games, because they are extremely good games. I'm just giving examples based on physics engines.)

[cegras]

Of all you listed, I think half life 2 was the only real blockbuster.

Also, wasn't there a video of some guy simulating a million barrels in the crysis engine falling down?

[postumus]

I don't think most ppl question whether physics can be improved, just if a closed standard such as physx is the way to go for the industry. To me, it seems pretty clear that Nvidia splashes around some cash to developers to support Physx in order to unlevel the playing field. On a level playing field their cards can't compete in absolute performance, performance per $ or performance per watt. So it makes a lot of sense for them to disrupt the playing field and make it so an apples to apples comparison is impossible. I think most ppl would prefer an opencl phsyics standard and for the onus to be on developers to push the gpus/gpu physics, not hardware companies paying developers to include Physx support.

[Blacky]

even cryengine physics engine looks better than havok's me thinks *hides*

[3Deye]

Assassin's Creed - Very simple cloth effects
Half-Life 2 - Fun for games like Garry's Mod and throwing boxes...
TimeShift - Very good water effects in my opinion, but that's it.
World in Conflict - Level physics and that's it.

+ Red Faction Guerrilla (Excellent destruction physics)
+ Wolfenstein (good overall usage of havok's engine)

[randomizer]

even cryengine physics engine looks better than havok's me thinks *hides*

Too bad it's buggy as hell.

[Warboy]

+ Red Faction Guerrilla (Excellent destruction physics)
+ Wolfenstein (good overall usage of havok's engine)

Didn't know those 2 used Havok. It doesn't have a Havok logo stamped all over it nor on the website.

I will agree Red Faction is good, but Wolfenstein wasn't. Floating bodies do not count for physics.

[trinibwoy]

2. Gimped

Nvidia gimped Havok? Please explain.

[STEvil]

Nvidia gimped Havok? Please explain.

nVidia Gimped PhysX when not run on an nVidia GPU (ie when run on a CPU). It is limited to a single core.

Its been explained to you twice now and your trolling-the-line is very tiresome. Go do it over on H or Toms.


Here are examples of "normal" physics beating pretty much anything "PhysX" has to offer.

Farcry Physics vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KseIDV7jaU0

Farcry 2 Physics vids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSL6ObOyNwc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrZjhTg8J-U

Here's the Crysis vid with phsyics better than "PhysX".. http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=.../9/VaHS-y_mapQ

Here's a Rollercoaster Tycoon vid with phsyics better than "PhysX": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuR9ZiO5URc OR http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIAT5VxuAro

Half-Life 2 Physics vids
"Physics House" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhIRaB5HFxY (best phsyics vid ever)
Sony TV ad recreation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h34xgynBpL8
Nuke: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMyG8O_DXrI
Collision Objects: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWD7n-mtU6U
Exploding Barrels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNDLJ8E6VrA

Would like to see that house filled with exploding barrels..

Also endless videos of Rube-Goldberg Machines on Youtube.


There isnt any PhysX enabled game that matches Half-life 2.

[Jowy Atreides]

Physics house was stilted.

Totally unrealistic. An entire floor of a house with no support underneath floating?
Woodboards breaking pre-scripted. Jerky physics motions. Things moving in ways they wouldn't.

For a start, lasers puncture holes and weakened itegrity should crumble the house. Lasers wouldn't have that explosive effect on woodboards.

Physics fail.