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New PhysX Flex video for real-time physics geeks to drool over [SIGGRAPH 2014]

A

Antialias

Member
Harp said:
Has any of this stuff ever been used in a game as a none tacked on and completely out of place way?
Click to expand...

This paper and all the recent ones like it from NVidia are actually based on particle-based ragdoll technology from the first Hitman game. Ironically nobody does ragdolls that way anymore in games.

The specific stuff shown in these videos is impossible to use for gameplay because it only works on NVidia hardware. So graphical effects only. Which is a pretty boring use of physics.
 
T

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
The way the smoke moves is just awful.
I'd describe its behavior as 50% toothpaste, 20% water, 30% smoke, in low gravity.
 
K

Kinthalis

Banned
Harp said:
Has any of this stuff ever been used in a game as a none tacked on and completely out of place way?
Click to expand...

Yes? The Batman games made good effect of some of this stuff, for example.

As for performance, the articles says a single GTX 680 requires from 3 to 12 milliseconds per frame to render. That's pretty good. You can dumb down the effects a bit, while remaining convincing, and they could run on modern hardware fairly well - now imagine the next gen GPU's coming out in a couple of years?
 
T

thematic

Member
the smoke's movement kinda weird
they don't disperse like it should

makes the cloth act like a windshield, removing all smoke in a sweep (realistically there should be some smoke left)
 
K

KKRT00

Member
Durante said:
Not this exact implementation, but PhysX has been used well in a number of games. My favourite is still Mirror's Edge.
Click to expand...

You've not played Borderlands 2 :) Best Physx and actually playable in 60fps.

---
Kinthalis said:
As for performance, the articles says a single GTX 680 requires from 3 to 12 milliseconds per frame to render. That's pretty good. You can dumb down the effects a bit, while remaining convincing, and they could run on modern hardware fairly well - now imagine the next gen GPU's coming out in a couple of years?
Click to expand...

Its in very limited scope. For example there is not much smoke there, in gameplay scenario You would need at least 4-5 times more.
 
S

SneakyStephan

Banned
KKRT00 said:
PS4 has 2Tflops overall.

GTX 780/Titan have 5.5 Tflops.

--------

Guys, now imagine the day we will be able to simulate this in real-time:

http://a.pomf.se/qiqmgp.webm

This is also from current Siggraph
Click to expand...


wow the chocolate bunny is really convincing

cgi has come a long long way

the realtime stuff in the OP is amazing
It may look out of reach now but in 8-10 years a gtx680 is not going to mean a whole lot anymore

Between 2006 and 2014 we saw what, a 12-14 x increase in gpu power?
 
R

Rodelero

Member
Interesting stuff. Will give the paper a proper read through tomorrow.

Its beautifully intuitive. It maps very naturally to parallel hardware too. I can only guess that the simplicity will constrain the ultimate efficiency though.

Physics in games is disappointingly far behind physics in literature. Graphics always comes first. AI and Physics get left behind every time.
 
L

Leb

Member
Durante said:
Not this exact implementation, but PhysX has been used well in a number of games. My favourite is still Mirror's Edge.
Click to expand...

Heh. I still remember what a pain it was to get PhysX actually working with ME shortly after release. That level where you meet with Kate and then all the cops come bursting through the windows and there's glass flying everywhere and you're at ~1 fps...

After fully uninstalling and reinstalling PhysX, of course, I was positively blown away even by the simple effects like the wrapping breaking on the scaffolding.

Also, the PhysX effects in Metro: Last Light, while relatively rudimentary, actually added a ton of immersion. Probably my favorite implementation in a recent game.
 
T

Totobeni

An blind dancing ho
diaspora said:
I don't. Proprietary bullshit.
Click to expand...

It really don't hurt you at all, it's not like the those games will not work on AMD cards and if you got AMD card you wont get Physx effect (that you don't want anyway) and if the developers don't get Physx tools we will end with bare bones ports that look like the console versions since most developers will not waste time on their own tools just for PC ports. Nvidia is doing this (and other nvidia Gameworks) for other developers and giving it for free to make PC versions look better and made their work easier, if you got gpu from other brand that don't support this extra effects it's your choice, no need to hate it.
 
D

diaspora

Member
Totobeni said:
It really don't hurt you at all, it's not like the those games will not work on AMD cards and if you got AMD card you wont get Physx effect (that you don't want anyway) and if the developers don't get Physx tools we will end with bare bones ports that look like the console versions since most developers will not waste time on their own tools just for PC ports. Nvidia is doing this (and other nvidia Gameworks) for other developers and giving it for free to make PC versions look better and made their work easier, if you got gpu from other brand that don't support this extra effects it's your choice, no need to hate it.
Click to expand...

What? If it doesn't work with all vendors it's not really helping advance anything.
 
S

-SD-

Banned
Kaako said:
I freaking love this stuff! Thanks for posting that 60fps HQ link man.
Click to expand...
You're welcome. Glad to see other people being as excited about this stuff as I am.

What we're seeing here is a taste of the inevitable future of increasingly physicalized games. It just takes time to get there since a Titan Z even in a 4-way SLI configuration does not really cut it for physics calculations to be used in games in a large scale i.e. physics used everywhere. GPU power is still so inadequate.

I hope Havok or some other popular universal real-time physics solution will come up with a unified system like FleX since the GPU PhysX seen here is unfortunately limited to NVIDIA hardware. I love NVIDIA but on the other hand hate them for this PhysX thing...
 
V

virtualS

Member
The PS4 in particular has enough GPGPU headroom to throw around physx like particles and effects. To me, it's a shame that games like Arkham Knight are going down nVidias closed path approach when it comes to such effects. If they work on consoles, great. It's then even sillier then when AMD PCs are blocked from the party.

An even bigger dick move on nVidia's part is actively blocking hybrid physx. I own their cards but I can't use them as intended because my main card is an AMD. What a load of anti competitive bullshit. If anyone cared enough, there'd be a lawsuit in this.

Honestly, dick move after dick move. They screw over Microsoft, then Sony and now AMD gamers. How can you support a company like that?

I also can't understand why developers are happy to unnecessarily deprive half the PC market from features in their games. Compute is stronger on AMD, how about using it and spreading the love.
 
D

Dictator93

Member
virtualS said:
The PS4 in particular has enough GPGPU headroom to throw around physx like particles and effects. To me, it's a shame that games like Arkham Knight are going down nVidias closed path approach when it comes to such effects. If they work on consoles, great. It's then even sillier then when AMD PCs are blocked from the party.

An even bigger dick move on nVidia's part is actively blocking hybrid physx. I own their cards but I can't use them as intended because my main card is an AMD. What a load of anti competitive bullshit. If anyone cared enough, there'd be a lawsuit in this.

Honestly, dick move after dick move. They screw over Microsoft, then Sony and now AMD gamers. How can you support a company like that?

I also can't understand why developers are happy to unnecessarily deprive half the PC market from features in their games. Compute is stronger on AMD, how about using it and spreading the love.
Click to expand...
Most of the gamework stuff that does not use CUDA works on all GPUs. The next version of PhysX for example uses Direct Compute and should be available on all GPUs.
 
S

Seanspeed

Banned
virtualS said:
The PS4 in particular has enough GPGPU headroom to throw around physx like particles and effects. To me, it's a shame that games like Arkham Knight are going down nVidias closed path approach when it comes to such effects. If they work on consoles, great. It's then even sillier then when AMD PCs are blocked from the party.

An even bigger dick move on nVidia's part is actively blocking hybrid physx. I own their cards but I can't use them as intended because my main card is an AMD. What a load of anti competitive bullshit. If anyone cared enough, there'd be a lawsuit in this.

Honestly, dick move after dick move. They screw over Microsoft, then Sony and now AMD gamers. How can you support a company like that?

I also can't understand why developers are happy to unnecessarily deprive half the PC market from features in their games. Compute is stronger on AMD, how about using it and spreading the love.
Click to expand...
Nvidia invests a lot of money into graphics engineering. Key word - invests. They are not doing this out of the goodwill of their hearts and need to be able to turn it into an incentive and make that money back. So yea, many of the things they come up with are going to be Nvidia-exclusive. I don't really know what you expect. :/

Besides, much of their effort *is* actually available to AMD owners. Just not all of it.
 
Self_Destructive

Self_Destructive

Member
virtualS said:
The PS4 in particular has enough GPGPU headroom to throw around physx like particles and effects. To me, it's a shame that games like Arkham Knight are going down nVidias closed path approach when it comes to such effects. If they work on consoles, great. It's then even sillier then when AMD PCs are blocked from the party.

An even bigger dick move on nVidia's part is actively blocking hybrid physx. I own their cards but I can't use them as intended because my main card is an AMD. What a load of anti competitive bullshit. If anyone cared enough, there'd be a lawsuit in this.

Honestly, dick move after dick move. They screw over Microsoft, then Sony and now AMD gamers. How can you support a company like that?

I also can't understand why developers are happy to unnecessarily deprive half the PC market from features in their games. Compute is stronger on AMD, how about using it and spreading the love.
Click to expand...

Can't blame Nvidia for protecting itself and it's investments. Nvidia has put a lot of time and money into these technologies. I think it's hilarious that people think Nvidia should just release their technologies for free to everyone... Both sides have their good and bad things, however all I expect is that the base game is as good as it can be on all platforms. If you feel bad that you aren't getting some extra particle effects and more shadow options, then maybe you should buy an Nvidia GPU?

Nvidia is a GPU oriented company. It lives or dies on the strength of their brand. AMD has both the CPU and GPU markets to contend in. It only makes sense the one that is more committed to GPUs is interested in having it's own ecosystem if you will.

If you want the price/performance of AMD cards (tho the 970 kinda changed that) then go ahead and enjoy it...but if you want to spend the money on a GPU and get the extra features (G-sync, GFE, DSR, PhysX, Gameworks) then those things are obviously important enough to you. Just stop whining because they aren't freely available to all.
 
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