Nvidia Physx drivers out

JP · Post by JP » Tue Aug 12, 2008 3:17 pm

If you've got a 8xxx or higher Nvidia card the you can get Physx support now!

http://pc.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/a ... p?id=16520

There's also bonus levels for UT3 with extra destruction

Virion · Post by **Virion** » Tue Aug 12, 2008 5:24 pm

yay i'm lucky to own one

BlindSide · Post by **BlindSide** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:31 am

This is seriously making me consider using PhysX in my next production. Here's a nice review I found: http://www.guru3d.com/article/physx-by-nvidia-review/

lostclimategames · Post by **lostclimategames** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:11 am

I wonder if this will be affected by those of us using sli. since sli takes a reboot to change out of, and unless Im playing a high end game, I keep sli off (sometimes even when Im playing a high end game) It would be nice if i could set that other card to do solely physics.

Dorth · Post by **Dorth** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:22 am

yes, you can, as you would have found out if you had taken the time to read the article...

jmpep · Post by **jmpep** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 4:07 pm

I own a GeForce 8800, so I tested the driver... and it's really funny to find out that the demos run smoother when I disable the GeForce Physx acceleration XD might be due to having a Quad Core...

Dorth · Post by **Dorth** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 5:29 pm

Again, go read the article...

jmpep · Post by **jmpep** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 7:18 pm

I've read it...

Insomniacp · Post by **Insomniacp** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:05 am

This is why I chose Physx for my physics engine. Knowing that it will be ported to hardware was a good sign to jump on board imho.

sio2 · Post by **sio2** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 5:26 pm

Insomniacp wrote:This is why I chose Physx for my physics engine. Knowing that it will be ported to hardware was a good sign to jump on board imho.

How will you handle the case of the end-user not having an nvidia card installed?

lostclimategames · Post by **lostclimategames** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 5:38 pm

physics shouldnt be done on the client side anyways. and even so then it would just be software physics, the same as if he used bullet or newton.

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 6:16 pm

lostclimategames wrote:physics shouldnt be done on the client side anyways.

Do you fancy qualifying that statement at all?

lostclimategames · Post by **lostclimategames** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 11:22 pm

unless you want your dead reckoning to use physics, you should only update positions from the client, the client shouldnt have any effect on your characters position because that leave it open for speed hacks. again tho, i guess it depends on if you want your dead reckoning to include physics.

BlindSide · Post by **BlindSide** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 1:11 am

This has nothing to do with dead reckoning lostclimate, this is for visual physics effects, cloth simulation, water simulation, dust clouds, explosion particles. It has absolutely no effect on gameplay, and I doubt anyone has hyped it's use so far for anything other then pretty fluid effects.

On the other hand, when you have a server that has to perform 20 million physics calculation per second (As it will handle every little gameplay-related physics calculation of every client), it may be useful to chuck an NVidia gpu on there and save shovel loads on that cpu workload.

Insomniacp · Post by **Insomniacp** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 1:47 am

yeah... I plan on adding physics to the client just to simulate it for them, though the server will decide if what happened is possible it won't do heavy physics calculations like cloth and things like that, since it would be pointless. It will just hold the data needed for a client to know what is happening and simulate it in it's own way. For example any FPS you can kill a person and the body will fall based on the clients specification. Since it is an object that holds no meaning it is useless for the server to calculate where it should land. Unless ofcourse you make it so the body will take damage for the player, but in counter strike if you have a few computers next to each other the body will most likely be in a different position on each of the computers. I kind of jumped off the topic though in a sense... Though if I were to make a single player game down the line it would be a great engine to use. As BlindSide stated aswell physx has some nice effects I can use, especially the cloth simulation, I played with that in the demo's and using it for capes would look very nice imho. I will also use it for spells like a fire ball and things of the like since they look good.