Bullet, ODE or Newton

LizardGamer · Post by **LizardGamer** » Thu May 19, 2011 8:33 am

I'm trying to figure out what physics engine I should use, I been trying to find a good comparison to these physics engines but most of them are biased.

Projects: Level-based FPS and/or Free-Roam Third Person Shooter

Now, I know some of you may say, "don't use those use PhysX". Well I would love to, but I'm want to make a game for Windows, Linux and Mac. And Nvidia still haven't completed the Linux port of PhysX.

I've loved how Bullet has been used in GTA IV (and Red Dead Redemption), I love how ODE is used in STALKER, and I love how Newton is used in Penumbra etc.

I figured out most of the other libraries I want to use, but now I'm trying to figure out which physics engine I should use.

serengeor · Post by **serengeor** » Thu May 19, 2011 10:03 am

For me bullet is just awesome. It's very easy to set up and integrate into a project, and its quite powerful too

Brainsaw · Post by **Brainsaw** » Thu May 19, 2011 10:30 am

My vote goes to ODE (of course). To be honest: I don't really know why I stick to this engine, but for me it does the job. And it was easy to set up.

LizardGamer · Post by **LizardGamer** » Thu May 19, 2011 11:56 am

Can you two elaborate why you would choose these two engines?

serengeor · Post by **serengeor** » Thu May 19, 2011 12:11 pm

LizardGamer wrote:Can you two elaborate why you would choose these two engines?

The main reason why I chose it, is that it was very easy to set up on linux and windows and integrate with irrlicht.
Also its very easy to use once you get the basics of it.
Sort of easy to use multi threading(as far as I've seen, haven't tried yet though).
Has lots of features.
Continuous updates/bug fixes.

And as you said, its used in commercial applications/movies/games, so there must be something why they chose bullet

nathanf534 · Post by **nathanf534** » Thu May 19, 2011 2:06 pm

I personally like Newton the best. Seems to be very fast, easy to integrate with Irrlicht, and it was just recently released as open-source, so it will get a lot of upgrades soon.

Mel · Post by **Mel** » Thu May 19, 2011 2:15 pm

Newton for me too. They are trying to add hardware support via CUDA (and presumably OpenCL...)

ChaiRuiPeng · Post by **ChaiRuiPeng** » Thu May 19, 2011 2:31 pm

Mel wrote:Newton for me too. They are trying to add hardware support via CUDA (and presumably OpenCL...)

there are decent number demos of OpenCL in bullet source and they are also doing all optimizations (SSE/SIMD alligned attribute array) for that as well

EDIT: i chose bullet.

Q:why?

A: one word: EASY EASY EASY..................EASY extendability. also very modular design, which is a prime example of good oop code. also the support is nice. and bullet is one of those rare cases (for me at least) where the code is so good it documents itself. i mean i have only had to google something on how to use something like 1-2 times. everything else i have learned just by glancing through the source code.

so far i have written my own general collision properties with 'listener' optimizations, it essentially you can add a 'proprty' to an objects class which i wrote, then there objects have cache of which properties they have collided with what. like say you have a little box that "dies" when it collides with property id 3123254 (E_COLLISION_PROPERTY_DEATH_BALL) or whatever. also i have begun integration of my custom from scratch character controller for seamless working with bullet. very nice i say. i just love it, wouldn't imagined using anything else.

i tried newton a while ago when i was like 13 or something, found the community a bit "stale" idk, maybe it was just me.

captainkitteh · Post by **captainkitteh** » Sat May 21, 2011 11:46 am

If you are going to be using Newton a word of advice if you are beginning with version 2.0. It breaks compatibility with previous code. All those examples that could teach you how to use a physics engine with Irrlicht ? They won't work without a lot of modification.

The new Netwon engine also seems rather bloated and shifting and changing rather than a stable product you can count on. But thats just my personal opinion. The bottom line its easier to learn and use Newton with 1.53.

LizardGamer · Post by **LizardGamer** » Sun May 22, 2011 4:09 am

I think I'm going to use Bullet because, it sounds more stable than the others.

And it has the ability to use Deformation!

LizardGamer · Post by **LizardGamer** » Thu May 26, 2011 9:03 am

Can I report this guy?

Shitty American Scams

serengeor · Post by **serengeor** » Thu May 26, 2011 9:14 am

LizardGamer wrote:Can I report this guy?

Shitty American Scams

Don't need to, admins will notice it when they are at the forums and will ban him and delete all his posts.

CuteAlien · Post by **CuteAlien** » Thu May 26, 2011 9:52 am

Yeah, easier for us if no-one posts after a spam-message. I nearly missed those because they were no longer on the last page. That guy is unfortunately rather annoying and spamming a lot in the last days and he always doesn't stop before someone sees and deletes him :-(

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Thu May 26, 2011 11:39 am

Sometimes it's better to just change the password, because the scripts often cannot work with too many names. Or it bails out because the script name is found, but password does not match. At least if a user comes back after deletion, this might be an appropriate measure.
And yeah, don't reply to spam posts, because it gets pretty weird once we have deleted those posts. Even worse if some of the regular users quote such spam, and we need to remove or adjust their postings as well. Just tell us if we missed a spammer for more than a week or so.

Sansari · Post by **Sansari** » Mon May 30, 2011 6:16 am

For everyone who uses bullet, do you use irrbullet or make your own way to implement the physics in irrlicht? I still don't completely understand the concept of a wrapper, but is irrbullet necessary to use bullet with irrlicht?

Irrlicht Engine

Bullet, ODE or Newton

Which one?

Bullet, ODE or Newton

Are you guys using irrbullet?