PhysX: PS3 can handle it; 360 features limited

[joe75]

This was impressive from a capability aspect:
At least it provides an example of the importance of good liquid physics. I wouldn't mind seeing a demo of that. :smile:

-aldo

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=140&type=expert

... something like this one.

 

[Jawed]

Well the non-PPU version of the game must implement the trajectory physics of the gas grenade identically, otherwise you have two different games

So what we're left looking at are non-gameplay impacting secondary effects - similar in importance, say, to specular lighting effects. Nice to have, but in no way key to gameplay.

Jawed

 

[Confidence-Man]

So are they saying the 360's CPU can't do fluid dynamics at all or it can't do it with everything else running at the same time?

I have a hard time believing that the entire feature will simply be unavailable on the 360.

 

[czekon]

http://www.ageia.com/press/physx_carwash_video/physx_carwash_lavajets.exe
http://www.ageia.com/press/physx_carwash_video/physx_carwash_napalmlong.exe

very nice

 

[Titanio]

So are they saying the 360's CPU can't do fluid dynamics at all or it can't do it with everything else running at the same time?

I have a hard time believing that the entire feature will simply be unavailable on the 360.

I'm sure you could do it, but I think it's that it would be too expensive when factoring in everything else..so much so that they're not even making it an option (they don't believe anyone could have a use for it given its expense, I guess).

 

[czekon]

So are they saying the 360's CPU can't do fluid dynamics at all or it can't do it with everything else running at the same time?

I have a hard time believing that the entire feature will simply be unavailable on the 360.

if yes very sad then the fluid dynamics are most impresives

 

[joe75]

So are they saying the 360's CPU can't do fluid dynamics at all or it can't do it with everything else running at the same time?

I have a hard time believing that the entire feature will simply be unavailable on the 360.

http://www.ageia.com/pdf/PhysicsSDK.pdf

... teh answer.

 

[Alpha_Spartan]

http://www.ageia.com/pdf/PhysicsSDK.pdf

... teh answer.

The real answer is that Xbox 360 can't do fluid dynamics as implemented with the Novonyx SDK. There that's better.

 

[Bobbler]

Well the non-PPU version of the game must implement the trajectory physics of the gas grenade identically, otherwise you have two different games

So what we're left looking at are non-gameplay impacting secondary effects - similar in importance, say, to specular lighting effects. Nice to have, but in no way key to gameplay.

Jawed

This is only the case on the PC, where they can't count on a PPU (at least not for a while) -- so they can't base any gameplay elements around it. On the PS3 (or Xbox360 maybe) they can obviously assume every PS3 will have a Cell, so they can have the physics affecting gameplay.

 

[seismologist]

http://www.ageia.com/press/physx_carwash_video/physx_carwash_lavajets.exe
http://www.ageia.com/press/physx_carwash_video/physx_carwash_napalmlong.exe

very nice

Wow, First demo looked nice.

 

[joe75]

The real answer is that Xbox 360 can't do fluid dynamics as implemented with the Novonyx SDK. There that's better.

XENON

CELL PPE

... to simple/less featured or what,compare CELL DD1,CELL DD2 /PPE without SPEs/ to XENON CPU DIE shot.


http://www.gametomorrow.com/blog/

"I’m curious as to what people thing about the importance of realistic physical simulation in next-gen gameplay. Sony was very interested in improving gameplay with better physics in the next gen console. We conducted an assessment of rigid body dynamics on the Cell and were very pleased with the results, but I think rigid body is only the tip of the iceberg. Simulation of a variety of material such as cloth will be enabled by Cells compute power and memory subsystem. I think this may provided added dimensions to gameplay e.g. grabbing of uniforms when playing sports games. The recent post in Gamasutra seems to suggest that Sony believes phyiscs is important enough to include in the PS3 SDK."

 

[seismologist]

The real answer is that Xbox 360 can't do fluid dynamics as implemented with the Novonyx SDK. There that's better.

Essentially the 360lacks hardware physics acceleration capabilities. So realistic physics will have to be done through "software rendering". Which isn't nearly as efficient.

 

[Brimstone]

I'm intrested in what the folks at Havok have to say about this. First party software from Microsoft such as Perfect Dark are using Hydra-Core instead of Aegiea's Novadex. Havok built their sdk around CPU architechures and not the PhysX processor combined with CPU's due out for the PC market.

 

[Titanio]

Essentially the 360lacks hardware physics acceleration capabilities. So realistic physics will have to be done through "software rendering". Which isn't nearly as efficient.

PS3 lacks dedicated physics hardware too. I'd be more inclined to believe it's purely a resource issue.

I'm intrested in what the folks at Havok have to say about this. First party software from Microsoft such as Perfect Dark are using Hydra-Core instead of Aegiea's Novadex.

Wouldn't some be using AGEIA if they're using UE3? I'd wager GoW is using AGEIA given Epic's fondness for it at least.

 

[joe75]

I'm intrested in what the folks at Havok have to say about this. First party software from Microsoft such as Perfect Dark are using Hydra-Core instead of Aegiea's Novadex. Havok built their sdk around CPU architechures and not the PhysX processor combined with CPU's due out for the PC market.

http://www.gdceurope.com/conference/presentations/leigh_davies.pdf

... the slides No. 27 and 28,the Renderware physics /multithreaded/.

 

[bbot]

This is why MS should have included a PPU. DeanoC was wrong when he said a PPU is not needed for the xbox360. Xbox360 needs a PPU so it can handle fluid dynamics.

 

[dukmahsik]

This is why MS should have included a PPU. DeanoC was wrong when he said a PPU is not needed for the xbox360. Xbox360 needs a PPU so it can handle fluid dynamics.

isn't DC a dev? i'd trust what he says.

 

[czekon]

However bad off Xenon will be in that department, the PS3's Cell will probably be worse. The Cell has only one PPE to the Xenon's three, which means that developers will have to cram all their game control, AI, and physics code into at most two threads that are sharing a very narrow execution core with no instruction window. (Don't bother suggesting that the PS3 can use its SPEs for branch-intensive code, because the SPEs lack branch prediction entirely.) Furthermore, the PS3's L2 is only 512K, which is half the size of the Xenon's L2. So the PS3 doesn't get much help with branches in the cache department. In short, the PS3 may fare a bit worse than the Xenon on non-graphics code, but on the upside it will probably fare a bit better on graphics code because of the seven SPEs

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-2.ars/7

 

[Titanio]

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-2.ars/7

And old article?

We have better info to work with right here as far as AGEIA goes at least.

 

[Confidence-Man]

The thing I don't understand is, we've been hearing about games that are using four hardware threads max including physics calculations (that NFactor 2 engine, for example, or the new engine Carmack is writing), so that's a whole core left untouched. They mean to say that one dual-threaded core that's left isn't enough to handle just that one operation?