support PhysicsX and/or Havok?
 

New video cards coming out form ATi and Nvidia. Both have physics support on the cards themselves ( I think). Will SoW_BoB support this technology, or will the cpu have to handle the whole wad? BTW, will the sim support quad cores right out of the box, or will a simple dual core processor (like the E8400) be sufficient to handle those clouds?
thanks,
Flyby

Definitely a worthwhile question Flyby but I think the answer is going to be complicated.

PhysX hasn't made allot of waves recently after their initial outing. Yes accelerated and dedicated physics hardware is nice but there really aren't any mature APIs for it like there are for 3D graphics. Once upon a time it was identical for 3D accelerated graphics.

It'll probably need to be a DirectX component for physics acceleration and some agreed to standards before it really hits the mainstream. With nVidia and ATI/AMD working on competing but similar products no doubt some standardization will come into effect sooner or later.

I've played most of the supported games with PhysX with and without a PhysX card and there is little noticable difference other than some added visuals like bits of debris.

I bet if they do put in support for any third hardware physics engine (bare in mind Oleg and Co have created there own physics engine for IL2 and were using facets of it in the updated flight engine for some time now) it won't be core to the game so I wouldn't worry. Given that users who don't have PhysX hardware will make up the majority of those who play the game I'd expect the load to be taken on the CPU like the current IL2 engine does.

thanks for the replies, guys. Good food for thought. I seem to recall reqding somewhere that implementation might be through DirectX, as you said, Ice. Hey maybe that means there will be a choice, and a price break on models without the...nah! never happen.
Flyby out

nVidia bought the PhysX API from Agea and have now incorporated it into their drivers, which means all 8000, 9000 and the new 200 series of cards can run the PhysX API via a GPU shader. Smart move really, this means about 70 million nVidia cards can run Agea PhysX in hardware mode.

Don't know if Oleg will use the API in SoW, but I've always believed this technology can be employed for things far more sophisticated that just eye candy, I think it can actually enhance damage and flight modelling in the sim.

Also Goggle CUDA ... very interesting reading.

So the physics(X) is calculated on the GPU instead of the CPU??

Is the 8000 series a dual chip graphics card?

That seems kind of weird to me (but if it works it works)... my graphics card works pretty hard calculating the eye candy already, I can't imagine what my FPS would be if the GPU was calculating a bunch of bricks flying about and their shadows & reflections in a rolling mist...

It seems to me that you really need two chips (one for GPU, and one for physics) to see any true improvement in performance and visuals...

Interesting...

No, not two chips, more than one core on the CPU ;) Look at the tech demos for "Alan Wake". They explain everything you'll need to know about how physics in games is progressing.

You won't see a game engine that is a two tier system where more complex calculations are made on more complex hardware when it relates to calcualtion that all users will have to make e.g. FM's or DM'. Doing such things with eye candy is viable because it doesn't affect the games balance, although even that can be argued.

If that was the case you'd find people buying and using hardware that gives the most advantage to them online, not to mention the developer has to design and build every calculation twice, once for CPU only users and another for specialist hardware.

For anything other than a bespoke bit of software you build it to the most common specificaitons and especially set standards so the widest possible market and use the product.

I think therefore I am (lucky I posted here!) good replies, and info!
thanks!
Flyby out

To directly answer your questions, It was once stated (by Oleg or Ilya in some interview) that SoW:BoB will support dual core processors so we know it will do that for certain. They may have actually coded in support for quads since that interview, but who knows. Secondly, it was directly stated that they will NOT support the PhysX hardware but, again, that was at least 6 months ago (probably longer) and could have changed since it was originally written. As was already stated, PhysX has made some strides since it was first introduced though real-world applications are still showing less than stellar performance gains.


TB

thanks TB,
It would be nice to know if quad cores were coded in or not, especially for those gamers among us looking to build new systems. IIRC only of the two new Nvidia cards, only the Uber GX280 will have the PhysX implementation. Maybe Oleg can address these issues in his next update?
Flyby out