Quote:
Originally Posted by Skinny
Particles is what its mostly used for, for obvious reasons: many (/most) gamers dont have physx enabled hardware, therefore its used for eye candy that can easily be turned off without affecting actual gameplay.
That doesnt mean its not usable for physics simulation like aerodynamics. Surely you've seen all the hydrodynamics simulations. If it works for water, I dont see why it couldnt work for air
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Well air is compressible, water is not
PhysX is primarily designed for rigid body physics (the water animation also belongs to that area) and not too useful for more complex problems, although I have to admit I'm not sure what the most current state of the API is.
The bigger problem though is this: the flight dynamics engine is the core of any flight sim. You cannot rely on proprietary solutions like PhysX because you have to make sure it works for everyone, and also
the same for everyone. It is much harder to debug, it is additional work even if only parts of the calculations are moved to the GPU and you run the risk of ending up with a dead solution should nVidia decide to drop it one day or maybe go out of business.