Enable PhysX with latest NVidia Beta

[hashish]

Hey guys, just thought id update here on the current position of the accelerated particle physx..

Its not officially out now but it works if download the Nvidia 313.96 drivers and you add "ForceGpuPhysics=1" + "GpuPhysics=1" in the useroptions.ini file :D :D Just tried it myself and it looks BADASS !!

I did notice some issues tho as it is still WIP.. Firstly it does have quite a performance hit and also needs serious optimizing and tweaking to get it working great, looks great now but i can see that it would look and feel much better at higher fps's, ideally 40+.. Seems to flicker a bit and have small stutter at lower than 40fps..

I can run it with everything on ultra except for effects (High), particles (High) and shadows (Medium) whilst getting a healthy 35-60 fps without the physX on. With it on my fps drops to about 20-50 depending on the situation.. In big fights inside towers or something its jus around the 20's.. Still its worth the experience ! Looks intense when theres so many vehicles + infantry assaulting a base with all the effects goin on..

Source: http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/02/12/planetside-2-official-physx-support-incoming-can-be-enabled-now-with-simple-tweak/

[Hamma]

Split to it's own post and posted as news! :D

[NotTheMomma]

Hmm. I just don't find those effects to be all that important to my enjoyment of the game, not at the cost of any performance at least. I've got a 570 in the closet that I can throw in as a dedicated PhysX card once it's rolled out officially, but if that doesn't cover the performance hit, I'll probably stay with the CPU physics & effects that are already in use.

[IshootRAW]

I have Driver Version 9.18.13.1090 - adding "ForceGpuPhysics=1" + "GpuPhysics=1" in the useroptions.ini file works for it as well - no need to go beta unless you want to :D

[PurpleOtter]

This worked for me as well, but I did notice about a 10 fps hit to my frame rate. Walked around the Warpgate and looked at all the pretty colors and then promptly switched it off!

[Simo]

This worked for me as well, but I did notice about a 10 fps hit to my frame rate. Walked around the Warpgate and looked at all the pretty colors and then promptly switched it off!Woah. I might have to hold off for optimization. 10 Frames is huge.

[OCNSethy]

And here are some ini modifications to go with enabled PhysX...

http://www.overclock.net/t/1310598/official-planetside-2-thread/1450#post_19270938

[VaderShake]

Y U no post video?

[Ruzy]

My only question is this: When I die, my non-physX body stops where its at. If my physX body goes flying off a cliff, will a medic still be able to revive me? As a medic will I be resurrecting invisible bodies, or chasing them down hills?

[Vanir]

I'll wait until it's offically fixed.

[Electrofreak]

302 Found

[Hamma]

Yea - looks pretty cool :D

[bjorntju1]

I see why they didn't inplant it officially, since the performance is even worse now. I don't mind if my FPS go down a frame or 2, but I get around 10 frames less with PhysX on than off. I'd rather take the extra frames than the fancy effects :p

[Chinchy]

I find that forcing GPU physics on but not forcing PhysX on increases my frame rate by a total of 40 frames in a good battle.

[wasdie]

Lost 30 FPS when forcing these effects. 2x GTX 570s.

[typhaon]

I found it to have a negative gameplay impact when I'm using shotguns/scatterguns... especially indoors... screen fills with sparks and I actually lose track of targets.

Looks cool.. but leaving it off for serious gameplay.

[NotTheMomma]

I find that forcing GPU physics on but not forcing PhysX on increases my frame rate by a total of 40 frames in a good battle.
So, to clarify, you did this by only adding "ForceGpuPhysics=1"?

Since I'm CPU-bound in medium to large battles, that sounds much better than pretty sparkles and flying rocks.

[maradine]

I did this for the hell of it - two notes:

1. The particle state update seems to be decoupled from the general refresh rate. It was disconcerting.

2. Under heavy flak, framerate dropped through the floor. That's obviously a no-go for me.

Pretty, but turned it off.

[Micro]

YES! :D Well, let's see how the FPS goes...

[Sledgecrushr]

I watched Luperza play last night and she has physx forced on. I have to say that the new physx particle effects are rediculously awesome. Of course none of that stuff has been optimized and she is running a beast system. If you have some good hardware then you need to at least give it a try. Im saving my pennies so I can play this game in all of its glory.

[Nutleyboy]

I gave it a go. In game fine trying to record it bah

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzsCVTwZKgI

[Loban]

My only question is this: When I die, my non-physX body stops where its at. If my physX body goes flying off a cliff, will a medic still be able to revive me? As a medic will I be resurrecting invisible bodies, or chasing them down hills?

I think you're confusing physx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhysX)with ragdoll physics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragdoll_physics). Physx has nothing to do with the way your character or any other object animates/moves, dead or otherwise. It's simply eye candy, nothing more. Bodies aren't going to go flying, until they add ragdoll physics to PS2, which they've been considering.

[wasdie]

I think you're confusing physx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhysX)with ragdoll physics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragdoll_physics). Physx has nothing to do with the way your character or any other object animates/moves, dead or otherwise. It's simply eye candy, nothing more. Bodies aren't going to go flying, until they add ragdoll physics to PS2, which they've been considering.

Not 100% true. Their current implementation of PhysX is powering all of the physics for the vehicles and I'm going to guess some player collision with the environment. It will eventually handle the ragdoll animations for characters. That's why it's on the roadmap, it's not a very difficult thing to do client side but server side (tracking the ragdolls) is much more difficult.

PhysX does have a CPU bound version that they use so that AMD users can still play the game. It's good for stuff that CPU physics are enough for (basic vehicle handling, basic ragdoll physics, basic collision). With PhysX you cna defer all physics calculations to a GPU which can improve performance in general as the GPU is a much better device to do the physics processing. GPUs have so much power that they can also give a game plenty of overhead to do serious amounts of mass physics calculations.

PhysX is free (or really cheap) and provided by Nvidia. It is a good replacement for very expensive physics engines (like Havok) but only Nvidia users can get the most out of it. There are open source solutions that mimic what PhysX can do that are on both Nvidia and AMD cards, but they are open source and not as well documented/supported. A game dev is much more likely to choose something they can get support from.

So far a bunch of games are implementing various versions of PhysX. ArmA 3 is and I cannot wait.

[SixShooter]

I tried this out for a bit today and it's certainly pretty but the loss of framerate means that I'll wait for further optimizations before I use it any more. Also, after a while I started getting some pretty bad framerate stutter.

I tried with just the ForceGpuPhysics=1 and did not see any improvement in FPS. I'm using a single 660 ti right now but I have a 550 ti that I might add in and dedicate PhysX on that one and try it again.
:cheers:

[NotTheMomma]

I tried with just the ForceGpuPhysics=1 and did not see any improvement in FPS. I'm using a single 660 ti right now but I have a 550 ti that I might add in and dedicate PhysX on that one and try it again.
:cheers:
Good to know, thanks.

[duomaxwl]

Makes me crash. :(
I'll wait until official I guess.

[Lee]

So did anybody try with a dedicated physX card and experienced FPS loss?

[Riekopo]

I'm not using beta drivers and I can use it.

[Sironn]

I updated my NVIDIA driver to 314 today and activated the PhysX (set both parameter: [Rendering] ForceGpuPhysics=1 GpuPhysics=1). In WG with graphics set to high there were 40 fps with my gtx660 before and up to 50 fps now (+10 fps :)). With some real nice particle effects after the PhysX-activation.