How PhysX runs on Nvidia and AMD (ATI) systems - Page 4

Goku · 2012-01-21, 10:04 AM

I'm just bumping this, since we found out the game will be running GPU based PhysX and in case anyone in curious about how this works.

Knocky · 2012-01-21, 10:18 AM

Yeah....but is have a dedicated card for PhysX going to be a plus or minus?

Goku · 2012-01-21, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by Knocky

Yeah....but is have a dedicated card for PhysX going to be a plus or minus?

Judging by the results of the review both AMD and Nvidia will benefit from having a dedicated card. Due to both having increased performance.

EVILoHOMER · 2012-01-21, 11:02 AM

The performance of CPU based Physx is down to the developer, the only reason we see such big differences is because Nvidia wants to promote GPU based Physx over CPU based. It costs more money for the developer to get CPU based Physx working to the GPU standard. The GPU does thread allocation automatically and the CPU based Physx needs the developer to manage it.

I really doubt we'll see Physx as we know it like we see in Mirror's Edge, Mafia or Batman AC. I think SOE are using Physx as the Physics engine and it'll will be CPU based rather than GPU based. I really doubt physx will be used to see news papers flying about and shattering glass.

It really is down to the developer, Physx running from the GPU doesn't show much performance gain when it is made for the CPU right. I think I remember reading once that it was only a 10% gain on multi CPU applications.

Goku · 2012-01-21, 11:52 AM

Well I have never seen a hardware based PhysX running good on a CPU before. We will have to see what the actual added features are for the game and how much it will actually bring the performance down while using a CPU. Higby from his Tweet said the Nvidia card will be faster in certain areas then AMD, that has to be hardware based not software. Otherwise the Nvidia card will have no effect.

Ailos · 2012-01-21, 02:08 PM

Higby's tweet only confused me more. The way I read it, the game does have support for hardware-based physics, but that it will only be used in some areas.

My question is, what are these areas? We talking about dusty plateaus of Indar? Intense indoor battles? (The former is eye candy, the latter is important.)

EVILoHOMER · 2012-01-21, 02:20 PM

Post below.

Basically Nvidia promotes Physx to be used on their GPUs and it can run just as well on a Multi Threaded CPU. The problem is however because of how Physx works it requires more resources from the developer to get it working just as well on the CPU.

So if SOE are putting the work in then Physx will run just as well on the CPU as a PC with One Nvidia GPU. If however that PC has two GPUs and one is being used as a dedicated Physx card then you'll see an increase in frame rate.

You have to remember as well that SOE aren't going to want to develop a F2P game based around Physx that needs an Nvidia card. They will want to make the game for everyone and so I believe they're optimizing the game for CPU based physx. You have to remember that SandyBridge and Ivybridge is all the rage in Laptops now and they use integrated graphics. This is the future and these CPUs can easily do this kind of Physx and run Planetside 2 now.

SOE made a big mistake with their last engine in that it was built for Single Core CPUS that they believed would get faster and faster. What happened infact is GPUs became mega powerful and we got more cores on the CPU instead of more speed. SOE wont make the same mistake again of optimizing their game for the wrong thing, we'll see more and more CPU+GPU chips and less solo dedicated GPUs.

EVILoHOMER · 2012-01-21, 02:26 PM

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...on,2764-5.html

Here is the article I remembered from last year...

Multi Threaded Physx;

http://media.bestofmicro.com/5/T/260..._metro2033.png

Assessment

Contrary to some headlines, the Nvidia PhysX SDK actually offers multi-core support for CPUs. When used correctly, it even comes dangerously close to the performance of a single-card, GPU-based solution. Despite this, however, there's still a catch. PhysX automatically handles thread distribution, moving the load away from the CPU and onto the GPU when a compatible graphics card is active. Game developers need to shift some of the load back to the CPU.

Why does this so rarely happen?

The effort and expenditure required to implement coding changes obviously works as a deterrent. We still think that developers should be honest and openly admit this, though. Studying certain games (with a certain logo in the credits) begs the question of whether this additional expense was spared for commercial or marketing reasons. On one hand, Nvidia has a duty to developers, helping them integrate compelling effects that gamers will be able to enjoy that might not have made it into the game otherwise. On the other hand, Nvidia wants to prevent (and with good reason) prejudices from getting out of hand. According to Nvidia, SDK 3.0 already offers these capabilities, so we look forward to seeing developers implement them.

Goku · 2012-01-21, 02:47 PM

Originally Posted by EVILoHOMER

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...on,2764-5.html

Here is the article I remembered from last year...

Multi Threaded Physx;

http://media.bestofmicro.com/5/T/260..._metro2033.png

Assessment

Contrary to some headlines, the Nvidia PhysX SDK actually offers multi-core support for CPUs. When used correctly, it even comes dangerously close to the performance of a single-card, GPU-based solution. Despite this, however, there's still a catch. PhysX automatically handles thread distribution, moving the load away from the CPU and onto the GPU when a compatible graphics card is active. Game developers need to shift some of the load back to the CPU.

Why does this so rarely happen?

The effort and expenditure required to implement coding changes obviously works as a deterrent. We still think that developers should be honest and openly admit this, though. Studying certain games (with a certain logo in the credits) begs the question of whether this additional expense was spared for commercial or marketing reasons. On one hand, Nvidia has a duty to developers, helping them integrate compelling effects that gamers will be able to enjoy that might not have made it into the game otherwise. On the other hand, Nvidia wants to prevent (and with good reason) prejudices from getting out of hand. According to Nvidia, SDK 3.0 already offers these capabilities, so we look forward to seeing developers implement them.

I already mentioned version 3.0 having better CPU support. Although we still do not know at this point what version they're using anyway if the better CPU support will even come as a result.

I don't see any problem with a F2P game making use of the PhysX effect even if it only on a Nvidia GPU. The none Nvidia card user can simply just turn off the PhysX to gain better performance worse case if the developer doesn't go crazy with the CPU support.

You are going to be in a world of hurt if you are attempting to use a low end GPU like Intel's to play this game too.

EVILoHOMER · 2012-01-21, 04:01 PM

Originally Posted by Goku

I already mentioned version 3.0 having better CPU support. Although we still do not know at this point what version they're using anyway if the better CPU support will even come as a result.

I don't see any problem with a F2P game making use of the PhysX effect even if it only on a Nvidia GPU. The none Nvidia card user can simply just turn off the PhysX to gain better performance worse case if the developer doesn't go crazy with the CPU support.

You are going to be in a world of hurt if you are attempting to use a low end GPU like Intel's to play this game too.

My point is it can be cosmetic and Nvidia based but they've said it will work if you have both Nvidia and ATI/AMD cards. So this suggest to me they're using it for the core gameplay instead of something like Havoc. So it'll have to be CPU optimized and I reckon it'll be used for core gameplay rather than cosmetic effects. I doubt we'll see glass shattering, papers blowing around and lots of tiny bits blowing off cars as they explode. I think they're using Physx for stuff like how cars and vehicles handle...

Princess Frosty · 2012-01-23, 04:49 AM

Originally Posted by Atranox

FYI - there is a lot of misinformation in this thread.

Your benchmarks apply to GPU-accelerated PhysX, not the PhysX engine or PhysX processing. GPU-accelerated PhysX is an exceptionally rare feature that has been used by less than 20 PC games. Such games include Mirror's Edge, Mafia II, and Metro 2033. Planetside 2 will almost certainly not be using this type of PhysX.

Exactly, this is worth noting. PhysX can do regular physics processing of rigid bodies, basic ballistics and things like this with relative ease, you don't need a very fast PC to process these types of physics effects since they're not very complicated calculations.

There's a newer set of special effects which include things like pseudo-cloth and pseudo-liquid physics which are too complex for the CPU to deal with in real time rendering and can be passed off to the GPU for calculation, Planetside 2 will probably not use these effects.

These effects are really just that, they're graphical effects designed to increase eye candy and like most other graphics effects they can be turned off, much like you could turn off grass in Planetside 1. They're not actually relevant to the game logic, for example getting submerged in pseudo-liquid is not going to drown you, and a flag made out of pseudo-cloth is not going to block the line of sight of AI.

FIREk · 2012-01-23, 05:49 PM

Judging by Batman: Arkham City, hardware PhysX isn't used to speed up the game, but to enable more advanced, visually pleasing, but overall useless, effects, since your hardware can technically handle more of these. And crash more, actually. :P

So if you don't mind seeing less junk flying about, I'm pretty sure your framerate won't take a hit if you're using an AMD/ATI card.

LexTalionis · 2012-06-26, 01:05 AM

That's disappointing for those who just bought into the most recent generation of ati/amd combos. Being one of those guys, having to contemplate forking out extra for an nvidia to setup as a dedicated physx card in order to get the best out of my build is not appealing. They knew a lot of people would be buying and building new computers for this game. They should have come out months ago and made an official statement on this so that those of us who recently were making these choices would have had better information. I won't be missing much, but really? This is a marketing trick. Totally unnecessary, too. With the catalyst drivers though my 3d mark11 physics score went up several points, so I shouldn't have a very distinguishable difference in quality. still a little disappointed to hear that SOE is playing into this.

TerminatorUK · 2012-06-26, 03:52 AM

I hop between both brands but the GTX 670/680 won for me this time around in terms of heat/noise/power consumption, drivers and performance.

I picked up a GTX 680 in replacement for ny previous HD5970 and I'm really glad I did. While the raw fps numbers aren't massively different, the overall 'smoothness' is amazing!

Seeibg that the E3 booths were running GTX 670s, this was probably a good gamble.

Final note (on topic) I severely doubt GPU PhyX would be used in this game. At a couple of interviews, Higby did mention that "it'll be the type both AMD and NVIDIA users can use" and I'm sure there was a hint towards NVIDIA cards getting "the best experience but it doesn't matter what vendor you choose".

In reality, it'll come down to who has the best optimisations driver-wise that gets the better performance. With the NVIDIA input to getting the PhysX engine into PS2, you can be fairly sure rheur drivers will be well polished.

i see you naked · 2012-06-26, 04:07 AM

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

That's disappointing for those who just bought into the most recent generation of ati/amd combos. Being one of those guys, having to contemplate forking out extra for an nvidia to setup as a dedicated physx card in order to get the best out of my build is not appealing. They knew a lot of people would be buying and building new computers for this game. They should have come out months ago and made an official statement on this so that those of us who recently were making these choices would have had better information. I won't be missing much, but really? This is a marketing trick. Totally unnecessary, too. With the catalyst drivers though my 3d mark11 physics score went up several points, so I shouldn't have a very distinguishable difference in quality. still a little disappointed to hear that SOE is playing into this.

its all about the shiny €€€/$$$

btw cant u force GPU physx in the nvidia driver?
i can set it to GPU or CPU