Importance of Physx in PC Games

[Miyamoto]

Physx is an hardware acceleration technology which tends to provide a high end gaming and graphic count. Physx might take some more to time to give out a better performance and output. Today there are ample of games which are yet to be released and they come with an support for Physx. So those games are setup with hardware accelerated technology to give you a better overview of the graphics. Entirely all needs a dedicated hardware support for the same. Till yet there is not a quiet a better output.

Ageia has developed Physic to provide a dedicated hardware support for video games.It works on the calculations of a special processor called the PPU (Physics Processing Unit). The first PhysX add-on card and the appropriate programming interface was introduced a long time before with an motive to provide its users a better gaming support.

Although the calculations were the products offered under this were clearly superior to the systems CPU. It however creates an additional need to take a new hardware that only a few players will go for. This is especially since there were almost no games that support PhysX. Game developers were again trying to create a use for Ageia's PhysX very carefully so that it can initaite more gaming on the same. Even lower prices and additional chips for notebooks has given a little help.

What the Nvidia Site says about Phyx

NVIDIA PhysX is a powerful physics engine enabling real-time physics in leading edge PC games. PhysX software is widely adopted by over 150 games and is used by more than 10,000 developers. PhysX is optimized for hardware acceleration by massively parallel processors. GeForce GPUs with PhysX provide an exponential increase in physics processing power taking gaming physics to the next level.

Radeon GPU Support for Physx

Another important reason for the development of Nvidia graphics is also a strong competition from AMD and ATI Radeon. Although Nvidia has repeatedly stressed that it is better for AMD to provide CUDA and PhysX support on the GPU's. There is still a little approach for that. Both sides have lots of differences to wok together. It does not help, a decision from Nvidia, to provide the users much newer drivers for PhysX on GeForce cards and when there is similar graphic representation given out by ATI graphics card.

A combination of both allows many ATI users had the best of both worlds. Nvidia PhysX continues to support the computations on processors, but against the massively parallel processing power of graphics chips, the CPU-round talents have no chance.

DirectX 11

Compared to PhysX, DirectX 11 is an pure software solution. It is not related to the hardware, but much more related to the software and operating system. It gives you an emulating platform for the newer games to perform better. This are kind of an gaming engine which comes with the games and lets those userse to enjoy the same output what you get on a dedicated hardware. AMD ATI developed contrast-stream for calculations on their own graphics chip and supports Bullet, an open source, free physics engine. Furthermore, there is the open standard OpenCL, the Nvidia CUDA and AMD by the ATI stream support and also enables the programming of physics calculations on graphics cards.

PhysX can be a threat to DirectX 11 that is to because they are using the function of Compute Shader as an interface for general computations on graphics cards. Each graphics card with at least DirectX 10-compatible, can be used for that. Shaders are really powerful for the computer. But this owrks with the version 5.0 and only with DirectX 11 and graphics cards like Radeon HD 5870. DirectX could as the dominant programming standard for PC games for the first time make sure that physics calculations on graphics cards - become a widely disseminated standard in games

Some overview of PhysX Games

Nvidia PhysX also has support for other platforms such as gaming consoles. You can also find some on Macintosh games and more games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Just have a look at the important games that support the calculation of PhysX on the GPU. Here is list of some games on Physx that worked really well in comparison to other platforms.

• Batman: Arkham Asylum : Dark Void - Dark Void is a brand new game with PhysX support. For ATI owners there are relatively very small effects, only those use Geforce cards can see everything. For the use of PhysX there is need to to install a patch.
• Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter : The tactical shooter Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 is one of the few games that are based on the Ageia PhysX card. The effect on the same is thus better. This gives you increased numbers of particles in explosions and bullet holes, but for example, metal surfaces that bend when the nearby explosions ripping and textiles. Most of the effects but looked as if it were possible easily without PhysX: dust and ash clouds that blow across the battlefields, moving banners, waving vegetation.
• Mirror's Edge : Mirror's Edge offers many additional effects that are only possible PhysX. This may indeed also be used processors, an Nvidia graphics card but offers more power.
• Mafia 2 : Already long before the release was always the talk of the PhysX effects in Mafia 2 . The final result is sobering: to bring the much splintering and bursting discs, walls and wooden boxes and the moving smoke a lot of atmosphere.
• Sacred 2 : Sacred 2 Patch 2.40 has been supporting PhysX enabling new graphic effects in the game and there is no support provided for the same for the ATI users.
• Unreal Tournament 3 : Unreal Tournament 3 is not very prominent in connection with PhysX.

[Miyamoto]

NVIDIA PhysX System Software

When you reinstall an operating system or if you are working on fresh software installation on your existing system then there are often difficulties arising with the compatibility of graphics cards. Now the question arises which cards to use based on the PhysX engine and from where it came from, is with the NVIDIA PhysX System Software, etc can create the driver issues. Try using a demo program. It is the acceleration differences that is also displayed directly to check the performance of the graphics card. So that gives you an overview for the coming queries.

With the NVIDIA PhysX System Software you can get support with the drivers for almost all Geforce and Ageia PhysX card. So there is no need to run for a manual support for the same. These graphics cards are well known mainly for its high quality presentation and speed as needed. In addition to the driver that brings these graphics cards to work, the software also includes a demo program to illustrate the hardware and software acceleration by the driver. The drivers help graphic resolution rates of 32, as well as 64 bit.

NVIDIA PhysX System Software is free download from the Internet. Get one copy for the same and then install it. The user interface is set to different language you can choose any of your cohice. Problems with high-performance graphics cards from GeForce AGEIA and should now finally be a thing of the past. Here we have a practical driver package, with the best graphic representation and resolution should be guaranteed. NVIDIA PhysX System Software can be installed on all computers running under Windows. The company denies any issue to the compatibility with Windows Vista out.

System crashes

Recognizing that physics was a necessary step forward to make the video games much more realistic, many game developers have already built a game engine without waiting AGEIA physics software. This is particularly true of the latest installment of Age of Empires, which uses the Havok engine. It is a complete software, and therefore is more dependent on the CPU. This engine is also used in Half-Life 2 . Its implementation in Age of Empires III is not necessarily perfect as construction or destruction of a building usually occurs in a reduced number of steps while graphic stages of destruction could be called more and above all always different. There is certainly a marked improvement in this area when comparing Age of Empires III to its predecessor Age of Mythology , particularly at the level of gun attacks, bullets ricocheting off buildings, but there is still quite far from a complete simulation realistic.

[Miyamoto]

The AGEIA PhysX processor

The memory interface chip has been specifically worked to allow high-speed access to data even in the case of random access intensive. For that the PhysX uses either its internal memory, a kind of enhanced cache, or external memory. This last is interfaced to 128 bits and uses the GDDR3 clocked at 733 MHz for a theoretical bandwidth announced 12 GB / s. On interconnection, AGEIA PhysX has chosen for its 32-bit interface, namely the PCI 3.0 but the chip is quite capable of supporting PCI-Express, 1x PCI-Express is already planned. The choice of PCI, it offers broad compatibility with the installed base, however, poses the question of bandwidth! The 133 MB / second of the good old PCI are really sufficient for a processor as specialized as the PPU?

Conclusion

Certainly the idea of Ageia is proposed to give a smart dedicated management of physical effects of videe games that work without any issue. On the same had unfortunately PhysX still faces many obstacles. First, its intrinsic value is far from being demonstrated against competing solutions, like Havok FX physics engine which, if it has not yet fully unveiled, will be partially accelerated by the GPU. While Havok FX will focus on the effects of environment and not those relating to the gameplay, but benefit from hardware acceleration of physics. Wth any class graphics card DirectX 9.0c seems much more promising than buying a card sold separately. And this is not the only obstacle on the road AGEIA.

As on today there are multi core processors manufactured by AMD and Intel. They are still far from being exploited by gaming. They are had already moved towards quad-core processors and there it reduces the need for an dedicated chip. so it is preferred to use one core of the latest CPU for gaming support rather putting an extra gpu on the system and increasing the cost. Although several developers have already indicated their intention to support the PhysX, it is now difficult to tell whether this chip to a real future in the form of additional card, especially against the NVIDIA SLI Physics. Another hindrance for the same is the 3D technology support which is under development.