Unreal Engine 3, GOW 2 and PhysX

Unreal Engine 3 came up in a discussion with a few friends when one of them brought up an interesting thought.

Gears of War 2 is inevitably going to hit PC like its predecessor, it will most likely come with improvements over the console version like its predecessor. Now if you watched the engine improvements video you will see quite a few of the improvements are Ageia physics, Nvidia has recently finished its CUDA conversion of PhysX to enable physics hardware acceleration on the GPU. This is already working on the UT3 PhysX maps and will be made available to more GPUs as better drivers come out.

So the question is, will Gears of War 2 come with GPU physics acceleration added on for the PC version?

Before Ageia was bought by Nvidia they were working on a new system called (name escapes me) that allows physics effects scaling. Basically if you blew up a wall it would smash into pieces; Ageia created a system where the number of pieces that wall broke into would be determined by your performance, allowing a game to work on both CPU/console systems as well as giving a visual advantage to those with the PPU. This works with other physics effects such as liquids, smoke, cloth etc.

Before Ageia was bought this upgrade made its way into Unreal Engine 3, I am also sure it exists in the CUDA conversion, so if they wanted to it is there to utilize. Looking at the GOW 2 tech demo I can see plenty of examples where additional physics effects could be implemented for CUDA GPU owners.

Nvidia wasn't working on a system they already implemented it in the 8800 cards. Nvidia Quantum Physics and we will have to wait for a driver from Ageia for them to make them perform even better (they say).

Yeah as stated above, euphoria is the best, I just hope it is released with a game that is suppose to be released pretty soon, but no game this year uses it :( maybe if GTA 4 will be released on PC this year, but don't think so :(.

I'd rather see more of the Euphoria physics engine.Bulldog19892

Euphoria is not a physics engine, it is more like an add on than a actual engine. Besides Unreal Engine 3 uses PhysX natively, so Euphoria won't be in its games unless specifically licensed separately.

Nvidia wasn't working on a system they already implemented it in the 8800 cards. Nvidia Quantum Physics and we will have to wait for a driver from Ageia for them to make them perform even better (they say).DanielDust

Quantum physics is not something Nvidia has been working on, it is simply the application of CUDA for physics acceleration.

Without an engine to work through it is useless, that was Havok but after they got purchased by Intel it became Ageia.

ageia has shown nothing that impresses me...................firebreathing

Then what does impress you?

[QUOTE="Bulldog19892"]I'd rather see more of the Euphoria physics engine.AnnoyedDragon

Euphoria is not a physics engine, it is more like an add on than a actual engine. Besides Unreal Engine 3 uses PhysX natively, so Euphoria won't be in its games unless specifically licensed separately.

Either way I'd love to see more of it. I found it very impressive.Bulldog19892

Here you go, Euphoria and PhysX working together in the same game. Euphoria is impressive but it needs a full physics engine to work with.

I actually don't like Havok, they sat on their butt for a couple of years with their little monopolisation of game physics. I think the whole PhysX incident left a bad taste in peoples mouths; it worked out for the better in the end as it prompted people to hardware acceleration, but it is going to take a while for people to learn to respect Ageia.

They are a powerful and widespread physics engine, just not as popular as Havok.

Well Havok is an engine that can be run on almost any system and there are no "special" Havok games that you need Havok hardware for (that doesn't exist anyway) like Ageia with their exclusive games/levels. + Ageia's hardware isn't that good either :( yeah what they did needs a lot of power but at least make something that offers that power.

I tested one of those Ageia PPUs and I wasn't really impressed by the performance, it was almost close to the playable limit on a very powerful system at that time(1.5 years ago). Ageia is kinda tricking people with their hardware.

I played Cellfactor on my PC and at 1680x1050, maxed out all filters and all the game didn't go under 35 fps, even if all the objects were in the air or destroyed, but when I played UT 3 Ageia maps, I had 40 frames for 8 minutes after that I had 8 constant frames :| I even went outside in a place there barely is anything not to mention physics and I still had 8 frames, that is more than a possible glitch :|.

Like I said it is going to take a while to get over the whole PhysX card incident. The problem is they pushed the cards too far, my theory for them doing this is the AMD/Intel price war which resulted in dual core/high end processors becoming exceptionally affordable. If it wasn't for that the card would have been easily surpassed common CPU capability, but since the CPU standards were raised they also had to raise their standards. People were upgrading their CPUs over time while the PPU hardware remained the same.

Don't get me wrong; the PPU is still superior to your average dual core, but the performance was getting so close that they had to push it beyond its limits to show a adoption worthy difference.

But that is history now; today's hardware physics acceleration is done on the GPU, which has a far greater install base and performance capacity.

[QUOTE="Bulldog19892"]I'd rather see more of the Euphoria physics engine.AnnoyedDragon

Euphoria is not a physics engine, it is more like an add on than a actual engine. Besides Unreal Engine 3 uses PhysX natively, so Euphoria won't be in its games unless specifically licensed separately.

euphoria is an AI and animation engine. it does all of this on the fly so you get much less events that seem scripted. TBH, cryengine2 physics impress me more than any of this ageia stuff.

[QUOTE="DanielDust"]Nvidia wasn't working on a system they already implemented it in the 8800 cards. Nvidia Quantum Physics and we will have to wait for a driver from Ageia for them to make them perform even better (they say).AnnoyedDragon

Quantum physics is not something Nvidia has been working on, it is simply the application of CUDA for physics acceleration.

Without an engine to work through it is useless, that was Havok but after they got purchased by Intel it became Ageia.

ageia has shown nothing that impresses me...................firebreathing

Then what does impress you?

DMM kind of impressses me, but in the force unleashed it seems most of the material vanishes before it even hits the ground. From what ive sen of ageia videos, these "destructible objects seem to have prdefined break points and not be too dyanmic at all. if you could show me some video footage of something more dyanimic that'd be cool.

I actually don't like Havok, they sat on their butt for a couple of years with their little monopolisation of game physics. I think the whole PhysX incident left a bad taste in peoples mouths; it worked out for the better in the end as it prompted people to hardware acceleration, but it is going to take a while for people to learn to respect Ageia.

They are a powerful and widespread physics engine, just not as popular as Havok.

AnnoyedDragon

if you go to havoks website you'll see they have a bit in the way of improved physics ;)

if you go to havoks website you'll see they have a bit in the way of improved physics ;) firebreathing

DMM kind of impressses me, but in the force unleashed it seems most of the material vanishes before it even hits the ground. From what ive sen of ageia videos, these "destructible objects seem to have prdefined break points and not be too dyanmic at all. if you could show me some video footage of something more dyanimic that'd be cool.firebreathing

I do agree objects were mostly pre determined where they broke, with the quantity of physical parts being the main improvement. For dynamic physics you would have to look to Ageia particle systems, force fields like wind, cloth and such.

I've looked at the force unleashed physics demo; while they say the destruction is dynamic I don't believe them. Plenty of times have I seen reoccurring shapes which leads me to believe it rotates between different pre determined objects to create the illusion of dynamic breaking.

cryengine2 physics impress me more than any of this ageia stuff.

Crysis is impressive, they built it around the CPU so they knew what everyone would get. Because of all the PhysX issues we have not seen the engine fully utilised before, I would bet a GPU accelerated engine (regardless of whether it is ageia or not) will easily be more impressive than Crysis. The reason is simple, a parrelel processor has a lot more performance to offer in physics than a CPU.

Regardless all this talk isn't really the subject; the subject isn't Ageia which are now just a division of Nvidia but the possibility of GPU accelerated physics in GOW 2.

Gears of War 2 won't come with GPU physics acceleration - but that's just my guess. I think this because I have a feeling they are going to have a hard time porting the game entirely let alone add to the physics engine and whatever else they're working with. PhysX isn't on the 360 (AFAIK) so implementation of PhysX acceleration sounds look it won't happen.GodLovesDead

It has already been said that the PhysX physics engine is already an integrated part of Unreal Engine 2; it is what Gears of War 2 is using, it is in plenty of console and PC games.

CUDA PhysX only works on PC though, seeing how it is available and it has already been used in a UE3 game then I see no reason why it wouldn't be utilised in the PC version. I'm not saying it is guaranteed it will be used, but I find it likely.

[QUOTE="GodLovesDead"]Gears of War 2 won't come with GPU physics acceleration - but that's just my guess. I think this because I have a feeling they are going to have a hard time porting the game entirely let alone add to the physics engine and whatever else they're working with. PhysX isn't on the 360 (AFAIK) so implementation of PhysX acceleration sounds look it won't happen.AnnoyedDragon

It has already been said that the PhysX physics engine is already an integrated part of Unreal Engine 2; it is what Gears of War 2 is using, it is in plenty of console and PC games.

You mean UE3 right? And despite PhyX engine already being integrated into UE3 - games still need to be designed and coded to utilize PhysX. It's not a simple on/off switch on games and it won't automatically work once it's activated. There's still loads of coding to be done. It is likely that GPU acceleration will be used to increase FPS by calculating the physics instead of the processor, but I find it unlikely that there will be any more destructability or the like.

You mean UE3 right? And despite PhyX engine already being integrated into UE3 - games still need to be designed and coded to utilize PhysX. It's not a simple on/off switch on games and it won't automatically work once it's activated. There's still loads of coding to be done. It is likely that GPU acceleration will be used to increase FPS by calculating the physics instead of the processor, but I find it unlikely that there will be any more destructability or the like. GodLovesDead

Again this is something that was already covered earlier, I said in the first post Ageia developed a system that would allow physics effects to scale in software and hardware. In other words if they used the tools to create a destructible wall, when the engine detected a physics processor that simulation would be automatically moved over to the hardware and the number of pieces it broke into increased.

Automatically, as in just by using the engines physics objects in software PPU support was already part of it. It was supposed to dramatically increase the number of PPU supported games, but Nvidia bought Ageia soon after it was released and all focus went to converting it for CUDA.

Besides it is a redundant argument because everything requires coding on some level, very little USP features in games come free of effort.

No offense GodLovesDead but I cannot help but get the impression you have something against the idea of enhancing physics on a parallel processor, you have been strongly against it since your first post and seem to be jumping to other arguments when your previous ones fail. Am I just imagining things or can you please clarify what your issue with it is?