Amazing AGEIA real-time water demo!

[jAkUp]

But did you see the water demo? That can make a huge difference in gameplay. Imagine water flowing, like water should flow. If you block it, it finds a different path to flow down, I think that is amazing.

[MUYA]

how integral would that be to the gameplay though? :p I all for better physics if it can incorporated to make physic real like...life like...say in Formula 1 games or other driving games :) man the f1 sony ps3 looked good visually, I wasn't convinced by the "physics" of the demo though :) I ams ure theyw ill be improved but I can see Ageia delivering a "real simulation in driving games"

[gmontem]

how integral would that be to the gameplay though? :p
It could affect strategies of both sides. You've seen the Unreal 3 boulders tech emo right? Now if you were climbing a mountain to get to an unprotected side of the enemy base you can probably avoid 10-20 falling boulders caused by an opposing team member, but not hundreds of them.

[MUYA]

It could affect strategies of both sides. You've seen the Unreal 3 boulders tech emo right? Now if you were climbing a mountain to get to an unprotected side of the enemy base you can probably avoid 10-20 falling boulders caused by an opposing team member, but not hundreds of them.
i was on about the water not boulders? heh
let me stress i am not poo poo'ing the ajeeyah card. It's an interesting concept and I am for anything that will improve gameplay realism etc but I was commenting on what Jaks was saying about the water etc. ;)

[fivefeet8]

Until we see some games that use the PPU, I'm not sure what a difference it's really going to make. But one thing's for sure. I haven't seen any game with fully realistic physics. It's always been one thing that's been holding back games for a while.

I'd love to see a game with wind blowing on leaves, Trees, water, and debree on the streets. Explosions that send loads of debree onto the pavement. Shooting a mountain and having tons of rocks of different sizes drop on an enemy. Vehicle explosions that send shrapnel into your opponents. Everything being destructible.

[de><ta]

So is there any info on the actual architecture of the PPU?

[Kamel]

i am all about this technology. not that i will pay for it, but if i had the money to over-indulge, i certainly wouldn't hesitate. i believe physics rendering is where modern day games are lagging wayyyy behind. very glad to see them pick up the slack and fill a void that has been holding gaming back. i do see how it could make your gameplay much more emmersive, they can have much more movie-style scenes with crashes that you make and stuff of that sort. the best physics with crashes that we see now are like in burnout 3, and that's only because they made a bunch of pretty colors to cover up the fact that it's totally fake and unrealistic.

i totally applaud these guys, and can't wait for updated versions of the cards to be released which will allow more complex physics to be rendered in real time. i can think of many many times which this would allow for better immersion, think about gun fights and being dynamic, with environments that react like it would in real life instead of little black spec decals being drawn on the wall for each bullet. i can see it in my mind, i certainly think they are going after something great :D

[msxyz]

Yesterday I was thinking about in-game physiscs and a weird idea crossed my mind.

Considering that the latest Shaders are fully programmable and that there are already researches on how to use them for other math intensive tasks why don't develop a physics engine that runs off the GPU ? It would be a zero cost solution and I doubt that it will cause a massive framerate drop.

Honestly I don't feel like spending 200 to 300$ for the occasional puzzle "à la HL2" or to see better ragdolls. I'd rather invest them in other departments, like more RAM or better processor.

[Subtestube]

Considering that the latest Shaders are fully programmable and that there are already researches on how to use them for other math intensive tasks why don't develop a physics engine that runs off the GPU ? It would be a zero cost solution and I doubt that it will cause a massive framerate drop.


Actually, there has been a particle simulator demo that runs on NV4x class hardware in the NVIDIA SDK since... I think... version 8.5? I could be misremembering. Unfortunately, the particles are processed as a texture, and at a tex size of 128 x 128 [16k] (as I recall - I'm currently away from my desktop, far away), my 6800 really starts to die. Large scale physics load is just as intensive as actual graphics processing - moreso in some cases, and we simply don't have the GPU cycles to spare. I suppose for more trivial examples, you could substantially jump the number of particles in current systems... 64 x 64 [4k], as I recall, runs pretty smoothly, so that would still be an improvement. Bear in mind though, that you're once again relying on high level hardware. No way in hell a 5200, 9200, or even a 5700/9600 level card could cope with substantial particle stuff.

As for cloth, and other such things - yes, you can do cloth simulation on the GPU, and again, it looks pretty good. The problem is again, that once you're doing, say, 4 or 5 different physical simulations on the GPU in a scene, you're effectively cycle stealing from something that actually doesn't have all that much processing time to spare. This may of course change if GPUs continue to get faster/more programmable at the rate they are that present. A few things that would be of BIG benefit for general purpose GPU programming would be:
a) Random writes (You can currently only write to the fragment you're rasterising).
b) Nearest neighbour access for polygonal lattices (though due to the way models are rasterised, this could be intractable).
c) Allocatable memory on the graphics card that could be used for whatever - arrays, etc...

[msxyz]

I was thinking more about "everyday" physics (ragdolls or simple massive obects interactions like those seen in HL2 or Painkiller) to be offloaded to the VS and use them like programmable vector processor.

I know that Shader Model 2.0 lacks of the necessary specs to be flexible enough but SM 2.0a and 3.0 should be able to cope with complex programs with loops and predications.

[Subtestube]

Mmm, I'm nodding - yes - ragdoll and simple rigid body interaction should certainly be doable on the GPU... though you'd need to do some re-working of the algorithms. The big problem is in per-polygon collision detection, which still requires a many to many comparison. I guess the issue would be how much data you can actually pass into each shader, as you are SUBSTANTIALLY limited. I suppose you could pass in vertex lists as 1D textures... that might work. In any case, it'd be much simpler, if you were able to give shaders random access to polygonal lattices. Of course, the scope of shaders would be a substantial jump from what we have even with SM 3.0.

[rohit]

That looks more like LIQUID-METAL than Water to me.

[gmontem]

That looks more like LIQUID-METAL than Water to me.
I think what's being emphasized in the demos is how the movement of water behaves more realistically and not its appearance.

[rohit]

I think what's being emphasized in the demos is how the movement of water behaves more realistically and not its appearance.
I'd prefer things more GRAFICALLY APPealing, rather than being very fast, and more emphasized on speed and other behaviour.

[jAkUp]

It is visual... look at the way the water behaves... it is moving in real time, that has never been done in a game before.

Real time water flow is extremely difficult to do. I was amazed at how it ran.

[rohit]

It is visual... look at the way the water behaves... it is moving in real time, that has never been done in a game before.

Real time water flow is extremely difficult to do. I was amazed at how it ran.

I agree, it has never been done earlier.
But it has to be improved MAJORLY, on the way it looks, and not on the way it behaves. Its just too fast i feel, water doesnt flow this fast, it kindaa, stays, and then drops out..i cant explain..
Its good, but it has to be worked on...a lot, to grab attention and attraction of all.

[OWA]

You're missing the point. The point wasn't to show realistic water but to show the flow of water on an object realistically. The water is exaggerated to show the flow of it on an object making it easier to see and follow.

[gmontem]

If that doesn't convince rohit then maybe the car in the demo was coated with super duper wax that has zero absorbancy. :p

[Kamel]

well, sorry to break the news to everyone, but physics is a major role in games that all games lack. this is why we are limited to using cutscenes for so many things, and the games aren't NEARLY as interactive as they could or should be.

in the future i'm certain that people will look back saying "i can't believe i thought that crap looked good and didn't deserve an update".

this is just concept art, once the true power of this card (and future upgrades i'm sure) is released, it will get interwoven into modern day games, and the results will be stunning i'm sure.

the initial price of this card is actually extremely reasonable. usually brand spankin new technology is so expensive that only the dumbest of people would pay that premium for it. i'd say from $300 initial price it will go way down, and like mentioned in the interview, eventually completely integrated with the video card. when this day comes, it will be just like buying a new 6800gt now, only it will be an nvidia 10K series with an integrated physics processing unit (and maybe even other integrated devices by then).

[killahsin]

The point of the demo as OWA pointed out is to show fluid dynamics, which can't be done currently. It's one of the things mod authors begged valve to do in source, but they couldn't because we needed more cpu power. The ppu is a godsend to developers who really want to step to the next level of interactivity, and animations. By being able to make tons of things physics based and offload them to the ppu, you will be able to do alot more complex and detailed scenes then currently. Were talking cg quality animated scenes in real time. Hair on characters that blows with the wind. True physics calculated grass, real water dynamics simulation. Real ballistics physics in games. Theres just so much untapped pool of ideas and ways to use these things, that people havent even begun to scratch the surface. You can be sure that when you see the first real pretty game using these things full blast to enhance the visual aspects of a game, there won't be any unbelievers. The fact also remains that by using their middleware you can have the physics scale down to non ppu based computers, and up to full blown madness. It gets even better if in fact they do get the other engines support.

[Zelda_fan]

I agree, it has never been done earlier.
But it has to be improved MAJORLY, on the way it looks, and not on the way it behaves. Its just too fast i feel, water doesnt flow this fast, it kindaa, stays, and then drops out..i cant explain..
Its good, but it has to be worked on...a lot, to grab attention and attraction of all.

They will improve upon the way it looks. All you gotta do is slap a farcry or HL2 water shader on the thing and bam you have sweet looking water... that part is easy. The hard part is makeing it behave realistically which this demo did beautifully.

Man could you guys imagine a game where you gotta pick up boards or something and redirect a waterflow to solve a puzzel? That would be sweet!!

[johnkeel105]

Looking foward to it. But I am not looking foward to ahving to buy another card to add into my computer or future computer.

[iNsuRRecTiON]

Check this demo out :) I still have an interview to get uploaded too.. heh. I have plenty more of these too. Shows off what is capable with the PPU. Real time water effects!
http://dmode.datamachine.net/physx_carwash_waterdrop.exe
(right click save as) It is a bink video.

EDIT:
Here is our interview with the PPU guy's
http://dmode.datamachine.net/ageia.html

Hey,

Interview HP don't work anymore :(

best regards,

iNsuRRecTiON

[Toss3]

Check out the front page of Guru3d! They have pictures of the PhysX PPU ;) (don't know if these have been posted yet... but why not? :) ) or check out PCpop!

[Bad_Boy]

im glad its going to be 199, and not like 350 or somthing. 199 seems like the most justified price. although i hope the games that support it at launch, are actually good ;)