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Havok 4.0 video

So...what's the deal with that?

I was under the impression that the 'Havok' acceleration nVidia and ATI could do was 'effects only' - no 'gameplay' stuff...but that video looks pretty clearly like the latter type.

Is this just running on a CPU then? Single-core? Dual? Quad? New dedicated PCI solution?

What's the story behind the hardware running that...
 
I don't know the hardware details, but at the end of the thing he says "This is running on the latest Nvidia GPU"..
 
dderidex said:
So...what's the deal with that?

I was under the impression that the 'Havok' acceleration nVidia and ATI could do was 'effects only' - no 'gameplay' stuff...but that video looks pretty clearly like the latter type.

Is this just running on a CPU then? Single-core? Dual? Quad? New dedicated PCI solution?

What's the story behind the hardware running that...
Click to expand...

All done on GPU with a small overhead on the cpu. No more so than with a PPU. As for the effects/gameplay physics. They are essentially the same, as explained here http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA5NywxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
 
Hmm... I see no real evidence of them adding gravity acceleration (which was really my only complaint about Havok to begin with).
How unfortunate.
 
The18thLetter said:
Hmm... I see no real evidence of them adding gravity acceleration (which was really my only complaint about Havok to begin with).
How unfortunate.
Click to expand...
You can see "gravity acceleration" in Havok very easily. Notice how an object that is launched up will start coming back down. That is gravity accelerating the object.
 
mashie said:
I'm curious if that garbage vortex/twister actually can hurt enemies or only look very pretty?
Click to expand...

All depends on how the game is programmed. The physics engine is only responsible for simulating how objects react to one another (including debris hitting an enemy). Wether the objects will actually HURT characters is entirely upto how the game engine is programmed.
 
Same thing they showed in June at Computex....
 
Skirrow said:
All depends on how the game is programmed. The physics engine is only responsible for simulating how objects react to one another (including debris hitting an enemy). Wether the objects will actually HURT characters is entirely upto how the game engine is programmed.
Click to expand...
You're leaving the Physics SDK out of the equation, though. If the SDK in question doesn't support gameplay physics, then you're out of luck, no matter what the hardware is capable of, unless you switch to another physics solution or roll your own.

What bugged me about this video was how the guy kept touting the lack of CPU interaction as if it were the greatest thing ever. Without CPU interaction, you're stuck in the realm of effects physics.
 
mashie said:
Well I asked because of all the talk of Havok only doing effect physics on GPUs. If that is the case no programming will enable damage feedback into the game.
Click to expand...

of course there will be damage feedback, why wouldn't there be, its all based on weight, gravity and speed.

they implemented it in hl2, not perfectly, but they tried their hardest, so why wouldn't they in newer generation games.
 
mashie said:
With the way GPU physics currently will be implemented it is impossible to do damage feedback. The reason? The GPU will never communicate back to the CPU that a collissioon has occured between two objects. Hence the name effect physics, it is only physics for visual effects such as that debris tornado.
Click to expand...

Although there really isn't any reason you COULDN'T send the 'hey, this thing collided' info back to the CPU.

At least, with PCI-E cards. PCI-E is fully bi-directionally, you'll recall. The GPU->CPU pipe is exactly as wide and fast as the CPU->GPU pipe. That may well be the first link in the bridge between GPUs and PPUs.

AGP cards wouldn't have a prayer, though. CPU->GPU is about 32 times faster than GPU->CPU with AGP.
 
mashie said:
With the way GPU physics currently will be implemented it is impossible to do damage feedback. The reason? The GPU will never communicate back to the CPU that a collissioon has occured between two objects. Hence the name effect physics, it is only physics for visual effects such as that debris tornado.

The HL2 physics is something _COMPLETELY_ different since it is done in the CPU which funnily enough also run the core of the game itself.
Click to expand...

I just got PWND!.

i didn't even bother to think about that, i knew it, but it didn't register.
do you think it is possible that through software, that (integrated into the physics engine) they can code the GPU to interact with the CPU?.
the idea seems simple enough, but could it be done?.
 
Listen, I have done a bit of research. Havok will enable gameplay physics as well as effects physics. It has already been shown in the "Brick War" demo at the ATI event. Also, as explained in one of the vid demos they can enable a volume in a small radius around the character in which Effects objects can be transferred over to the CPU to AFFECT the character. IF a million boulders are rolling down a hill only the ones that are definately going to collide with you will be calculated by the cpu. It's still a pretty small amount. Havok is going to fully support all types of physics in their entirety. So as I mentioned before Ageia kind of has no legs to stand on now.
 
Sound to me like a old optimisation trick. Fast Pre checkin then full testing for object that needs it by exluding the ones that don't collide.
Boundingbox the fast method.
Geometry primitivs bounding the more detail but heavier check.
it's a must to do such trick.
 
So why? The tech demo's are basic all that PhysX can do to.
The game particle physics is something CF:CT showed us to and we can play it.
CF:CT have a specific canister if destroyed give it a nice twister gravitation effect wich draw ever close by object or player. that's nice. this demo is more small but a lot particles. vs CF:CT more then a few Objects some destroyable.
Compared to this I find Crysis more impresive. Wich is my non PhysX favorite.
More in the field of putting some Physics to good use. More interactive jungle.
 
My feelings on the topic:

- They keep teasing us with all these awesome videos of the various engines and cards and how powerful they really are. Yet there is no game out yet that takes full support of any of these technologies. If its such a great technology, then why aren't games coming out for them yet? I know this seems like a naive comment, as it doesn't take a day or two to make a game, but you think you'd have something to actually use the technology before you start showing it off. Especially when there is two or three different companies showing it off and its supposed to be this whole fundamental community wide technology thats supposed to change everything.

-Theres now a Havok Physx engine, and an Ageia Physx engine, and these are both separate from whatever Nvidia is doing right? Nvidia has that whole third PCI-E x16 slot thing going in their favor right? So its going to be a tough call on which way to go, which way will succeed, etc.. And will any of these three engines support all the "physx" enabled games, or will each game be specific to a single card/engine/hardware type.


I'm a n00b (as if you couldn't tell!!) when it comes to Physx. I appreciate you guys understanding this and taking this into consideration before you reply (I know there are a lot of "angry" posters on here when you don't know everything.).


-Brandon
 
Astrogiblet said:
My feelings on the topic:

- They keep teasing us with all these awesome videos of the various engines and cards and how powerful they really are. Yet there is no game out yet that takes full support of any of these technologies. If its such a great technology, then why aren't games coming out for them yet? I know this seems like a naive comment, as it doesn't take a day or two to make a game, but you think you'd have something to actually use the technology before you start showing it off. Especially when there is two or three different companies showing it off and its supposed to be this whole fundamental community wide technology thats supposed to change everything.

-Theres now a Havok Physx engine, and an Ageia Physx engine, and these are both separate from whatever Nvidia is doing right? Nvidia has that whole third PCI-E x16 slot thing going in their favor right? So its going to be a tough call on which way to go, which way will succeed, etc.. And will any of these three engines support all the "physx" enabled games, or will each game be specific to a single card/engine/hardware type.


I'm a n00b (as if you couldn't tell!!) when it comes to Physx. I appreciate you guys understanding this and taking this into consideration before you reply (I know there are a lot of "angry" posters on here when you don't know everything.).


-Brandon
Click to expand...

the GPU accellerated Havok engine co-developed by Havok and Nvidia, will run on both ATI/Nvidia GPUs. the Havok 4.0 engine is software,
and Ageia's engine is built to rely on hardware, and can only be utilized in games that support it.
heres a link to follow: http://hardware.gotfrag.com/portal/story/31801/
 
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