PhysX api Vs Havok api

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Jason711

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PhysX Runtime Platform
State of the art, high-performance physics engine

PhysX API™

Designed from the ground up for massively parallel hardware
The most advanced simulation technology for games:
Complex rigid body object physics system
PhysX FX smart particle system
Volumetric fluid creation and simulation
Cloth and clothing authoring and playback
Advanced character control
Ray-cast vehicle dynamics
Support for arbitrary number of physics scenes with fine user control of threads
PhysX Runtime™

Completely integrated solver– fluids, particles, cloth and rigid bodies interact correctly
Exploits parallelism at every level from the core solver to scene management
Supports the advanced debugging capability of the PhysX VRD
Hardware abstraction eliminates the need to understand the internals of next-gen hardware
Optimized for single and multi-core PC, Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and the PhysX processor


Hardware acceleration on the PC development environment enables true cross-platform author once, deploy everywhere functionality.

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Havok Physics™ is a major innovation in game physics and sets the bar for next-generation games.

Based upon the award winning Havok Physics 2 SDK that has been licensed by over 70 clients and shipped in over 50 titles, Havok Physics introduces Continuous Physics™, an innovative technology that frees up production time by eliminating design limitations that stem from high-velocity game objects.

Unlike current generation physics systems, which utilize only discrete physics, Havok's Continuous Physics offers an extra level of integrity to your game, and removes restrictions and fix-ups that sap production time that restricts the design of your game.

Havok Physics also incorporates robust memory optimizations crucial for simulating physics in complex game environments on next-generation platforms.

Havok Physics provides comprehensive SDK support for the following areas:
Collision Detection - including Continuous Physics™
MOPP™ Technology - for compact representation of large collision meshes
Dynamics and Constraint Solving
Vehicle Dynamics
Data Serialization and Art Tool Support
Visual Debugger for in-game diagnostic feedback

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hmm.. havoks list seems on the small side. what do you guys think?
 
Havok Physics™ is a major innovation in game physics and sets the bar for next-generation games.

Based upon the award winning Havok Physics 2 SDK that has been licensed by over 70 clients and shipped in over 50 titles, Havok Physics introduces Continuous Physics™, an innovative technology that frees up production time by eliminating design limitations that stem from high-velocity game objects.

Unlike current generation physics systems, which utilize only discrete physics, Havok's Continuous Physics offers an extra level of integrity to your game, and removes restrictions and fix-ups that sap production time that restricts the design of your game.

Havok Physics also incorporates robust memory optimizations crucial for simulating physics in complex game environments on next-generation platforms.
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thats the marketing bs..
 
Very true, but, it does show what each can do. The Ageia proccessor can do much more it seems.. i suppose the winner will be determined by which one performs the best in any given situation (and hopefully the loser adds in something that will allow the other to work for it.)
 
what isnt on the list for the physx api is the things that can be added in the future.. its firmware is upgradable and features can be added.
 
and what'd the say..$300 for the hardware?

I'd like to see nvidia and ati tack the physics hardware onto their cards.
 
I dont think nvidia or ati will be able to tack it on anytime soon. While the ageia price may be inflated since they are the only ppu in town, adding physics functionality that is as good as ageia's is gonna take up valuable die space and with the way die shrinks are becoming slower and slower (at least for the contract foundries like TSMC) in comparison to die size that die size is gonna be needed for 3d functionality. They might be able to modify the fpu to act more like ageias but that will also take up die space and use of the fpus in this manner (how nvidia and ati are currently proposing) will likely cause a hit to your FPS. If they came out with standalone ppus to compete with ageia it would be nice for the price, but it would probably be crappy for the community if there was a ppu war like there currently is with gpus.
 
Furystrike said:
and what'd the say..$300 for the hardware?

I'd like to see nvidia and ati tack the physics hardware onto their cards.
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that could easily be spent on an additional gpu for physics... and you wouldnt even be getting everything the ageia card offers.
 
yeah.. i grabbed it off there this morning... it already updated??

yeah.. under products they list like 7 different things regarding their api.. i copied from the "havoc physics" link..

does the other list additional feature sets?
 
Jason711 said:
yeah.. i grabbed it off there this morning... it already updated??

yeah.. under products they list like 7 different things regarding their api.. i copied from the "havoc physics" link..

does the other list additional feature sets?
Click to expand...

The Havoc details that you have listed are the CPU based stuff, nothing new.

Havoc FX is the new GPU based Physics acceleration. Please note that Havoc FX is an addition to the regular Havoc physics processing, NOT a replacement. Even with Havoc FX doing "Effects Physics" there will still be all of the "Game-Play Physics" simulated by you CPU. (If you look near the bottom of the Havoc FX FAQ that was linked, you will see Havoc's definition of these two terms.)

The Ageia PPU will do both "Effects Physics" and "Game-Play Physics" while greatly reducing or eliminating the physics load on your CPU.

The current Havoc physics that is used in many games us CPU powerd and consists of the "Game-Play physics." Adding Havoc FX will give you an increase in visual Physics, but it won't reduce the the CPU by any substantial amount because the "normal" Havoc engine will still be doing a great deal of physics calculations on the CPU.
 
am i daft, or does that seem a little vague when compared to what ageia is trying to explain?
 
I think the winner will be... (dare I say) the one that performs better. Both are gonna be good. However with a true dedicated PPU the PhysX from Ageia is looking good. What I mean by dare I say is we are probably gonna have to go back to the old way to know what's better... Benchmarks :confused: :eek: I think 3dmark 06 has a physics benchmark that one that runs on the cpu like shit. If ageia can destroy havok then they'll get my money. It has to be by a large amount. We'll see soon.
 
Jason711 said:
am i daft, or does that seem a little vague when compared to what ageia is trying to explain?
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Here's the short version of Havoc's exlanation:

Havox FX adds cool and pretty effects but can't do full game world physics.
 
pj-schmidt said:
Here's the short version of Havoc's exlanation:

Havox FX adds cool and pretty effects but can't do full game world physics.
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But combined with the regular Havok engine + Havok FX you get everything that Ageia's PhysX offers, everything!, I beleive.

The real questions are.
How much of a performance gain does the PhysX PPU give you?
How many more interactive objects can you have now?
How does it really improve your game experience?
Then, is it worth the cost of dedicated hardware?

As you may have read PhysX can run in withou the dedicated PPU 100% on the CPU and it automatically scales back the engine's capability when the PPU isn't present...

What is the difference between the software based Havok and the software based Physx?
Are they similar enough when running at the basic level that if a regular casual user who doesn't want to pay out for dedicated hardware can get a similar experience from both?

I hope [H] answers all of these things next month when the PPU is expected to be available in mass and a couple games will be surfacing. I think Graw is due next month?
 
Menelmarar said:
But combined with the regular Havok engine + Havok FX you get everything that Ageia's PhysX offers, everything!, I beleive...
Click to expand...

Not really...

First, Havok engine + Havok FX will not reduce the load on your CPU. This could be a big deal if you're running a system that is CPU limited on the GFX card.

Secondly, a CPU is roughly limited to 500 objects so Havok engine + Havok FX will still be limited to this number of objects for full physics simulation (Havoc FX could then add many visual physics objects, but these do not offer the full interactivity of a true physics simulation). PhysX and a PPU will be able to do full physics for 5000+ objects.

Comparing Havok engine + Havok FX and PhysX with a PPU is like comparing apples and oranges. I think they will be both be very cool, but it is unfortunate for people to think that they are identicle, with one using a PPU and the other using a GPU.
 
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