NVIDIA Makes Physics A Reality For Gamers

[Osiris]

NVIDIA Makes Physics A Reality For Gamers

In addition to the press release below, NVIDIA has launched a free GeForce Power Pack that includes drivers, a PhysX-enabled mod for Unreal Tournament III, a full version of Warmonger and a few tech demos as well.

Gamers would agree that they would love to see the worlds in their favorite games be depicted as realistic as possible. For total immersion, the gaming environment has to “feel” as real as possible, and characters must be able to move and interact with the objects in the environment that have a compelling, dramatic impact on game play. With customized physics effects, developers can design trees that bend in the wind, water that ebbs and flows naturally, and include objects in the environment that dramatically impact the gaming experience.
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To deliver this level of interactivity, developers are rapidly taking advantage of NVIDIA PhysX technology, interactive entertainment's most pervasive physics engine, already used in more than 140 shipping titles for Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii. With today's release of the GeForce Power Pack, a compilation of games, demos, and mod packs for the PC platform that is available for free at Force Within: Download, NVIDIA is now bringing this new depth of gameplay to PC gamers everywhere.
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[spikoman69]

Unreal tournament 3 mod with new levels looks awesome. Im downloading right now.

 

[Akubane]

XD i played the levels for UT3. Unfortunately without the new cards even a QX cpu and 98gx2 gets demolished. It did run well enough to run around and take a look at em.

the lighthouse is pretty sweet.

 

[spikoman69]

So your saying with my system (specs in sigs) im gunna get virtually raped, and achieve all of 10fps?

 

[ricanflow]

Nice, already tried some of the demos, gonna download warmonger next.

FYI, if you already have the 177.35 drivers, all you need to download
for Physx support is the Physx system software:

NVIDIA PhysX System Software


Then just download the demos you want to try out.

Downloading warmonger atm.

 

[wafflehammer]

9500gt, 9800gt, 9800gtx+, gtx 260/280 are the only cards that support the physics...pretty sure of it :| guess nvidia didn't just change the name of the 8500/8800..they added physics for it lol

 

[ricanflow]

9500gt, 9800gt, 9800gtx+, gtx 260/280 are the only cards that support the physics...pretty sure of it :| guess nvidia didn't just change the name of the 8500/8800..they added physics for it lol

Actually, all 8 series gpu's are physx enabled.

I installed the Fluid Tech Demo along with the Physx system software and the 177.35 drivers, and it
ran very smooth. Ill come back with results of the warmonger game shortly.

In conjunction with the release of the GeForce Power Pack, NVIDIA has also released new WHQL-certified drivers that enable PhysX acceleration for all GeForce 8, 9, and GTX 200 Series GPUs. This new driver also adds support for PhysX-accelerated features in the commercially available Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 game.

By installing these drivers, GeForce owners can immediately experience much higher levels of interactivity, special effects, and realism on their PC. In addition, GeForce owners will love being able to run PhysX-accelerated applications faster on their GeForce GPU than on competitive GPUs. For example, in the PhysX-enabled levels of Unreal Tournament 3, the GeForce 9800 GTX+ runs 180% faster than on the AMD Radeon HD 4850.

 

[wafflehammer]

didn't know that...i thought they didn't buy those people out until before the 9 series came out....so i thought the old 8 series didn't have it

 

[ricanflow]

8 series has always had onboard physics, even with the old Ageia software.

But now, to my understanding Nvidia rewrote the software using CUDA as the api, making the geforce onboard physics processor even more powerful than those $200 Ageia cards were.

 

[wafflehammer]

since nvidia is using the same thing as those cards...so all games use it? because those cards were only used on a handful of games