51 réponses à ce sujet

[mohawkade]

Bioware has extended the release date for Mass Effect 3, which made me sigh in relief, as I wish for Bioware to take as much time as they need to make the game as epic as possible. Some of that progress shows, during some of the announcements they made at E3 with the implementation of voice commands through Kinnect for XBOX 360.


The PC release will have a perk of it's own, as it will more than likely use DX11 rendering. Of course that conclusion was drawn only because DragonAge II on the PC uses DX11.

But what would really make the PC release of Mass Effect 3 glimmer in it's own way, and make the good people of Bioware into Gods (in my opinion), is if they implemented advanced GPU PhysX effects on par with the effects found in PC releases of Mafia II, Metro 2033 or Alice: Madness Returns.



Imagine, if you will, Reapers stomping through the streets of London, kicking up rocks, dust and  chunks of concrete as they go and seeing that debris collide and fall realistically and remain there (not disappearing after a few seconds, like in a canned animation).

Imagine shooting down walls and literally disintegrating your opponent's cover.  Or think of seeing blood splatter, spill, pour and drip when shooting a Krogan. Think of leaving footprints in puddles or parting mists and vapors as you pass through them.



This task will indeed require a lot more programming, troubleshooting and collaboration with the people at Nvidia. But it shouldn't be too difficult a change, as the previous releases of the Mass Effect series used the PhysX engine on the CPU level.

Though as groovy as that would be, there would be a few issues with that. To start, not everyone is fond of the Nvidia PhysX engine, as some see it as a marketing ploy Nvidia uses to sell their products. Users of ATI Graphics Cards would be excluded from the benefit of these special effects (unless they had a Hybrid PhysX setup). And let's not forget those who don't have the budget to buy a higher end Nvidia Graphics Card.


All and all, this is simply something I though would be a very nice touch to the Mass Effect experience, to be able to interact with the environments in a whole new level. But these are my opinions that I wish to share with the fans and the Bioware community (and hopefully Bioware staff).

Feel free to comment and post your opinion, how would you feel about seeing Advanced GPU PhysX Effects for PC release of Mass Effect 3?

Modifié par mohawkade, 01 juillet 2011 - 07:10 .

[The Baconer]

How much were you payed to post this?

[mohawkade]

Big fat zero, I've always been passionate about PhysX since the AGEIA days.

Modifié par mohawkade, 01 juillet 2011 - 06:52 .

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Maybe pay is determined by job performance.

[AngryFrozenWater]

I am not a big fan of anything that smells like Nvidia's Physix. Their software isn't exactly "reliable" on AMD products. The situation is somewhat better these days, but I rather have OpenCL based physics. That allows physics optimized for both graphics hardware platforms.

To implement physics in game I think there must more reasons than "it looks good". There must be a relation to the gameplay. If there is none in ME3 then I think they shouldn't bother.

If BW decides to go for GPU based Nvidia Physix then I will most certainly not buy ME3.

[azerSheppard]

NO

[Raygereio]

mohawkade wrote...
Big fat zero, I've always been passionate about PhysX since the AGEIA days.

Seriously what the hell is up with the random bolding of words?
As for how I feel about hardware accelerated PhysX? I don't have the hardware to support it, nor do I have the intention to buy that any time soon, so why should I care about it?

Modifié par Raygereio, 01 juillet 2011 - 10:10 .

[PnXMarcin1PL]

Definetly not. I have played many games with so called "PhysX" and it is **** and rip off. Many games have scripted physics and they do look better than "PhysX". Yes, I have nvidia gpu and I say PhysX is useless. Just take a look at those PhysX games, it doesn't look any good, especially when you're busy fighting and not staring at the environment. It is also  killing FPS  and is hardly noticeable(also ME2 uses PhysX, check Binaries folder for PhysXExtensions.dll)

Modifié par PnXMarcin1PL, 01 juillet 2011 - 10:35 .

[Homey C-Dawg]

I'll go ahead and vote yes. When I bought Batman:AA they had not yet released the physX patch yet, and when they did it added quite a bit of neat stuff, especially to the scarecrow levels. Any required physics (like cape and ragdoll) were done in software so it didn't need an nvidia card to play.

Not a big deal either way though.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

I am not a big fan of anything that smells like Nvidia's Physix. Their software isn't exactly "reliable" on AMD products. The situation is somewhat better these days, but I rather have OpenCL based physics. That allows physics optimized for both graphics hardware platforms.

To implement physics in game I think there must more reasons than "it looks good". There must be a relation to the gameplay. If there is none in ME3 then I think they shouldn't bother.

If BW decides to go for GPU based Nvidia Physix then I will most certainly not buy ME3.

The worst part is that it's technically possible to use AMD graphics or Intel/AMD CPUs for PhysX, but Nvidia intentionally gimps it for CPUs to reduce performance.

[Grimmace]

DX11 and PhysX, bring it.

[mohawkade]

Another point to bring up is the use of Hybrid PhysX, where ATI cards can be still used in combination with an Nvidia card dedicated to PhysX.

Modifié par mohawkade, 03 juillet 2011 - 03:17 .

[RyuGuitarFreak]

My AMD gpu says GET OUT!

[Spartanburger]

Not everyone has the capabilities to run two cards. Not everyone has a dedicated Physx card. Not everyone cares about Physx.

There are plenty of games out there that look great wihtout Physx. It is not needed and is just a ploy to try to get consumers to buy nvidia cards of AMD.

Implementing Physx would take more time and resources, whereas just adding the dev textures as an ultra-high option for PCs would add more of a visual improvement. (in the making of movies for ME2 you can clearly see better textures in use. These were then reduced for better console performance. These are the dev textures I talk about).

From what we've seen of ME3 already, it already has better effects and particles ect.

I'm all for making ME3 look better, but there are other ways to do it that don't limit themselves to specific customers.
If everyone could to Physx, then I would be all for it. But I, and many others, don't have a nvidia card nor do they have a dedicated Physx card. My motherboard only has one graphics card slot anyway, I cannot have a Physx card.

Now having Physx as an option would be better, but that still takes time and resources away from the dev team, who are concentrating on making a console experience. ME2 looks fine in my books on the PC, even at 1080p. The only real improvement I could see is higher Rez textures, which have nothing to do with Physx at all.
I do support dx10 or dx11 support, as those would only be optional so as to not limit it to specific customers, more people would be able to access them as more people have a dx10/11 card.
Hell, just have DX10.1, as it has all the capabilities of DX11 right there.

If you want to make ME3 look better on the PC (and all us PC users do) than you have to have a default setting that is the same as the consoles, settings below that for those who do not have a performance machine, and have higher-rez textures and effects as an option.
After that I would say DX10/DX11.
And then, if there is still time in the development cycle, add PhysX.

Modifié par Spartanburger, 02 juillet 2011 - 04:11 .

[robarcool]

mohawkade wrote...

Bioware has extended the release date for Mass Effect 3, which made me sigh in relief, as I wish for Bioware to take as much time as they need to make the game as epic as possible. Some of that progress shows, during some of the announcements they made at E3 with the implementation of voice commands through Kinnect for XBOX 360.


The PC release will have a perk of it's own, as it will more than likely use DX11 rendering. Of course that conclusion was drawn only because DragonAge II on the PC uses DX11.

First, the Kinect implementation looked lame, with the player speaking something and Shepard saying something else. Second, I don't think that Bioware is going to give any special treatment to PC, especially referring to high res textures or DirectX 11 (The version of UE3 they are using probably doesn't support it). I know this is sad but that is how it has been so far and I think the delay was probably more because of this Kinect thing. With the rumors of multiplayer flying around, I can only pray!
Also, insted of using Physx, they could use a more open engine like Havoc, so that ATI GPU owners could enjoy it as well.

[mohawkade]

Spartanburger wrote...

Not everyone has the capabilities to run two cards. Not everyone has a dedicated Physx card. Not everyone cares about Physx.

If you want to make ME3 look better on the PC (and all us PC users do) than you have to have a default setting that is the same as the consoles, settings below that for those who do not have a performance machine, and have higher-rez textures and effects as an option.
After that I would say DX10/DX11.
And then, if there is still time in the development cycle, add PhysX.

A sound arguement, yes not everyone has an SLI system or a High-End Nvidia GPU to run the game with PhysX at the same time, nor do they have the budget to. And I do agree that it would be a higher priority for PC players to get High-Res textures and DX11 rendering and tessellation to complement Mass Effect 3.

It would, however, be a very nice touch for PC players to have access to the option of Hardware PhysX.



Also it doesn't have to be implemented within the initial release, take Batman: Arkham Asylum for example. Shortly after the release of Batman, the developers made a patch to activate Advanced Hardware PhysX and gave players the ability to choose Low, Medium, or High PhysX, depending on their system configuration.

[mohawkade]

robarcool wrote...

Also, insted of using Physx, they could use a more open engine like Havoc, so that ATI GPU owners could enjoy it as well.

Though the Havok engine strictly uses CPU-processed physics calculations, which makes it friendly to all PC configurations and most consoles.

It would be a very tough transition for Bioware to implement it, considering the previous Mass Effect and DragonAge titles, all use the PhysX engine already, on the software (CPU) level.



Fun Fact: The developers at Havok were looking into developing GPU-processed physics that would've been universally compatible between ATI and Nvidia graphics cards to compete against Nvidia's PhysX engine. But the project was scrubbed after Intel bought them out.

[Grimmace]

mohawkade wrote...

Spartanburger wrote...

Not everyone has the capabilities to run two cards. Not everyone has a dedicated Physx card. Not everyone cares about Physx.

A sound arguement, yes not everyone has an SLI system or a High-End Nvidia GPU to run the game with PhysX at the same time, nor do they have the budget to.

That's the beauty of PC though, they have ways to configure the game to run at a good speed with what ever system you have. If you don't have the power, just don't turn on certain options, problem solved. If people have SLI or PhysX cards, they can use those functions. No one is saying these are mandatory things, but the options to take advantage of them should be there for those that can.

[mohawkade]

Also think of it this way, if Bioware did implement High-Resolution Textures (for those with Video-Ram caches larger than 512 MBs), DX11 (for Next-Gen Multi-threaded rendering and tessellation to complement the textures), and Hardware PhysX, it would make for a pretty graphically demanding game...

That being said, it would bring the PC gamer community together to show of their Gaming-Rigs. Many individuals and dot-coms would do performance tests between different graphics cards and configurations and post the benchmark results online to show others which would be the biggest bang for their buck under what graphical settings.

It would be kind of like the race to adapt to Crysis or Metro 2033 once again, except in this case, Mass Effect 3.

[sighineedname]

It took me a while to read this thread cause I had to get all the inflections right in my head with all the bolding and underlining and italics.

That being said, I'd only support this if they had the free time. My opinion is heavily biased because my GPU couldn't handle it anyway. I doubt it's going to happen though; not very cost effective.

[streamlock]

PhysX, as it applies to PC gaming, has never made any sense to me. And it is even more nonsensical in today's PC gaming environment.

In any reasonably recent PC, games are video process limited and not CPU limited. (Single core, single threaded CPU's excluded). I'm running an AMD quad core, and do not own a single game that can come close to maxing all the cores.

So it makes no sense to offload Physics processing from your non fully utilized CPU to your already running to the max video card. Nvidia makes the argument that the video card parallel architecture is more efficient at physics modeling. This may be true if it was coded correctly, but currently the only reason PhysX runs more efficiently on Nvidia cores is because the PhysX code does not take advantage of any x86 protocols. If it did, the CPU would be just as efficient as the GPU using PhysX.

Largely a marketing gimmick and fanboi lightning rod.

[Khayness]

I'd be fine with DX11 shadows/lightning and tessellation only.

[Village_Idiot]

Why does this thread read like a sales pitch?

On-topic, I'm indifferent. So long as ME3 retains its storytelling aspects, I'll be happy.

Modifié par Shadrach 88, 03 juillet 2011 - 05:08 .

[mohawkade]

streamlock wrote...

PhysX, as it applies to PC gaming, has never made any sense to me.

I'm running an AMD quad core, and do not own a single game that can come close to maxing all the cores.

So it makes no sense to offload Physics processing from your non fully utilized CPU to your already running to the max video card. Nvidia makes the argument that the video card parallel architecture is more efficient at physics modeling. This may be true if it was coded correctly, but currently the only reason PhysX runs more efficiently on Nvidia cores is because the PhysX code does not take advantage of any x86 protocols. If it did, the CPU would be just as efficient as the GPU using PhysX.

True, running a PhysX intense game may not max out your CPU cores, but I am sensing from what you've described that you never played a PhysX intense game with the PhysX settings set to CPU (No acceleration).

Indeed any modern CPU in any system can handle simple PhysX processes, rigid bodies and ragdolls.

But, it is a proven fact, through thousands of benchmark tests on hundreds of different computer configurations through dozens of games and applications, that Advanced PhysX Effects (Advanced PhysX Effects being defined as an excess of 500 colliding particles being calculated at once, all of varying properties, between different shaped rigid bodies to fluid particles.) being calculated on the CPU will LAG at undesirable levels. No matter how many CPU-Cores you have or how high the GHz are, the game or application will always Lag!

The reason for this is the slow latency (communication speeds) between the CPU, through the motherboard, to the Video Card. Sure your top-of-the-line Octocore 3.4GHz CPU may be able to handle 5000 fluid particles splashing into a ragdoll wearing PhysX-calculated clothing and hair, but because it takes time for that information to pass through the motherboard to your video card to where the image of that scene is already being generated, it Lags nonetheless.

Imagine throwing an actor on stage and asking him to do Shakespeare, but he doesn't know the lines, so you have to whisper the lines to him as he goes.

This is the reason why AGEIA invented the original PhysX card Nvidia reinvented the PhysX Engine to be accelerated on the same processor that crunches the math to generate the images on your screen. Since PhysX is being processed on the same die as video, there is less latency and therefore less Lag!

Not to mention a modern Nvidia GPU with Fermi Architecture contains more microtransistors than 4 Quad-Core CPUs, in excess of 3 Billion to be exact.

Modifié par mohawkade, 05 juillet 2011 - 07:58 .

[vejn]

Please Bioware, use Nividia exture tools 2.0.3 like you did for ME2.
Some new Physx uses SSE2 instructions so SSE processros Athlon xp 3000 can't run it.
I think this is also the problem in Dragon age 2.
I don't mind adwanced physx. but
please, make ME3 possible to play on SSE processors Athlon xp 3000.
Thanks