I have heard alot about this... and was starting to wonder weather PhysX could improve Live For Speed a bit more (eg. When you hit a barrier or tyre).
This is just an idea so don't get angry at me for requesting a dum idea


What PhysX is: (For those who don't know what PhysX™ Technology is...)

Delivering physics in games is no easy task. It's an extremely compute-intensive environment based on a unique set of physics algorithms that require tremendous amounts of simultaneous mathematical and logical calculations.

This is where PhysX™ Technology come in. PhysX is a powerful physics engine which enables real-time physics in leading edge PC and console games. PhysX software is widely adopted by over 150 games, is used by more than 10,000 registered users and is supported on Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and PC.

In addition, PhysX is designed specifically for hardware acceleration by powerful processors with hundreds of cores. Combined with the tremendous parallel processing capability of the GPU, PhysX will provide an exponential increase in physics processing power and will take gaming to a new level delivering rich, immersive physical gaming environments with features such as:

• Dense smoke & fog that billow around objects in motion
  

I'm not quite sure how you would use it... but I'm sure it would help

Any examples?

Why woul it help?

PhysX is dead...

Very dead, heck.. PhysX is built into alot of newer video cards.

No it could not, because you need to use PhysX' proprietary physics engine to use their (now pretty much dead) cards. Please think a bit and don't let yourself get blinded by marketing speech.

Quote from Ca18Slider :

Very dead, heck.. PhysX is built into alot of newer video cards.

Correction, built into a small range of G92 8800 / 9600 / 9800's. I'd imagine the number of LFS players with those cards atm is less than 100...

Quote from Jakg :

Correction, built into a small range of G92 8800 / 9600 / 9800's. I'd imagine the number of LFS players with those cards atm is less than 100...

true...
forget I said anything

physx was DOA (dead on arrival)
Simply cause the "very cpu intensive set of calculations" isnt THAT intensive at all.
Since we had multi-core CPUs, games use one of the cores for the physics.. and thats it. MOST of the game IS physics anyways (the set of physiscs of the game, that is) - and unless their cards are faster than the cpu.. its just not worth it.
Then came the multi-gpu grafics cards, and its basically an expensive card for something the CPU is doing anyways...

The guys that made Physx looked like they just wanted to introduce some technology that was just novel enough that it could be hyped enough to attract a buyer > liquidate their crap and fill their pockets from the buyout. It was just a hunch at first, but halfway thru it, it wasn't far fetched at all to imagine them coming up with that exact plan as their business model from the start, powerpoint engineering and all.

The idea of PPU is very good. Physics calculations need a lot of calculating power. The calculus is a bit different than what CPUs are designed for too. So transferring the physics calculations from the CPU to a more specialized processing unit could provide a hefty increase in performance and physics fidelity.
It's just that AGEIA ****ed the whole thing up. Their card only works on their physics engine, developers can't write their own engines to use the card. Which means that for example Scawen can't take his own physics engine and accelerate them on the PhysX card. So unless there is a specialized car simulation part in the PhysX engine it pretty much doesn't help us.
What they should have done is to provide a API to the card and let developers write their engines on top of that.

Anyway modern day CPUs with their multi-coredness can provide a great help to physics calculations and as modern GPUs also have ability to run other software than just graphics the days for PPUs seem over.

PhysX is not dead, it is used in quite many games (both on PC and on consoles). From what I have tested it seems to be a pretty good SDK (now that it is completely free) and it seems fast without any hardware acceleration too. The fact that you can use a PPU or a video card to accelerate it is just a bonus. I just hope Nvidia wont fsck it up now and license the technology to AMD too so ATI cards could also do some HW acceleration.

PhysX for Radeon cards coming soon.
http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-38137-135.html

yeah... that's what reminded me... the 4000 ati series won't be supported said the creator (he said he is not that happy with amd at the moment)

Quote from Jakg :

Correction, built into a small range of G92 8800 / 9600 / 9800's. I'd imagine the number of LFS players with those cards atm is less than 100...

Yeah, but considering that it will be built into everything they produce from this point forward, it's a safe assumption to say that if they were to implement PhysX support in LFS, it would affect much more than 100 people in the near future.

Also, PhysX is not at all dead, it is simply part of nVidia now, which means it's more alive than ever!

Quote from Jamesisinthehouse12 :

yeah... that's what reminded me... the 4000 ati series won't be supported said the creator (he said he is not that happy with amd at the moment)

I seriously doubt nVidia would let that software get to the public for Radeon cards, because PhysX is liscensed to nVidia.

You guys are talking about those Ageia cards, right?

Everyones complaining about how the game is being updated and lower spec computeres are suffering (except the new test patches) so why on earth would devs add something that only people with brand new video cards could use?

Quote from MijnWraak :

You guys are talking about those Ageia cards, right?

Everyones complaining about how the game is being updated and lower spec computeres are suffering (except the new test patches) so why on earth would devs add something that only people with brand new video cards could use?

no... nvidia has taken it over now... and will be avalibe to almost any graphics card (2 or 3 years old... :P)
By the way I have a 8600 GT and I know quite a few with sli 8800 gt's and 8800GT single (great car too )
anyway... the lfs dev's don't need this, I was just putting it out there

I would reccomend a newer direct x tho... dx9 and/or dx10 dx9 at least... and still have support for dx8.

I am guessing that will be S3 tho

Quote from Jamesisinthehouse12 :

no... nvidia has taken it over now... and will be avalibe to almost any graphics card (2 or 3 years old... :P)
By the way I have a 8600 GT and I know quite a few with sli 8800 gt's and 8800GT single (great car too )
anyway... the lfs dev's don't need this, I was just putting it out there

I would reccomend a newer direct x tho... dx9 and/or dx10 dx9 at least... and still have support for dx8.

I am guessing that will be S3 tho

I'm thinking DX10 should definately be used. Anyone still using XP by the time S3 is released is an idiot IMO.

Quote from h3adbang3r :

I'm thinking DX10 should definately be used. Anyone still using XP by the time S3 is released is an idiot IMO.

I was going to say that... but I knew there would be some people saying... "nooo my pc can't handle dx9 let alone dx10!!!".

But personaly I don't give a shi*
If other people have the hardware, let them use it!!! and stop being so jealous of others who can afford it

Quote from Jakg :

Why woul it help?

PhysX is dead...

No, only PhysX cards are dead, but PhysX was bought from Ageia by Nvidia

If AMD hops on board, then maybe it will be a good option for getting physics calculations (like maybe crash barrier deformations) done on the gfx card, but another route is to go multi-core, use Scawen's physics code but channel things out to different cores. I don't know, but Physx is atleast working pretty well on my gfx card (8800 gts 512), and this is only the beginning.

Quote from h3adbang3r :

I'm thinking DX10 should definately be used. Anyone still using XP by the time S3 is released is an idiot IMO.

Quote from Jamesisinthehouse12 :

I was going to say that... but I knew there would be some people saying... "nooo my pc can't handle dx9 let alone dx10!!!".

But personaly I don't give a shi*
If other people have the hardware, let them use it!!! and stop being so jealous of others who can afford it

:rolleyes:
Oh I get it, because DX10 is the magic thing that makes everything automagically look as awesome as Crysis, right?

LFS is not even using DX8's capabilities, and it would already be a miracle if Scawen started using DX9 shaders. DX10 would only get us a huge delay because of the crapload of work needed to implement it (for absolutely no benefit) AND having to implement a way to run in DX8/9 mode in parallel. This is an OK practice for a high budget development team, but not for a one-man show.

Quote :

But personaly I don't give a shi*
If other people have the hardware, let them use it!!! and stop being so jealous of others who can afford it

Not a great attitude there, but I guess it's no better/worse than the argument that LFS shouldn't evolve technologically because someone's (my) computer couldn't handle it, which I find sort of selfish as well (unless they really don't have much money). I doubt Scawen will ever code for systems which will take years to filter into the mainstream, but he should be allowed to code for current systems imo. Moreso, he should be doing things as efficiently as possible, which he indeed seems to be doing/working towards.

imo not doable, because everyone has to have the same physics, otherwise the online play would go out of sync...

Quote from Chaos :

imo not doable, because everyone has to have the same physics, otherwise the online play would go out of sync...

*cough*rFactor*cough*
It has dx8 and dx9... I'm sure there would be a way around it