Should Witcher 3 use PhysX instead of Havok?

[Mothra]

I disagree. I played Batman: AC with Nvidia PhysX and it didn't draw too much attention from my perspective. Sure watching the Hawken video about it does make you think it's too much, but playing a game is vastly different to watching a video about it's effects.

You know what I do notice in TW2? Geralt's hair not moving properly, Henselt and Roche's medalions and their animations, the clingy clothes and so on.

You are right about B:AC. They did good (subtle) things with PhysX.
The Hawken video is appalling imo, I played the beta and what they have there is sufficient.
I did not get hung up on TW2's sometimes hillarious glitches and understand that hair/cloth is just incredibly difficult to do. I would not mind if they scrap it entirely and use more resources on things that really matter.
Like quests/dialogue/branching storylines....the good stuff

 

[Mystril]

I'm on the PhysX bandwagon here, its on of the reasons I buy nVidia cards... Batman Arkham City looked absolutely delicious with full PhysX on and so did Borderlands 2.

 

[CostinRaz]

Apparently, based on the game informer scans, TW3 will have cloth simulation.

 

[Garrison72]

Apparently, based on the game informer scans, TW3 will have cloth simulation.

How can you tell?

 

[Agent_Blue]

Nvidia's hardware accelerated PhysX API is the most advanced physics API available to game developers these days. Compared to PhysX, Havok is practically in the stone age.

While it's still very capable, Havok has no support for GPU accelerated physics, and thus many of the advanced particle effects you see in PhysX titles, cannot be accomplished using Havok without a steep decline in performance.

You could use GPU accelerated physics to do so many things that are anywhere from impractical, to unfeasible with software physics.

Imagine Geralt and Triss having realistic looking, and moving hair (Triss could finally let her hair down). Or the dress of a sorceress that reacts to her movement. Or how about mist or fog in a moon lit forest, that reacts to the movement of the characters or monsters.

You could make some cool looking spell, bomb or sign effects with PhysX as well, and make them much more destructive, realistic and spectacular to behold.

CDPR already used Nvidia's 3D Vision for the Witcher 2, so there's no reason they can't go the extra mile and implement hardware accelerated PhysX as well..

Here's the Borderlands 2 PhysX trailer for anyone that wants to see what GPU accelerated PhysX is capable of.

BTW, how the hell do you embed youtube videos? />/>

I was under the impression PhysX required special hardware to run. This means I was wrong.
I will say this: SKyrim's physics are superb and it uses Havok. Maybe Havok will get an update.

 

[CostinRaz]

How can you tell?

Gameinformer states it, check the scans

http://pressakey.com/news,3269,The-Witcher-3-Wild-Hunt-Gameinformer-Titelstory-Erste-Screens,.html

It's on the very last page before the screenshot ones in the middle column at the top ( I include the one where it says bonus content as well here ).

 

[SystemShock7]

One more Havok demo. I don't see what's so bad about it. oesn't Assassin's Creed use Havok as well? A lot of the OP's statements are speculations, it seems, or maybe merely game comparisons, which wouldn't be an effective way of comparison, since one's not privy to the extent the developers used the capalilities of each collision engine

Another thing, CDPR is releasing the REDKit for modding. PhysX would have to be licensed for use with the REDKit.

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcds8eY93Zk[/media]

 

[CostinRaz]

They are releasing Redkit for TW2 not for TW3 since it's not out yet.

 

[dragonbird]

They are releasing Redkit for TW2 not for TW3 since it's not out yet.

It's still a reasonable assumption that it WILL be released for TW3. Hopefully fairly soon after launch.
I'm not sure if this would be an issue though. Would PhysX need to be in the toolkit, or just used in the runtime engine (which everyone would have as it's part of the main game)?

(Genuine question, not rhetorical. I don't know the answer and would like to know)

 

[CostinRaz]

Well sure it will be in TW3, but it will be a different version then what we will get for TW2.

 

[courierseven]

The way I see it Havok is way better option for me and most likely every other ATI user.They just need to update it to use all it's wonders.
Most modern games use 100% of my graphic card while none of them use CPU's full potential.
Why not use both CPU and GPU as much as you can, which you can do easier on both Ati and Nvidia with Havok.
You can make the game looks just as good with Havok as you could by using Nvidia PhysX, plus you don't divide your users in one group that gets nice physics on Nvidia cards and the other group that needs pretty much a lot more powerful PC to run it with ATI card.

 

[eva02langley]

HAvok, Havok, Havok...

Physx is a scam by Nvidia to sell more cards. You don't screw half of your fans because they have AMD cards.

 

[CostinRaz]

Physx is a scam by Nvidia to sell more cards. You don't screw half of your fans because they have AMD cards.

Based on what statistics I might ask do half the witcher player base use AMD cards? If anything going based off the official statistics for GFX cards worldwide more people use Nvidia then AMD. As in 60% vs 40%.

 

[GuyNwah]

HAvok, Havok, Havok...

Physx is a scam by Nvidia to sell more cards. You don't screw half of your fans because they have AMD cards.

Well, its purpose is to sell more cards, but providing a desirable feature that is designed for your architecture and not a competitor's entirely different architecture can hardly be called a scam. nVidia has a big market in using their cards as little supercomputers. They would be delinquent if they did not cater to it. They are under no responsibility to non-customers when they do so.

But I do agree with the principle that it is not a good idea to segment your product so that only users of a certain brand of hardware get the highest performance from it.

 

[dani168]

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/The-Witcher-3-PC-237266/News/The-Witcher-3-Technik-Release-1057501/
It's confirmed. Nvidia Physx in The Witcher 3! APEX included

 

[Aaden]

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/The-Witcher-3-PC-237266/News/The-Witcher-3-Technik-Release-1057501/
It's confirmed. Nvidia Physx in The Witcher 3!

To elaborate with further information from that article: Apex modules for cloth simulation will be used, and there will be realistic simulation of destruction (debris flying around, e.g.) and fluids. Whether it's purely software based PhysX or hardware PhysX too, Michal Platkow-Gilewski didn't (want to) tell, yet.

 

[Agent_Blue]

The Next Generation of Havok Physics is Here

( http://www.havok.com/unlock )

Check Out the New Tech at GDC 2013

 

[sidspyker]

Apologies if this has been posted already but PCGH has mentioned that Witcher 3 is using Physx and not Havok. I'm not sure how I feel about that as an AMD card user but here you go.
PCGH article

[font=Arial, Helvetica]The most important information we learned at the beginning. [/font][font=Arial, Helvetica]The still in the exclusive demo for use next renderer based on the graphics engine of the second Witcher part, but is now based entirely up to the release in 2014 of DX9 DX11. [/font][font=Arial, Helvetica]Thanks DX11 rendering techniques such as tessellation, MSAA or Global Illumination loud Michal Platkow-Gilewski could have a much better visual quality than it was with the DX9 renderer of The Witcher 2 can be achieved. [/font][font=Arial, Helvetica]To ensure high visibility for the huge, open world, the Polish developer based technology has already donated a new streaming system. [/font][font=Arial, Helvetica]There were big changes, so Michal Platkow-Gilewski, even when part of the physics engine. [/font][font=Arial, Helvetica]Here there was a change from Havok on Nvidia Physx, including use of the Apex modules for cloth simulation, a realistic simulation of destruction (for example, flying debris) and a simulation of fluids like water.[/font]

 

[Username.]

Cool.

 

[umair2012]

pointless . Havok is way better .