NVIDIA PhysX and APEX support coming to the PlayStation 4

[Shawn Knight]

Nvidia has announced support for Sony’s recently-unveiled PlayStation 4 in the form of PhysX and APEX software development kits. These SDKs are used to provide collision detection and simulation of rigid bodies, fluids, clothing and particle systems in a number of desktop PC, console and mobile games.

Mike Skolones, product manager for PhysX at Nvidia, said great physics technology is imperative when one wants to deliver a better gaming experience and multiplatform support is critical for developers. He said that with PhysX and APEX, PlayStation 4 owners can look forward to better overall games.

As pointed out in the company’s press release, APEX allows developers to create intricate physics-enabled worlds. It’s used to expand the quantity and visual quality of destructible worlds, for example: making smoke and other particle-based fluids integral to game play and creating life-like clothing that interacts with a character’s movement or wind to achieve a more realistic experience.

As referenced to earlier, both technologies are designed to run on a variety of different CPU architectures. Furthermore, they can be accelerated by any CUDA architecture-enabled Nvidia GPU (GeForce 8-series or higher).

The company claims that more than 150 games take advantage of PhysX technology and that it’s used by over 10,000 developers. Recent titles that use these technologies include Borderlands 2, the Batman Arkham series, Metro 2033 and Mirror’s Edge, just to name a few. No word yet on any PS4 games that will use these technologies, however.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/51869-nvidia-physx-and-apex-support-coming-to-the-playstation-4.html

 

[Guest]

I wonder how amd will feel about this since it'll be powered by an amd apu

 

[Guest]

" more than 150 games take advantage of PhysX technology"

Yeah right, where are they then?

 

[Puiu]

It will work on the cpu like normal, but with no cuda support we won't be getting anything good out of it unless we want to play at 10fps.

 

[oldikes]

Puiu. static hardware bro. Think about it, they made BF3 play on an xbox 360. that had what, an X3100 and a XXXMHZ processor in it? And it didnt look terrible with the HD texture download either.

 

[dividebyzero]

As I wrote elsewhere, the "announcement" is little more than a PR blurb for those whose interest is skin deep when it comes to tech. PS4's announced partnerships included Nvidia from the start...and if Nvidia isn't supplying hardware then the obvious contribution is software- even more obvious if you take into account Unreal 4's position within PS4's marketing...

...Unreal 4 following in the steps of Unreal 3, which of course has integrated PhysX support.
Talking of which...

"more than 150 games take advantage of PhysX technology"
Yeah right, where are they then?

Well to start you off, here's a list of Unreal 3 and Unreal 4 games, and
Hardware accelerated (GPU) PhysX titles
Since the PhysX SDK has no licence fees attached for smaller developers, you could probably see why it is still highly ranked as a middleware library.

Not to say that it wouldn't be better implemented as open source, but open source, like anything driven by committee, is inherently slow in getting organized.

 

[misor]

I don't understand this move by nvidia.
I think that in the past nvidia does not allow PhysX to be used by amd hardware (present in rumored ps4)
my memory must be wrong or I did not completely understand nvidia's stand.

 

[Polaco]

The last thing I want to see is this crap of proprietary middleware library which is directly dependent on hardware implementation and does not respond to any open standard and depends on a hardware vendor to be excecuted properly. We have seen glide going to the trash can in it's time. I hope PhysX goes the same way... Game developers should orient them to develop for opengl or in the worst case dx.

 

[technogiant]

Thanks Nvidia...but NO THANKS....keep your proprietary rubbish and shove it.....well take this from Havok please as its already the most commonly used physics on the cpu...now been ported to the gpu including the gpu portion of the ps4's apu...see here:-

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/rxjemd/playstation-4-havok-physics-real-time-demo

Nvidia you're out of the console market game we don't want your physx in games console games that when ported to the pc will only allow Nvidia owners to benefit......come on AMD you now have the upper hand....man up and prevent Physx from running on your console hardware like they have on your pc graphics cards.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

I fully agree with nVidia's intent. To me it makes a lot of sense.

 

[TS-56336]

So, does this mean there will be a dedicated card for PhysX processing or are they just allowing the license for use with game development I.e. dev tools? Either way, this is interesting, especially since Sony is using an AMD GPU.

 

[Guest]

Its software physx, ps3 already supports this . how is this news.

 

[Duskywolf50]

PHYSX on PS4 use AMD APU, I read careful and said run on any CUDA but APU use RADEON chipset and how this possible? I am total lost here. Yes, it's only rumor.

 

[dividebyzero]

PHYSX on PS4 use AMD APU, I read careful and said run on any CUDA but APU use RADEON chipset and how this possible? I am total lost here. Yes, it's only rumor.

PS4 PhysX runs on the CPU of the AMD APU. CUDA refers to hardware accelerated (GPU) PhysX, which doesn't apply to the PS4.
PhysX can be run from both CPU and/or GPU. Even GPU PhysX uses the CPU for some calculation.

 

[Duskywolf50]

I gotcha.