What is PhysX

[DcUlreich]

Yes, I do know PhysX simulates realistically objects, cloth, liquid etc...
What i really want to know is does the term PhysX include FleX , HairWorks, FaceWorks, Turbulence, ShadowWorks, CameraWorks etc...
Is there any other Nvidia gameworks features that belong to PhysX?

And most importantly, does all of those mentioned above go under the term PhysX if you use a dedicated PhysX card?

 

[BadBoyGreek]

PhysX was a technology introduced by Ageia some years back and it was similar to how Voodoo cards were back in the day, basically an add on card used to supplement your existing GPUs performance. nVidia bought the company in 2008 and the technology is now integrated into their GPUs and drivers.

 

[bystander]

PhysX is very confusing to many, as PhysX is used on the CPU the vast majority of the time, with a handful of games which use GPU accelerated PhysX. Most people seem to only focus on that last part, but for the majority of the time, it is just a physics API that is used in hundreds of games and performed on the CPU.

FleX, HairWorkds, FaceWorks and all that, are new API's, and likely all included into GameWorks.

 

[DcUlreich]

Any idea if FleX, HairWorks, FaceWorks and all of that would be loaded on the dedicated PhysX card?

 

[bystander]

All that stuff may be using some DirectCompute, which would be used on the primary GPU, I'm fairly certain it would not be used on a dedicated PhysX card. I'm certain Nvidia would make it known to us if it did.