Nvidia PhysX Source Code Free On GitHub

[Opcode]

Source

 

NVIDIA today put more than a decade of research, development and investment in gaming physics into the hands of game developers – by offering free source code for NVIDIA PhysX on GitHub.

 

This will accelerate the adoption of PhysX, the premier physics engine in gaming. And it will help game developers by lowering the barrier of entry to putting world-class physics effects in their games.

 

Used in more than 500 games on multiple platforms, NVIDIA PhysX is one of the most popular physics engines for game development.

 

The PhysX software development kit (SDK) is already free on Windows platforms. We’re now extending this to include PhysX Clothing and PhysX Destruction, enabling game developers to easily create a more interactive gaming environment.

 

And starting this month, the PhysX SDK is available free with full source code for Windows, Linux, OSx and Android on https://github.com/NVIDIAGameWorks/PhysX.

 

Was only a matter of time due to it being a locked down proprietary framework.

[Guest]

Sweet.

 

So it's open-source? Can anyone use it, or does Nvidia still need roaylties?

[AlexGoesHigh]

how long before someone makes this work on AMD gpu's

 

edit: just notice the source code has a EULA tied to it, i guess somewhere in there says you can't use it on competitors gpus on commercial products, well at least devs can use for cpu physics

[Faa]

Now has Richard Huddy the chance to prove Nvidia's physics engines are crippling AMD's performance.

[sgloux3470]

They're really desperate for people to use it, huh?

 

 

how long before someone makes this work on AMD gpu's

 

Never.

 

It's not "source code" in that sense, it's an SDK meant for developers to use to put PhysX features in their games.  Running it will still require driver/hardware support.

 

 

Realistically speaking, no dev is going to rely on PhysX for their entire physics engine as long as AMD doesn't support it, they're just hoping more games will put in fancy cloth effects.  Havok will stick around yet.

[minibois]

how long before someone makes this work on AMD gpu's

I'll give it a month or 2

[Atmos]

how long before someone makes this work on AMD gpu's

 

edit: just notice the source code has a EULA tied to it, i guess somewhere in there says you can't use it on competitors gpus on commercial products, well at least devs can use for cpu physics

 

hopefully not too long. Making my 8800 play nice with my 270X as a cheap physx card has been a real pain now for quite some time.

[Opcode]

Now has Richard Huddy the chance to prove Nvidia's physics engines are crippling AMD's performance.

When a PhysX runs on a non-Nvidia based machine it reverts back to software acceleration. So it is technically crippled on AMD hardware.

[ACatWithThumbs]

Well the open SDK is out for years and the source code was out since UE4 released its source code as all the physics in the engine are based on PhysX.
Nvidia never held back CPU PhysX the only thing that is locked down are GPU PhysX which have to be completely rewritten anyways as it's based on CUDA.

[Briggsy]

Its about time. Even on Nvidia cards, hardware PhysX is often crippling, let alone trying to get the CPU to have a go at it. 

 

I would expect developers to copy the code and implement parts into their own in-house Game Engines.

[Opcode]

Sweet.

 

So it's open-source? Can anyone use it, or does Nvidia still need roaylties?

Posted on Nvidia's website.

The binary build of the PhysX SDK can be used freely for both non-commercial and commercial PC (WindowsTM desktop) applications, with no license fees or royalties.

So the use of PhysX is royalty free as long as you're using the binary build of the SDK.

[Lazmarr]

Sweet.

 

So it's open-source? Can anyone use it, or does Nvidia still need roaylties?

Probably free to develop for and once published game sales amass a set total then Nvidia takes a cut of the profits

 

[Faa]

When a PhysX runs on a non-Nvidia based machine it reverts back to software acceleration. So it is technically crippled on AMD hardware.

Explain this to Richard Huddy.

[rashdanml]

It's not "source code" in that sense, it's an SDK meant for developers to use to put PhysX features in their games.  Running it will still require driver/hardware support.

Might want to read it again. 

 

PhysX SDK is already available. 

News post is about releasing the source code (in addition to the SDK) on Github. 

[sgloux3470]

Might want to read it again. 

 

PhysX SDK is already available. 

News post is about releasing the source code (in addition to the SDK) on Github. 

 

You're confusing the meaning of source code here.

 

This is only relevant to people using PhysX for software applications.  This is not the same as opening up the API for other people to make hardware solutions.  You still need the hardware to actually use it. PhysX has a software implementation that could potentially be utilized in games that supports multithreading and SSE, but my guess is that still is vastly inferior to the hardware-acceleration in terms of performance.

[geforceftw]

Thus us pretty cool. The only game I recall that used physx was Mafia 2(of games I have played). I hope this means it will become mainstream, but I wonder how long it will take. And if AMD can/would adopt this.

[zacRupnow]

This may strongly influence my GPU purchase. If this will make AMD work with Physx will it also make AMD not suck in Nvidia gameworks games like TW3? I am an ultra graphics enthusiast, if I can get an Nvidia games features to run well on AMD...

[decoy11]

The EULA and Licensing agreement is a little confusing but its just CPU PhysX for version 3.3.3. It seems they let you modify it and implement it in your game but then they say you can't reverse engineer the binary etc. I just think they made it confusing so they will let you put in CPU physX in your game but if you dare try to make an OpenCL port for AMD they will sue you to the ground.

[qwertywarrior]

Now has Richard Huddy the chance to prove Nvidia's physics engines are crippling AMD's performance.

 

it wasnt the physx that was crippling amd's performance

they couldnt use physx at all it was over tesselation

[Faa]

it wasnt the physx that was crippling amd's performance

they couldnt use physx at all it was over tesselation

youtube.com/watch?v=fZGV5z8YFM8 at 30:00 Richard Huddy starts talking about Nvidia gameworks crippling their performance.

[qwertywarrior]

youtube.com/watch?v=fZGV5z8YFM8 at 30:00 Richard Huddy starts talking about Nvidia gameworks crippling their performance.

 

yes gameworks .but  he is talking about the time he was on the pcper podcast

he was saying that batman's cape what over tessellated or over tessellated dog's hair

see  (35:50) (37:17)

[Kingofpants]

Free is a little Mismatched here, I Tried going to the Github page and It 404d, then i went to Nvidia's page and you have to be a registered Nvidia gameworks developed to access it.  Also it has a Eula you have to agree to and although I haven't read it it probably doesn't allow reverse engineering or porting to opencl.

[kuddlesworth9419]

This is an improvement especially for Nvidia.

[Opcode]

youtube.com/watch?v=fZGV5z8YFM8 at 30:00 Richard Huddy starts talking about Nvidia gameworks crippling their performance.

He's spot on with every single word he says. Nvidia refuses to support AMD hardware which in turn under contract makes games more optimized for Nvidia hardware. AMD on the other hand is nothing like that with their own physics engine TressFX which runs equally well on both manufactures hardware. PhysX should of been more open like TressFX which is pretty much his argument and I couldn't agree more. It would be like AMD cutting TressFX support for Nvidia hardware in Tomb Raider. As big as that game title was when it came out Nvidia probably would of blew a gasket over it. It did run like shit on Nvidia hardware for a little while but then a patch got pushed out and everything was fine.

[popman]

This is kind of like microsoft releasing some of their older code under a license that lets people study and mess around with it, but not to modify or reverse-engineer it.

 

I think it's kind of misleading to say that the software is free, and up on github because both of those words usually mean very different things.