PhysX SDK Licence Changed to End User License Agreement

[WILL]

It appears that Ageia's PhysX SDK is getting a <u>new licence</u> to a 'free for commercial use' policy. This is great news for those indie developers that want to jump at the new physics card concept and see what they can do with it. This new poliy is said to start with version 2.6.0 and up.

One of the great things about the new API is that there will be both Windows and Linux versions available. The most interesting part of the API, however is that you do not actually require the PhysX acclerator card to use it.


Learn more about the Ageia PhysX SDK and physics accelerator card at www.ageia.com (http://www.ageia.com/developers/)!


Original source: DevMaster.net (http://www.devmaster.net/news/index.php?storyid=1263)

[JernejL]

You mean, they are giving out the software implementation for free, just to sell their hardware? they must be getting desparate, and the worst part: aegia has no delphi / pascal sdk.

[WILL]

Actually it's smart. If you are pioneering a new kind of hardware product and you want to have others take to it, you support it yourself and encourage maximum participation not royalty the death out of the supporting products. They are finally on the right foot now, but it's still a new technology, much like 3D and Media(DivX, MP3, etc) accelerators where at their beginnings.

And I was going to suggest, someone should take the initiative and start a Pascal translation of their SDK now. ;)

[savage]

And I was going to suggest, someone should take the initiative and start a Pascal translation of their SDK now. ;)

It memory serves me PhysX is pure C++, which makes it a bit more of a headache to work with from a Delphi/Pascal POV. Think there was a thread about this a little while ago.

[WILL]

Yeah, I think I was pushing the point to translate. :) And the idea was squashed by the fee for the licence to get the SDK. Now it's every indie developer's favorite word, FREE. :clap:

Object Pascal would definately have to be used.

Personally I think hardware accelerated physics is the coolest things since sliced bread imo, well next to the idea of AI aceleration hardware. ;)

So any of you physics guys out there interested in supporting this awesome new technology? Anyone have or getting a PhysX card?

[technomage]

I haven't got a card, but I had the software drivers installed for Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter. And I have to say even in software mode the physics was excelent. :D

As Dom said though, if the library is C++ based, getting wrappers is a royal pain in the .....

[JernejL]

If it is c++, i'm guessing it is a bunch of headers and lib files, so how will you wrap all their lib files to a delphi object model in a friendly way? also, do they have a linux sdk?

Also a fact: the physix has been launched some time ago, i just checked, in my country nobody sells it yet. not the most specialized pc hardware stores.

[cronodragon]

Great news!


And I was going to suggest, someone should take the initiative and start a Pascal translation of their SDK now. ;)

If you make a team and split tasks, I would like to help :D

[LP]

Unfortunately this is a little too late, since you can get a multi-core system and run physics engine in multiple threads instead of getting the physics-only accelerator card. This is probably the reason why are they so desperate to sell their hardware.

[NecroDOME]

So any of you physics guys out there interested in supporting this awesome new technology? Anyone have or getting a PhysX card?

I'm interested!!!

[jasonf]

I think I saw a video of this a while back, it looked very impressive.. thousands of barrels, girders and other objects being thrown around.. it gave the impression that it could handle any number of calculations.. Imagine.. a WW2 game where everything is destructable down to the brick level and flying bricks and mortar do damage to other things... real collapsing scenery, not just the scripted stuff we get at the moment... all of this being handled by the card while the CPU handles the orchestration of Graphics, Input, Sound and Network leaving the Video rendering, lighting and effects to the Graphics card, The Sound processing and effects to the Sound card, the Network management to the Network card. As long as the data transfer speed wasn't a problem (I imagine that you'd send all of the entity data to the physics card, it applies forces and deforms meshes which are then extracted and sent to the video card for transformation and lighting.)

But it does move the PC away from the Generic Do-Everything machine towards a Hardcore Gaming only machine which is essentially what a console is for.

[WILL]

I dunno... multi-core CPUs though they will indeed allow a great deal more to go on simultaneously, I would doubt that it would be a direct substitute for hardware-based physics acceleration.

I mean we are talking the difference between a 2nd 'generic' processor and specifically catered hardware functions to do the exact calculations required of that which now has to be manipulated in software.

It's a fair bit different in my honest opinion. Though yes, it could very well make the 'selling' of the idea of a requirement for physics acceleration a little more challenging. But I doubt it's a reason for not pursuing it.

As for starting a project, though I think this idea is great, I'm not the man for the job. I'm also trying to cut down on my many projects. As many know I'm still practically 'married' to building up the Pascal game development community at large still. ;) Besides, it would be best to get someone more familiar with 3D physics to be the leading man here. Though I don't mind getting the ball rolling. :)

NecroDOME is person 1 and from what I can tell quite capable. Do we have at least a 2nd?

[Sly]

We are using PhysX in our current projects on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. No-one here has the PhysX card even though it is available locally for around AUS$450. There are two manufacturers of the PhysX card: ASUS and BFG.

In software mode (which the majority of people use), PhysX runs the physics simulation on its own thread (at least one thread that I know of), so it does take advantage of multi-core CPUs.

Of course with more PC titles using PhysX, the physics accelerator card will be more attractive to potential purchasers. So Ageia are doing what they can to get more people using the PhysX libraries, then this should drive more sales of the hardware accelerated PhysX card.

p.s. This does not mean that I am an expert in using PhysX. I am a lead programmer, so most of my job is telling my coders that thing X needs to happen, then those coders go away and use the physics system to make that thing happen.