AGEIA PhysX Preview

For the most part, I don't really see how this can be all that ground-breaking? Wow, more particles when things explode or wow, bullets have a slightly better impact. Not to mention it's one more lame thing to buy for my system that should probably already be included.

Phew... this whole afternoon has been pretty hectic and the PhysX info flood just keeps on coming. I've been updating my page practically continuously since I woke up :D

http://personal.inet.fi/atk/kjh2348fs/ageia_physx.html

The official PhysX product page has been launched too: http://physx.ageia.com

There's a two times longer dowloadable HD Quicktime movie of that CellFactor physics movie. Looks pretty OK, though I'd like to see more cloth and fluid demos, kthx.

-1 for Title Spelling

Ok that CellFactor video is great. I love how shows that many times the most fun you can have in a game is with the simple things: blowing stuff up, flying, manipulating and throwing heavy stuff in the air... Basically things you can't do in real life.

Well, I watched those vids. The Bet On Soldier vid did nothing for me. I really didn't see anything in there that couldn't (or hasn't already) easily be done in games already, basically it just looked like since they didn't have destructible environments or anything that was built from the ground up to take advantage of physics, they just added lots of particles which made it look kind of cluttered.

I think we'll see a lot of that while we transition to games that really utilize extra physics, extra crap for the sake of extra crap.

The Cell Factor demo was pretty impressive, but I couldn't help but think '...and people complain about the number of crates in games now' The problem I see with games that actually utilize physics in a meaningful way like this one does, is how exactly is that going to work for multiplayer? Imagine having to have not only player and projectile XYZ to track, but now you're going to add in 300 crates and pipes?

I'll say again I think the first gen or two of physics accelerated games are going to be particle crazy, but not much more.