iFEEL, FFB, TrackIR, DirectX10, Physx...

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

Since i switched to Vista X64 i was unable to activate surround-sounds at all....

No matter how actual my drivers are....

I've been using onboard 8:1 and SoundMax software, 7:1 Logitech Speakers, and/or headset pluged to the Logitech.

I have option for "Sonic Focus" or "DTS Connect" with the onboard software.

Surround Sound works with either option, though SF will cause slight crackling while playing ArmA.

I can live with Suma's post, but no one mention 64bit support.

It would be nice to compare.

Crysis has both options to launch (32 or 64).....and I do see almost night/day difference on this all 64bit component pc.

[versus 0]

Well, PhysX support means you'll effectively piss off half of the player base.

Yes, I'm talking about ATI users (and I'll admit straight away I'm one).

exactly. i wonder what nvidia is hoping to achieve by buying

that physx crap. the only realistic hardware supported physics

solution would have to be one that works on ALL cards.

that ageia physx engine never really impressed me anyway.

the havoc physics engine usually feels a lot more "on the spot"

and it also doesn't require any drivers to be installed.

but my guess is that BIS isn't unwilling to support physx

because of the ati users but rather because they don't want

to license a 3rd-party physics engine for financial reasons...

the lack of hw-support for sound is really somewhat disturbing.

i'm mean people spend their money to buy these over-the-top

soundcards that can produce 128 voices at the same time

with little to no hit on cpu performance and then they don't

get supported. eax has all the solutions for realism in sound

already laid out: occlusion, obstruction, reverb, echo, 3d-

positioning,...*sigh*

[x al 1]

Well, PhysX support means you'll effectively piss off half of the player base.

Yes, I'm talking about ATI users (and I'll admit straight away I'm one).

exactly. i wonder what nvidia is hoping to achieve by buying

that physx crap. the only realistic hardware supported physics

solution would have to be one that works on ALL cards.

Well, makes no sense to start a big discussion about Physx which is not support in ARMA2.

Btw I am an ATI user with Ageia PPU, so I am always on the right side. But honestly, offering support of something should  not piss of player bases, well maybe some gamers who act like Divas  

Physx support will just be an added value, like TrackIR support or forcefeedback support. It does change gaming experience but not the overall gameplay.

 

People should be happy about added value, and not complain that others might not have all the HW to get the total experience  

[Bucic 1]

In terms of sound APIs we're back to stone age thanks to monopol of Microsoft and Creative's crippled drivers without even the benefit of sorting anything out. I'm referring to the current sound market situation - not the BI choice of using XAudio2. Is it a good choice? I don't know. What bothers me the most is that no ones will go bankrupt because all of this. The only good thing is there is some new competition to Creative (ASUS and, sort of, Auzentech). There is a hope for improvements only after someone goes down...

[Pyronick 21]

I wish people would NOT assume  

Up till the latest driver Ageia PPU is supported and works very well. The Ageia PPU in combination with latest ATI cards outperforms mostly all NVDIDIA GPU solutions (big german game maginzine tested that recently). No indication that Ageia is not supported or outperformed

Physx should die anyway...well...Intel and ATI are working on a prorietary solution as well atm  

FYI: Physx SDK supports now PS3 and Wii, officially.

Uhm...my X-FI has HW acceleration in most games, even under Vista. Too bad miles etc. is getting stronger again in this market, as well as on-board solutions.

More troublesome, less efficent...just simple.

Whoops, you are right. It's GeForce PhysX that won't work on some titles. Excuse me.

Intel and ATM are working on a proprietary solution, but one that works on all hardware.

nVidia has a proprietary solution that only works on their own hardware.

That's a humongous difference.

Your X-Fi does have hardware acceleration in Vista, but only on OpenAL games or EAX (DirectSound3D) through ALchemy.

XAudio2 doesn't have hardware acceleration, and that's what most new games (due to the huge PC-X360 multiplatform crisis) will have instead of EAX or OpenAL.

[Dwarden 1125]

just note to what henry said

hardware EAX 1-5 is not exclusive for DirectSound 3D (XP)

EAX 1-5 works in OpenAL, FMOD and MilesSoundSystem (if compiled with build supporting it) in both hw and sw mode

i doubt MS is going to support anything what's not benefiting them first ...

[PhilippRauch 0]

nice thing about PhysiX was you could add a cheaper Card just for crunching those numbers even in a lowerspec PCIX port (So SLI for GFX and one cheaper 9600 or so for AI/Physics and such), but nowadays the CPU can do those crunching better than any gfxcard and its not limited by PCIX bus structures... hey i can/want to afford to "loose" one core just to my AI ... or?

[Pyronick 21]

nice thing about PhysiX was you could add a cheaper Card just for crunching those numbers even in a lowerspec PCIX port (So SLI for GFX and one cheaper 9600 or so for AI/Physics and such), but nowadays the CPU can do those crunching better than any gfxcard and its not limited by PCIX bus structures... hey i can/want to afford to "loose" one core just to my AI ... or?

PhysX only works with Ageia (end-of-life product since a while) and capable nVidia hardware, while means less than half of all gamers.

Intel (Havok) and AMD are working on making their new Havok engine through an open standard which works on all capable OpenCL hardware.

That means multicore processors, (GP)GPU's, other types of stream processors, etc.

PCI Express is serial point-to-point unlike PCI/PCI-X and has no real limits.

If you mean the bandwidth of the 1x PCI Express bus, don't worry. It is more than enough for physics accelerating hardware.

Somewhere in the future, AI might not be fixed load anymore but scalable. Perhaps through very coarse multithreading, but it seems to me that AI could be very scalable through the amount of bots (or directors) in a game.

[POTS 0]

Quote[/b] ]Three will be no PhysX support.

Bad thing to hear as most of the newer NVIDIA gfx-card have native support for PhysX and the effects that can be achieved without any CPU-load are quite interesting. Blowing leaves, glass fragments, shockwaves...all that could be incorporated without any stress for CPU.

Bad news for me.

Some people don't understand internet vs client processing. I don't think the server and clients could handle all the data being sent over them with glass fragments and stuff. This is why they can keep up the amount of players. Don't spoil it with super physics engines, the only thing you'll see is a decreased amount of multiplayer potential.

[Dwarden 1125]

in other news

Valve decided to support Falcon device from http://home.novint.com/ in Ep/portal

beta version support is already available public on STEAM ...

[x al 1]

in other news

Valve decided to support Falcon device from http://home.novint.com/ in Ep/portal

beta version support is already available public on STEAM ...

Just had a look at it. I normally don't comment on hardware i haven't seen or tried myself, but on the novint Falcon I do ask:

How about ergonomics? I seems to be very capable of 3D movements, but here comes the problem. I doubt that it is comfortable to use longer than 15-30mins.

Lifting your hand constantly might end up in arm and shoulder problems when sitting in front of a desk.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]Some people don't understand internet vs client processing. I don't think the server and clients could handle all the data being sent over them with glass fragments and stuff. This is why they can keep up the amount of players. Don't spoil it with super physics engines, the only thing you'll see is a decreased amount of multiplayer potential.

I sure do understand but the physics enhancements are eyecandy only and therefore don´t have to be sent via internet to the clients. All effects are generated local and only enhance the visuals locally. There is no reason why the data should be shared with other clients.

See it that way:

Firing a field gun will call the repspective firing animation on all clients, based on engine handling that is calling the animation locally. The only data transmitted via internet is position of gun, heading, ammo status, damage status, projectory data of projectiles.

People with additional physics support have a shockwave generated locally, aswell as leaves jumping from the ground in the moment of fire.

Your logic is wrong if you think that such data has to be transferred over the internet. It´s a local calculation that stays local. No need for public sharing.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Host a non addon server and have a friend join. Toss a smoke grenade and walk up to where it landed after a bounce. Then let your friend do the same. That's the result on non synchronized 'physics'.

Also, there would be people getting mad because they can't have this very important effect in their addon which *needs* to be synchronized but cannot.

Maybe it could be used for some eye candy only, but this seems to be under control with the drop command (particles). Physics engines does a lot more than create particles (rigid body simulations, multi body simulation, soft body simulation, fluid mechanics, most of which have no use as a client side only effect.

I'd rather have BIS consentrate on the functionality of more important stuff, than adding support for something that can hardly be utilized.

[engel75 10]

There will be no specific support for DirectX 10 API - we see no point in this. DX10 does not bring any significant new technologies and it does provide any better performance compared to DX 9.

We will concentrate on making the DX9 implementation as good as possible, including techniques like Cascade Shadow Maps or Parallax Occlusion mapping.

Hi Suma,

I am no coder but as far as I know there are some good reasons for directx10 and some of them are in ArmA2 but maybe they are CPU intensive software rendered at the moment?

- motion blur

- improved smoke and clouds

- realistic reflections

- sunbeams

- adaptives depth of field

- refraction of light

- alpha-2-coverage (used to render vegetation)

- soft particles (explosions/smoke)

- rain effects

- variance shadow map (realistic shadows)

- many more

And the complete API is said to be recoded to improve usability and performance.

Sounds to me like ArmA2 could benefit from it...

There are also some impressive picture comparisons out there:

DX9:

DX10:

DX9:

DX10:

Are you sure directx10 could not improve the performance of ArmA2?

Regards,

Flo

Edited July 24, 2009 by engel75

[no use for a name 0]

no, because it takes more processing power to have those effects. So it's just going to make it look pretty at the cost of even more performance

[Dwarden 1125]

why bother with DX10 while DX11 era is just begining ... (not to mention DX11 got 9,10 and 11 sublevels)

[Pyronick 21]

why bother with DX10 while DX11 era is just begining ... (not to mention DX11 got 9,10 and 11 sublevels)

I really hope that ArmA 2 will have native DirectX 11 support.

DirectX 11 finally is a native multithreaded API, but it's also specifically made for multi GPU systems.

This could finally mean today's hardware is actually fully usable.

[-=seany=- 5]

I seriously doubt Arma2 can have native DX11 support without rewriting the entire game code. Of course DX11 will be backwards compatible with DX9 games, but it wont make use of any of the technical advances unless the game is programmed to make use of it.