Nvidia's GameWorks 3.1 SDK adds striking new games tech; PhysX bodies gets 6x boost
While some PhysX technologies only lean on your PC’s CPU, the new tech—dubbed PhysX-GRB—taps both CPU and GPU to offer up to 6x more performance under moderate to heavy load, Nvidia says. (The improvement is presumably greater on GeForce graphics cards than Radeon graphics cards.) The company also announced Nvidia Flow, a “computational fluid dynamics algorithm that simulates and renders combustible fluids such as fire and smoke.” Both of the new PhysX technologies are being introduced to Nvidia’s PhysX library as betas rather than official releases.
The three new GPU-based features released as part of the GameWorks 3.1 SDK have already popped up in a handful of big-name games, and now they’re ready for mass adoption. Developers can register with Nvidia to use GameWorks technology as middleware—ready-made software that can be dropped into a game relatively easily to add new features.
The story behind the story: Nvidia’s GameWorks library has faced constant criticism. Accusers say the middleware technology is designed to gimp AMD Radeon cards and offer superior performance on GeForce GPUs. While it’s true that Nvidia’s GameWorks tech runs better on GeForce graphics cards, calling it sabotage is a bit of a stretch. Thus far, game developers have embraced GameWorks features as optional—not mandatory—in-game settings, and the premium effects are so high-end that they tend to absolutely hammer frame rates on all graphics cards, GeForce GPUs included.
AMD is developing an open-sourced GameWorks rival of its own under its new GPUOpen initiative.