A hot topic of discussion when it comes to physics engines is often which is faster and more stable, PhysX or Bullet. A post on PhysXinfo claims that PhysX has been faster than Bullet for quite some time. According to Pierre Terdiman, senior software engineer at NVIDIA:
“The point is simply, again, that contrary to what people may still believe, PhysX is actually very optimized and a perfectly fine CPU physics engine. In fact, if some competitors would not prevent me from publishing the results, I would happily show you that it often beats everybody else.
I invite curious readers to create their own benchmarks and see for themselves.”
Of course, given the source of the information it would definitely be wise to run tests for yourself if you are truly interested in which is faster than the other. The current version of PhysX that’s implemented into MassFX is 2.8.4. To read the full 12 page article, go to PhysXinfo’s website.
What I don’t understand is PhysX 3.x has been out for a number of years and max is still using 2.8.x. There are not only large speed improvements but a ton of other features as well.
Then we wait…and wait…and wait…
Late to the game as so very often…
I’m sure if Arch-viz users had a need you’d see it implemented a lot quicker.
Its interesting because in Max 2012 If you go into the PhysX tools engine tab. You can switch the engine from 2.x to 3.x
But in 2013 the option has been removed. Not sure if it was ever supported?
Yeah, although it’s difficult to know what goes on behind the scenes. Perhaps NVIDIA hiked up the prices too much for 3.x, who knows? I doubt developers at Autodesk “wants” to use an old version. But I don’t really get Autodesk’s thinking these days. Used to be innovation but I feel they’ve stagnated a bit. Each step feels like a minor evolution and they leave most of the really innovative stuff to companies like Thinkbox. Physics wise I am still really curious what they are going to do with the Naiad tech and the developers behind that…
It is still there. You must have mixed the Nvidia version and Autodesk’s MassFX version.
In Nvidia’s version you can switch between 2.x and 3.x. Autodesk’s versions not
no fan boy of either, but bullet often doesnt deliver.