(TIPS) What is PhysX GRB?

GeeXLab - PhysX collision demo
Prototype of a PhysX collision demo developed with GeeXLab


GRB is a new PhysX module developed by NVIDIA. GRB stands for GPU Rigid Body: rigid body collisions are processed by the GPU.

In the public PhysX SDK, modules such as fluids (SPH), clothes or soft bodies can be accelerated by the GPU via a CUDA implementation of these features (GPU PhysX) but rigid body collisions are still processed by the CPU (CPU PhysX).

Keep in mind that GPU rigid body acceleration was fully supported by the old good Ageia PPU

PhysX GRB has been developed for the video game Batman Arkham Asylum and the version 0.9 was used:

PhysX GRB 0.9

PhysX GRB 1.0
source

Recently some new videos have been presented at the GDC 2011:


GDC 2011 – Massive Destruction using GRB
[youtube k0P0vXAPbpk]

GDC 2011 – Massive Destruction using GRB (benchmark mode)
[youtube epU8ast8ivo]

I hope we’ll see GPU rigid body in a next version of the PhysX SDK…

5 thoughts on “(TIPS) What is PhysX GRB?”

  1. Psolord

    That’s some awesome news indeed.

    I can’t help but wonder though. Will we ever see the day that the gpu will not hit 50% usage when PhysX is used and as a result the framerate been cut in half?

    I am having Mafia 2 in mind…

  2. xcbb

    @Psolord
    Buy two graphic cards, connect them, find a way to put the graphics on one and physics on the other one. Or buy a new more powerful one.

    It would be nice if they would investigate in other, more efficient ways to do Rigid Bodies. Such as e.g. the algorithm Newton Game Dynamics uses: http://newtondynamics.com/forum/newton.php

  3. Psolord

    @xcbb

    I have two 570s mate. There’s no salvation. There’s something terribly wrong with PhysX.

  4. Rosario Leonardi

    @xcbb Newtown can be very efficient but is the most unstable physics engine ever. If you want to make it stable you have to add a lot of dumping.

    About RGB there is still the limit of convex hull with 256 veretexes?

Comments are closed.