13 replies to this topic

[crane]

Sorry guys, I know it is a very old question. However, despite many hour's searching, I still cannot find my answer. I am currently using ODE, which I think is a little under-documented and inconvenient to use. I would like to change to either PhysX or Havok. What I want to do is simple cases like one or several human characters interacting with each other or with the environment. And I want to do it in a dynamic way which means I have to use rigid bodies to build a human first, set the joints and use torques to activate the human model. Because of the heavy load of computation of dynamics models, I would like to make it faster(I heard that PhysX currently transfers a lot physical computation to GPU, do I have to get a special graphics card for that?). However, I also have heard some complains about the PhysX, less stable, buggy and so on. In addition, another reason that I want to change my physics engine is that I want to beautify my animation without having to code everything myself like building a complex terrain or beautiful clothes. Can anyone help me out? Great thanks!

[lordikon]

I'd go with Havok, it has been around longer and doesn't prefer any system over another. PhysX will not be GPU accelerated unless you own an NVidia 8-series or newer card, or an actual PhysX card. Just my two cents.

[Palidine]

Is Havok free now? I thought a license was still in the hundreds of thousands...

PhysX is free and IMHO just as dope as Havok (I've used both professionally)

-me

[SimonForsman]

Quote:

Original post by Palidine Is Havok free now? I thought a license was still in the hundreds of thousands... PhysX is free and IMHO just as dope as Havok (I've used both professionally) -me

When I looked last time only PhysX was free, it seems to be available for Windows, Linux, xbox360 and the PS3 (I can't seem to find any info about a Mac version which is really odd though).

[nullsquared]

Havok is also free.

[swiftcoder]

Quote:

Original post by SimonForsman Quote: Original post by Palidine Is Havok free now? I thought a license was still in the hundreds of thousands... PhysX is free and IMHO just as dope as Havok (I've used both professionally) -me When I looked last time only PhysX was free, it seems to be available for Windows, Linux, xbox360 and the PS3 (I can't seem to find any info about a Mac version which is really odd though).

Havok is free, at least for non-commercial use. PhysX is used on the Mac by several commercial games, but it appears to be impossible to obtain the Mac version without a commercial license. NVidia has mentioned PhysX capable GPU drivers for the high end Macs sometime this year, but whether the SDK will be available is another matter.

[CodaKiller]

Quote:

Original post by swiftcoder Quote: Original post by SimonForsman Quote: Original post by Palidine Is Havok free now? I thought a license was still in the hundreds of thousands... PhysX is free and IMHO just as dope as Havok (I've used both professionally) -me When I looked last time only PhysX was free, it seems to be available for Windows, Linux, xbox360 and the PS3 (I can't seem to find any info about a Mac version which is really odd though). Havok is free, at least for non-commercial use. PhysX is used on the Mac by several commercial games, but it appears to be impossible to obtain the Mac version without a commercial license. NVidia has mentioned PhysX capable GPU drivers for the high end Macs sometime this year, but whether the SDK will be available is another matter.

I am pretty sure you can not obtain a Mac version of Havok without a commercial license as well, at least thats how it was the last time I checked.

[crane]

Thank you guys, I am doing a research project, a non-commercial one. And it is highyly possible I have to code in Windows XP

[Schrompf]

I've personal experience with PhysX, and I found it to be well documented, and very fast. But from what I heard, the same goes for Havok :-) The one single fact that makes our development live much harder is the fact that PhysX insists on its runtime installation. You can't link statically to it, you can't simply put the neccessary DLLs into your executable folder. You *have* to install a runtime setup on your target machine, and there's quite a chance that it will conflict in some way with a earlier installment and simply doesn't work.

After using PhysX for about two years now in our game we consider switching to Havok.

[MrRowl]

Quote:

Original post by crane Thank you guys, I am doing a research project, a non-commercial one. And it is highyly possible I have to code in Windows XP

Perhaps you should consider other libraries - see the Sticky thread.

[crane]

Quote:

Original post by MrRowl Quote: Original post by crane Thank you guys, I am doing a research project, a non-commercial one. And it is highyly possible I have to code in Windows XP Perhaps you should consider other libraries - see the Sticky thread.

Thanks for the link. Why do you think I should consider another one? Neither Havok nor PhysX are good for me?

[Hypnotron]

As far as I can tell, Havok is free from Intel for PC development for commercial use. If you intend to sell your game for more than $10.00 USD, you have to apply for what appears to still be a free license.

http://software.intel.com/sites/havok/

"If you plan to sell your commercial PC Game above a retail value of $10 USD, (or equivalent amount in other currencies based on prevailing exchange rates at the time of launch), you must first request a no-charge PC Game distribution license from Havok at www.havok.com/PCgamedistribution, prior to retail release of your game. This PC Game distribution agreement is required to ensure you have complied with Havok logo, copyright, and attribution requirements, and that your application is a PC game (commercial non-game application distribution is not allowed). There will be no fee associated with this because the license fee has been covered by Intel under a commercial agreement with Havok."
src: http://www.havok.com/content/view/622//

[crane]

Quote:

Original post by Schrompf I've personal experience with PhysX, and I found it to be well documented, and very fast. But from what I heard, the same goes for Havok :-) The one single fact that makes our development live much harder is the fact that PhysX insists on its runtime installation. You can't link statically to it, you can't simply put the neccessary DLLs into your executable folder. You *have* to install a runtime setup on your target machine, and there's quite a chance that it will conflict in some way with a earlier installment and simply doesn't work. After using PhysX for about two years now in our game we consider switching to Havok.

Wow! It is really an invaluable piece of advice here. Is the GPU Acceleration good in PhysX? Because I want to do some real-time simulation, if I can use GPU to do the physical simulation then I can use CPU to focus on the complicated mathematical solver. I am using ODE right now, since changing the engine would require re-coding for most parts of my program, I would really like to find a "perfect" one to do my work without having to change it again in the future.

But according to your experience, maybe I have to choose havok.....:(. Does PhysX still require run-time environment?

[superoptimo]

In that case you should move from ODE to Bullet totally.

http://www.bulletphysics.com/Bullet/wordpress/

Is the best of the open source world.

Features:
- Deformable bodies and Cloth.
- GPU accelerated with CUDA.
- MultiThreaded and SIMD support.
- Runs literally on every platform: from PC to consoles like DS,WII,PS3, and also on the Iphone.

- Very liberal licence: MIT
- Very active comunity.
- Future proof.

Bullet could compete with Havok and PhysX.