Enabled vs. disabled PhysX in Batman: Arkham Asylum

The PC version of Batman: Arkham Asylum offers support of Nvidia PhysX. This has an impact on graphics and atmosphere. The source shows the effects on the graphics and compares enabled vs. disabled PhysX in Batman: Arkahm Asylum

[CernaML]

With PhysX turned on, I get a really nice experience at the cost of a rock solid 60FPS.

So I just gotta ask myself this question when I download this game tomorrow:
Do I want no PhysX with a buttery smooth frame rate?
Or do I want PhysX with a jittery frame rate ranging from 30-60FPS?

Decisions decisions...

[crck]

@1.1 I own all 3 consoles plus a computer with a nvida 260 gtx. And all I can say is stop your stupid trolling.

1. Incredible, yes but you can actually hook computers up to big screen tvs these days. I have mine hooked up to my 46" sharp lcd via hdmi.

2. Microsoft sells a $20 wireless receiver for their 360 controller for use with PCs. So when I play 3rd person action games (they really don't work well with keyboard and mouse) I do not need to use a keyboard and mouse.

3. Its true that I recently bought my 260 gtx but I got it for $120 after rebates and it included a free code to download Batman AA. So I basically paid $70 to play the best looking version of Batman at 1080p with Phsyx. If I buy 7 more pc version of games that basically pays for the card since the PC version is always at least $10 cheaper then the console version.

Consoles are great but for a single player experience I'll take the PC version of multiplat games. So I suggest you let go of your outdated stereotypes about PC gaming.

[STONEY4]

Just buy a cheap card and set it up in the Nvidia control panel as a dedicated PhysX card. It can be any cards, as long as it has the built in PhysX which I think is in every 8800GS and above.

[CernaML]

Unfortunately, I only have one PCI Express slot so if I want to go down that route I'll need to buy a new Mobo as well. =\

[Christopher]

The fog and similar effects were nice. The rest I don't think really enhanced the experience that much.

[Pandamobile]

It adds to the eerie atmosphere.

[dkgshiz]

PC gamers finally get to play Batman Arkham Asylum!

[evrfighter]

well you know what they say.

Save the best for last

[dirthurts]

Not be done without PhysX ? All other games can pull this off. Seems pretty lazy to me...

[CernaML]

"All other games?"

Care to elaborate?

[TheIneffableBob]

It's more efficient to do things like cloth physics on the GPU. They can certainly be done on the CPU, of course, but it would just be more detrimental to performance. Fluid dynamics can't be done with current CPUs at an acceptable frame rate, though.

[Dawn_Of_Ashes]

what is Physx? i mean, if its a physic engine, why if you play without the physx you dont have the joker asylum banner?

[Jamescagney]

From good old Wiki -

PhysX is a proprietary realtime physics engine middleware SDK originally developed by Ageia (acquired by Nvidia in February 2008[1]) as the NovodeX SDK. The term PhysX can also refer to the PPU add-in card designed by Ageia to accelerate PhysX-enabled video games. Video games supporting hardware acceleration by PhysX can be accelerated by either a PhysX PPU or a CUDA-enabled GeForce GPU, thus offloading physics calculations from the CPU, allowing it to perform other tasks instead—potentially resulting in a smoother gaming experience.

[TheIneffableBob]

There's CPU-accelerated PhysX and GPU-accelerated PhysX. Running it on the CPU gives standard physics no different than something like Havok. Unreal Engine 3 uses PhysX as its default physics engine, though developers can use a different engine if they'd like -- Irrational did this with BioShock by using Havok instead, though the physics were pretty poor in that game since they were locked to 30 FPS... but I digress. The GPU accelerated PhysX gives you all that fancy stuff like volumetric fog, fluid dynamics (see: Cryostasis), cloth physics, micro-destructible environments like tiles off a wall, etc.

[Jdoki]

Seems a bit weird to me that some of the non-PhysX effects are totally missing rather than just 'dumbed down' versions.

We've had various types of volumetric fog for years in games - and yet only in the PhysX version has ANY fog present.

Also the cloth banner... How many times have we seen cloth emulated in games (err... like Batman's cape), and yet it's only on the PhysX version.

Just seems a bit weird to me... Especially as I'm pretty positive I've seen these types of effects in other Unreal Engine games.

Anyone want to throw out a conspiracy that Nvidia dollars helped influence the graphical effects of the game?... It does have 'The way it's meant to be played' branding plastered all over it, and of course Nvidia owns PhysX...

[Jamescagney]

Meh, with or without PhysX I'm still looking forward to playing the game. If it's even better with PhysX and doesn't affect my framerate too much then that's fine with me.

[Mantiz]

Anyone played the console version that can attest to whether or not things like the fog etc... are represented somehow or does it look more like the PC version with PhysX off ?

[sak500]

So the pc game also uses RB for the zipline hook? Nothing special really in teh activated screens. Im' arranging the latest ATI DX11 cards for some media event so hopefully will be able to test some games on the cypress XT cards.

[crck]

They probably have the computer hooked up to a Microsoft wireless receiver. When you play pc games with a 360 controller it changes all the onscreen button icons for you.

[Snooterz]

I used the 360 controller for the demo, and it worked great. It changes the on screen icons on the fly. Most windows games that support the 360 controller do this. I was going to get this for the PC but I couldn't wait. It's definitely a better and less expensive version.

[CobraKai]

I love console gaming cuz it's easy and simple. But man if i could afford it and had a rig that could handle all games in max settings, I would totally be getting most of my games on the PC

[herukuti]

i have the ps3 version and the only similarity i see are in the medical wing pictures of the plastic doors i think those are ingame.

[Bobby Kotex]

A series of screenshots isn't exactly the best way to demonstrate physx. There was another article a few weeks ago on n4g that had videos.