What the heck is a physics engine and why should I care?

[lukefojut]

Sorry for the glib title, but I was hoping to stir up some discussion!

The first time I played Diablo II was eight years ago and then my 8MB Ati Rage Graphics card was more than up to the task. Was Diablo II ever a demanding game in terms of system requirements?

My worry is that the current generation of Diablo II fans might find that their current rigs aren't up to playing the new game, with it's shiny clouds of mist, torches etc.

Does anyone expect a game that will press their machines, or does the gameplay video make you think things will remain the way they are, with Diablo II not taking a lot of 'oomph' to run? The video looked pretty linear and simplistic, despite some of the pretty effects.. I assume that this is perhaps deliberately so?

Thoughts?

[konfeta]

My current rig is a 2.8 Pentium 4, 7600GT, and 2 Gigs of 333 Ram. It plays Titan Quest adequately, and Diablo 3 doesn't seem that much more demanding.

I am pretty sure that by the time Diablo 3 comes out, you will be able to play it on high settings on a dirt cheap computer. My computer is sub-par by last year's standards too. I am pretty sure D3 will stay in the tradition of being accessible by poor computers.

[Widukind]

Blizzard is known for keeping their games playable on lower end rigs and I think Diablo III will be no exception.

[lukefojut]

There is a comment from Elly's live blog to indicate that this will be the case, I just wonder what will be taken as being a 'normal' spec these days. I feel that a lot of the current crop of gamers will have quite old machines in relative terms.

[blackrocksword]

Hi Lukefojut.

Physics engine is mainly used for the animations. I believed it was used in Unreal Tournament 3 too.

By the time D3 is released, most PCs should have more than enough horsepower to run it. From the screenshots, it does not seem like D3 is a really demanding game. A mainstream machine of today should be able to handle it without much issues I would think.

[Kiroptus]

physic are certainly a very nice touch for imersion and feeling of power. Certainly will make D3 a very fun game to play and watch.

And it seems that even nowdays, most machines would be able to run D3 with no problem. Its graphics and physics arent that far from TQ which is a pretty old game.

[ohnoyellowdinosaur]

There is a comment from Elly's live blog to indicate that this will be the case, I just wonder what will be taken as being a 'normal' spec these days. I feel that a lot of the current crop of gamers will have quite old machines in relative terms.

The game won't be out until a year or two, and even now I can't see a computer costing more than 400 to adequately run Diablo 3. Never mind when the game actually comes out.

[Bioburg]

Heeeeeeee Luke

I hope they will release a Linux version as well, otherwise I hope the my Virtual winXP will be able to handle it just like it's doing now :)

And in 2 years time I should have completed my study which means I can really try it out ;)

I will probably using a Mac as well then so running the game shouldn't be a problem at all :D

[poroboszcz]

Basicaly physics mean that the way the environment reacts to your actions is being rendered in the real time. For example when you hit an object the phisics engine calculates how it will behave rather than just triggering some simple animation. It adds a lot of realism and eye candy to the game. The havoc phisics has already been used in Half Life 2.
Imho physics in Diablo will be an awsome thing. My biggest concern atm is PvP. The game looks somehow less dynamic and fast paced than D2.

[Elly]

Destructable environment is the need for an enhanced physics engine and it does look awesome. The tradeoff is the total number of players in the party which has not been set yet but Blizzard has said they will set the player cap based on performance and that they aim to make it so as many people as possible can play the game, like all Blizzard titles.

[Mythor]

If you want to see an example of the physics engine at work you don't need to watch very far into the gameplay trailer. As the Barbarian smashes some of the ghouls you'll see them sent flying across the room. When he kills some on the bridge, they fall back off. One in particular hits the edge of the bridge and the body bends around the point of impact and tumbles down, instead of just landing on the edge and having half his body hanging over nothingness. :)
Later in the gameplay trailer you can see more physics, with falling walls, the bridge collapsing, various bits of debris being flung around by Barbarian smash attacks.

If you're expecting a computer that was new at the time of Diablo II's release to run Diablo III, I think you're going to be disappointed. But I think if you've gotten a new computer in the last 3 years you'll probably be fine, though you may have to turn some of the pretty effects off. That's just the way of the world though, the important bit is whether it'll run...

[Lyrs]

There's some kind of physics going on, but after reading the analysis on some of the light-ray related topics, it doesn't look like D3 uses much in the way of realistic lighting beyond shadows and flares.

[Netherscourge]

Blizzard never makes games that demand high-end systems. The yWANT everyone to play their games, not just tech-geeks.

I suspect any sort of Dual-CPU system with 2 GB's of Ram and a PCIexpress 16X VIdeo Card will suffice for DIablo 3.


BTW - Havok Physics is in just about EVERY 3D game now. It makes the character and monster models more life-like and interactable.

"Rag doll" physics is the term. Bodies flying, slumping, rolling, buckling, exploding, imploding - you name it, you can do it with a good physics system :)

[Mythor]

I suspect any sort of Dual-CPU system with 2 GB's of Ram and a PCIexpress 16X VIdeo Card will suffice for DIablo 3.I'd be shocked if the requirements are that high. Single core, 1GB RAM and probably GeForce 6800 or newer (AGP or PCI-E isn't that big an issue, it's the capabilities of the card that are important). That's for "bare minimum". I expect your stated system would probably be mid to high, depending on how good a dual-CPU you've got and which video card.

[Malrenn]

I will take a stab at predicting the minimum system reqs:
P4 3.0 processor or better.
1gb RAM on XP
7300 or better GPU
some disc space

Recommended:
E6600 or better CPU
8xxx series or better card
4 gigs RAM on Vista
some disc space
a total guess no flames please lol

[Netherscourge]

I wonder if they are going to add DirectX 10 graphics or keep it simple with DX9?


I think Shader Model 3.0 with DX9 would make it sell better.

It looks like DX9 in that 20 min demo video.

With a Iso-Locked view, It seems the graphics engine would not have to be very advanced.

[Solarious]

If we're going to have collapsing walls, you'll need to have an isometric view to keep them from collapsing the wrong way all the time. :p

Besides, there's nothing like watching hordes of ghouls climb up the depths of the tomb/crypt/masoleum/random-evil-place, meeting them on a bridge, then hacking them to bits and watching the pieces rain back down to where they belong.

[Spankeh]

Physics is one of these could/would/should I try/buy/deny type of areas for some time but things have changed somewhat.

With nVidia recently buying out Aegias' PhysiX, and ATi using the Havok engine:
Is this going to be some sort of format war for games?
What if I have an nVidia card, and Diablo3 uses havok for physics, will I be denied these awesome effects?

[popalot]

tey gonna use ray tracing for this

[derek39]

physics engine is only the destrutible enviornments and how things in the game react to each other when it is killed or blown up or interacted with.

[j_vellinne]

Physics is one of these could/would/should I try/buy/deny type of areas for some time but things have changed somewhat.

With nVidia recently buying out Aegias' PhysiX, and ATi using the Havok engine:
Is this going to be some sort of format war for games?
What if I have an nVidia card, and Diablo3 uses havok for physics, will I be denied these awesome effects?

I want to say there was some sort of DirectPhysics API being looked at/created/etc. I haven't really kept up.

As a current example, City of Heroes (MMO) picked up the Aegia PhysX engine some time ago - just needed a driver, didn't need the card or specialized hardware for the effects. If they don't write to specific hardware, it shouldn't be an issue (and who really writes to specific hardware post-3dfx?)

Wild guess at specs - "If it can run Titan Quest, it can run this." Anything past, oh, a Socket 754/Pentium 4, 1 Gb (1.5-2 recommended, more on Vista if you have everything turned up,) 7-series GeForce card class or later (6, probably, but those'll be pretty long in the tooth on release.)

Recommended will be a decent dual/tri/quad core (hoepfully they'll take good advantage of multithreading,) 2 Gb RAM, DX10 compatible video card (GF9 series class or later,) and Vista. (Win7 should be "due" around then, right? Of course, with MS release schedules... probably not.)

Macs? Anything past Mac Mini/macbook, Intel based, current generation will probably be fine, depending on what Apple does in the OS.

[Leohappy]

remember, the game has been in development for at least four years, so they started out with video cards in the radeon 9600/9800 category. most likely these are going to be the minimum spec, except if they decide to put pixel shader 3.0 or higher as requirement, which i seriously doubt.

and most likely they are making an engine that will adapt well to a fast paced game, so don't expect top of the line graphics. just like d2 in 2/00, this game is most likely going to look somewhat outdated when it's finally released in 2/10 or 2/11.

[lukefojut]

Sorry if anyone misunderstood - I'm quite familiar with what a physics engine should do, but have found that a questioning or vaguely inflammatory title on these boards can be useful if you're trying to stir up a decent discussion.

Bearing in mind the comments made by Elly (and others), I assume that physics animations (for want of a better expression) can be handled by mainstream graphics cards? I realise that there are standalone cards for handling these sorts of comptations available on the market, but think that it's safe enough to say that these are still fairly esoteric compared to the needs of the casual/moderate gamer?

Thanks for all the input guys - any further heresay and posturing about minimum specs would be welcome.

I'm currently running a laptop with an Ati X1600 Graphics Card? a dual core processor and a couple gigs of Ram. Not too worried that I'll be able to run the new game, as it's significantly overpowered for most games I play atm.

[Leohappy]

physics engine simply means, you have a world that reacts in a physical way. when you hit someone with a shield, you bounce back realistically. fireball explosion will cause objects to fly in random directions. this doesn't have anything to do with your graphic card, it's a cpu calculation.
and more importantly, physic engine is nothing new, most nowadays games will have one of these, either custom built or havok. they are usually not very hard on your cpu either, probably between 5-10%.

[Kingston]

"I realise that there are standalone cards for handling these sorts of comptations available on the market, but think that it's safe enough to say that these are still fairly esoteric compared to the needs of the casual/moderate gamer?"

These exotic physics cards never really took off. Iirc they even slowed down performance on some systems. I do believe physics calculation is done with the processor and not video card normally.

"I'm currently running a laptop with an Ati X1600 Graphics Card? a dual core processor and a couple gigs of Ram."

That should run the game just fine, methinks.

[ScytheNoire]

To clear up some of the misinformation in here.
There are two main physics programs out there.

Havok was bought by Intel and makes use of the CPU processor.
PhysX was bought by nVidia and makes use of the GPU processor and formerly the addin physics cards which are now obsolete.

The GPU is many, many times more powerful (hundred fold) and efficient when doing physics.

If you own a GeForce 8 series card or newer, you have a physics engine graphics card, as they have been built in since then to do physics.

The nVidia program Cuda allows the GPU to be utilized for applications beyond just graphics, such as physics and folding programs, and many others.

ATI's graphic cards can do physics, and could do it, if AMD decides to take that route. AMD has been sitting back though and out of this fight between Intel and nVidia.

So while Blizzard went with the less powerful physics program, they have never been cutting edge, and any multi-core CPU should be able to handle things just fine.

[poroboszcz]

physics engine simply means, you have a world that reacts in a physical way. when you hit someone with a shield, you bounce back realistically. fireball explosion will cause objects to fly in random directions. this doesn't have anything to do with your graphic card, it's a cpu calculation.

Nowadays it's rather GPU that does the calculations, which is much more efficient.


ATI's graphic cards can do physics, and could do it, if AMD decides to take that route. AMD has been sitting back though and out of this fight between Intel and nVidia.


Actually ATI has just adopted Intel's Havok. Apparently ATI cards are also able to support PhysX while Nvidia doesn't support Havok.

Some interesting readings:
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/06/30/blizzard-snubs-nvidia-diablo
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/AMD-Havok-physics,5646.html

[ThulRasha]

Nowadays it's rather GPU that does the calculations, which is much more efficient.

Actually ATI has just adopted Intel's Havok. Apparently ATI cards are also able to support PhysX while Nvidia doesn't support Havok.

Some interesting readings:
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/06/30/blizzard-snubs-nvidia-diablo
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/AMD-Havok-physics,5646.html

AMD adopted Havoc for their CPUs, not for the ATI GPUs.

At least, that is what that second links (toms hardware) says.

[Swiffer]

There is a comment from Elly's live blog to indicate that this will be the case, I just wonder what will be taken as being a 'normal' spec these days. I feel that a lot of the current crop of gamers will have quite old machines in relative terms.

If you havnt upgraded your machine since LoD came out, expect to have trouble running Diablo 3.

That is my guess at least. Yes, Blizzard try and make their games run on as many systems as possible, but even they need to move forward eventually in what the minimum they expect is.

[yo-yo~delta]

Like many games now days, I expect that people with high-end cards will benefit from them, and low-end card owners will still have a very playable game. Like Hellgate:London, You can turn the specs way down and play it on a 6xxx series card, or max everything and AA max with an 8800 something. There should always be bonuses to having a better card, such as AA.

I read through some of the pre-D2 info on this site's archives that show old animations for skills that were scrapped by Blizzard for being to demanding. So Blizzard does maintain this in their decision-making, no worries.

[Arkansaw]

I hope something like a 6800GT would still be enough....but the further the delay the more unlikely it is going to be.

[yo-yo~delta]

I would think this game would come out in about 2 years. 6800GT is already quite old. Really, low end 8 and 9 series cards are much better and cheaper than 6800s. In 2 years time, most people with computers 2 years old NOW will have already replaced them.

[Arkansaw]

I would think this game would come out in about 2 years. 6800GT is already quite old. Really, low end 8 and 9 series cards are much better and cheaper than 6800s. In 2 years time, most people with computers 2 years old NOW will have already replaced them.

Yeah, but even now I'm aware that some pple are still using things older than XP.
Most of what I do with the computer now, don't even require the full functionality of a Geforce 6. Yeah there are things like Mass Effect, but I doubt D3 will go into that direction with state-of-the-art gfx as its biggest selling point

[CoQui]

Physics are a standard now in gaming. Just about every game, no matter what kind, has physics of some type. They threw physics into SC2 even and that's RTS. Although plenty other RTS games have already implemented physics into it. I think Diablo 3 will be awesome with physics. Watching bodies and parts fly everywhere looks like fun. Loved watching the barbarian leap attack all over the place sending corpses flying. Not to mention the interactive environments they can now have to add to the immersion into the game. The physics in the cloths is a nice touch so you can see it move realistically as you move your characters around. Armor won't look as static anymore.

[ThulRasha]

I hope something like a 6800GT would still be enough....but the further the delay the more unlikely it is going to be.

Why would you think that?
Sure the 6800GT is old and some of the newer cards are way faster, but if you compare it to an 8600GT for example, then the difference is not so big:
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=180&card2=513

Do you have any reason to asume that Blizzard will only support hardware physics or that they will require you to have pixel shader 4.0?
If not, then your old card will still be enough to handle the game.

I would think this game would come out in about 2 years. 6800GT is already quite old. Really, low end 8 and 9 series cards are much better and cheaper than 6800s. In 2 years time, most people with computers 2 years old NOW will have already replaced them.

The low end 8 series suck. They are not even meant for gaming.
His old 6800GT card is quite a bit faster than a 8500GT:
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=180&card2=514

I would hardly call that a better card, even if it supports DX10 and PS4.0, wich Diablo3 might not even use.

Perhaps you mean the 8600 card when you said low end 8 series?

[Fists of War]

I'm thinking the minimum reqs are going to be much higher than anyone has suggested, at least to run on a medium or high setting. If the release is looking like 2 years or so, a lot of things will have changed. DirectX 11, maybe a new version of windows, many new graphics card generations etc.

Also, on another forums I saw a comment in response to SC2's graphics in the gameplay trailer...

"Graphics quality in gameplay demos usually is set to low"

Another thing, the quality of a gameplay video is always a lot worse than the actual game. This is simply because you're seeing a recording that almost always is recorded at a quality lower than the actual player playing in the recording will see. The colour tends to have a much lower contrast as well, and is often a bit washed out.

Based on all those things, I'm willing to bet D3's graphics will be a lot better than they currently seem/are when the game is released, and as such system reqs will be higher than those predicted.

[RedawgTS]

Blizzard always makes their games so that people using 2 year old systems can play them. So there might be DX10 support but I highly doubt there will be DX11 support.

[RyTEK]

[QUOTE=ThulRasha;6618814]Why would you think that?
Sure the 6800GT is old and some of the newer cards are way faster, but if you compare it to an 8600GT for example, then the difference is not so big:
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=180&card2=513

You do have a good point, not much of a diff between 6800s and 8600s. That said, I don't think D3 will work very well on a 6800 considering the 6800s performance in games from as far back as early 2007.

Indeed, on paper, it seems that the 6800 wins out in several important arenas such as pixel and texture fill rates. But the big problem is that it lacks in the memory bus, and falls behind in real-world gaming applications. This, I believe will make D3 run very shabbily on 6800s. Here are some examples just taking the top two games from a Tomshardware rundown:

3Dmark06:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/graphics-cards/3dmark06-v1-0-2-hdr-sm3-0-score,538.html

Battlefield 2142:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-vga-charts/battlefield-2142,550.html?p=1614%2C1594%2C1595%2C1577%2C1593%2 C1583%2C1592%2C1573%2C1586%2C1636%2C1568%2C1588%2C 1610%2C1633%2C1632%2C1638%2C1607%2C1575%2C1627%2C1 629%2C1617%2C1563

You have a very good point... there is only a 50 to 100% difference in performance even though 2 generations have passed. But by the time D3 drops, using the oldest shader model 3.0 cards will make for a pretty mediocre gaming experience. Remember, a 100% performance decrease can turn 30fps into 15fps. I know we aren't all made of money, but 2 years from now, a 9-series card (or AMD equivalent) with newer shader models and a strong memory bus will be ~$100 USD depending on the model.

[Punkonjunk]

I would have thought the same thing until I'd played a few games using HAVOK - Requiem and HGL are two of them. it really makes things more realistic. It add's a cute touch to every, single death and is something I personally would really like to see.

As for sysreqs, I'd like to hope they range to support for bleeding edge graphics to can be played on a system still trucking with a low-end agp card. :)

[yo-yo~delta]

@ThulRasha

I would consider the 8600 the low end of the 8000 series, because the lower ones, as you said, aren't for gaming. 8600 vs 8800 in price is huge, and the 8600 and 6800's are actually similarly priced even though the 8600 is better. In 2 years, an "old" 8800GT will be relatively cheap but will likely play D3 very well.

Still, I would expect as in many games, a wide range of workability. Low-end cards can play with lower resolution and less bells and whistles; high-end cards will give access to the shiniest D3 possible.

[Fists of War]

In 2 years, an "old" 8800GT will be relatively cheap but will likely play D3 very well.
We can only hope so! I paid $450 for my 8800GT ~7 months ago (overpriced I know) and I'm hoping it'll run SC2 and hopefully D3 at 1400x900 at full settings...

[RyTEK]

We can only hope so! I paid $450 for my 8800GT ~7 months ago (overpriced I know) and I'm hoping it'll run SC2 and hopefully D3 at 1400x900 at full settings...

I'm not a huge fan of SLI-mode since you can normally get better performance out of 1 new card... that said, perhaps if your computer is lagging in performance when SC2 drops (and you have an SLI mobo), you can grab another 8800GT and set them up in SLI. 8800GTs can be found for ~$150 now and probably less by the time SC2 drops. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130319

[MooCQ]

if you have enuff to power that hog .. windows.. the physics engine will be a breeze..