Nvidia announces PhysX support for PlayStation 4

Nvidia will be supporting Sony’s PlayStation 4 with its popular PhysX and Nvidia Apex software development kits (SDKs). Nvidia’s PhysX technology lets developers design real-time, real-world effects in games. Examples of PhysX can be seen in most of the AAA titles out there, the most famous of which include Batman: Arkham City and Borderlands 2. To see just what PhysX is capable of, check out the video:

Game designers use PhysX and Apex technologies for collision detection and simulation of rigid bodies, clothing, fluids, particle systems and more across a range of platforms, including PCs, game consoles, and mobile and handheld devices.

The Apex technology lets developers create intricate physics-enabled environments. They can expand the quantity and visual quality of destructible objects; make smoke and other particle-based fluids integral to gameplay, and create life-like clothing that interacts with the character’s body to achieve more realism.

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“Great physics technology is essential for delivering a better gaming experience and multi platform support is critical for developers,” said Mike Skolones, Product Manager for PhysX at Nvidia. “With PhysX and Apex support for PlayStation 4, customers can look forward to better games.”

Nvidia’s PhysX and Apex technologies are designed to run on a variety of CPU architectures and can be accelerated by any CUDA-based GPU, which includes Nvidia’s GeForce 8-series or higher.

This is surprising, as Sony revealed that the PlayStation 4 would be powered by AMD’s hardware. This could mean that the PS4 may have a dedicated Nvidia chip just to handle PhysX.

You’ll get PhysX on the PS4

Sony earlier confirmed that an AMD-based x86 processor and a GPU on par with the Radeon HD 7850 would be powering the console. It will have 8GB of unified high-speed memory and a “massive” hard drive. The new controller—dubbed the DualShock 4—will have a touch pad, a share button, a headphone jack and a light bar to identify players. The light bar also works much like the Move sensor through a 3D camera.

Epic Games has also announced that its next-gen engine—Unreal Engine 4—was available for PS4 games. The company also demonstrated the graphical capabilities of Unreal Engine 4 running on a PlayStation 4 with a short video.

The video gives us a look at what the in-game graphics of games running on Unreal Engine 4 will be like. The lighting and particle effects have a large amount of detail. While such effects and details could previously be seen in pre-rendered videos, this is a huge step forward for in-game graphics. It’s possible next-gen games with AAA-quality graphics will feature destructible environments, much like the current-gen Frostbite 3 engine.