When Ageia was running the PhysX game the biggest complain (other than needing another card in an increasingly crowded system) was the lack of game support. The second complaint right on the heels of the first was that even in games that supported PhysX there was nothing big to motivate anyone to want to spend the extra money.
Now that nVidia has taken over these questions are still there but the Green team is working very hard to answer them. With that in mind we show you Cryostasis, the first game ever to include PhysX accelerated fluid. Using SPH (smoothed particle hydrodynamics) Cryostasis will be able to simulate fluid in a way never seen before.
Although we do not have the full game we do have a rendering demo (time demo) to show off what the game should be capable of.
Product: Cryostasis Tech Demo
Author: Sean Kalinich
Reviewed on: December 14th 2008
Product cost: N/A
Spelling and Grammatical editor: Planetx64 Staff
{mospagebreak title=The Test Systems} The systems:
Intel QX9770
Asus P5E64 WS Evolution
2 GB Kingston DDR3 1625MHz RAM
Western Digital 150GB RaptorX HDD
XFX Black Edition GTX 260 (216 Cores)
eVGA 9800GTX+ (used as GPU and for PhysX with the GTX 260)
Sapphire HD 4850 X2 2GB
Sapphire HD 4870 512MB
Asus PhysX P1 card (for additional testing)
Intel Core i7 965 @4011Mhz (191×21)
Asus P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition
3GB Kingston DDR3 2000MHz RAM
2x Zotac AMP! Edition GTX 280s (in SLI)
147GB 15k RPM Seagate SAS HDD
All systems running Microsoft Windows Vista x64 Ultimate
180.48 drivers were used for nVidia
8.12 drivers used for all ATi cards
Using the Agiea card was something of a pain as I had to install the drivers from Asus, then install the nVidia PhysX kit from the 180.48 drivers then update the driver for the card to the compatible one for the 8 series PhysX package. From there I had to set the PhysX hardware support to Agiea in the nVidia PhysX control panel.
What a mess.
{mospagebreak title=First Impressions}
First Impressions:
Cryostasis is going to be a first person Horror/Survival game. The plot centers around an Ice Wrecked nuclear powered ice breaker called the North Wind. You take the part of Alexander Nesterov a Russian Meteorologist who has come to investigate.
Once you arrive you find that something terrible has befallen the crew, the intense cold has changed them into horrifying undead monsters.
Through out the game the cold theme continues and with melting ice, frozen items (that thaw when you heat up the room or item) and the usual mist that comes from extreme cold.
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In the demo this is shown off in several areas with impressive effect. One thing that did get me though, the way the water looks is very odd. In the opening scenes of the demo there is a figure that is being pelted by water the droplets are so large as to be comical. The water also has the appearance of mercury (it is a little too pale blue and shiny). The water on the floor also looks more like oil than water as it clumps together and remains that way instead of forming a thin film or puddle.
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One last comment on the way the water works in one scene in the demo.In this part you push metal barrels into a pool at the bottom of a room. These barrels almost seem to bounce off of the surface of the water like it is a trampoline and not a pool. (I think they need to turn down the static resistance on the fluid).
Now if this all sounds like I am slamming the game I am not, it is a great leap forward and I am sure much of this will be ironed out before launch.
If nothing else the rest of the PhysX simulations in this game should be enough to make it well worth the extra coding effort.
See more Planetx64 in demo Screenshots here
See nVidia provided Screenshots here
{mospagebreak title=Performance}
Performance:
As you can see performance on the nVidian cards is exceptional while ATi lags behind even with a PhysX card thrown in for good measure (in fact the Agiea card did nothing as it did not seem to be recognized by the game at all). Now one thing that I did notice is that the addition of a 2nd nVidia GPU did not improve overall performance by much. I setup what was a believable upgrade (8800GTX to GTX 260 and 8800GTX to 9800GTX+) and left the 8800GTX in the system to do PhysX calculations. Using this we only saw a less than 7FPS increase. With the starting point at 33.9 this 6.3 FPS increase comes to 18% jump. This is far less than the 60% touted by some sites and nVidia.
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But then again when you are testing a PhysX demo for a future “The Way It’s Meant to be Played game what do you expect? No matter the Card or CPU if you were not using nVidia’s PhysX you can expect a 10FPS cap even 2 GTX 280s in SLI only managed 15.2 FPS.
{mospagebreak title=Final Thoughts}
Final Thoughts:
Cryostasis looks like it will be a nice game, unfortunately at this time I cannot see anything that would compel someone to switch from ATi to nVidia. The PhysX are nice and I am sure the fluid simulations will improve before the release of the full game. But unfortunately they are not enough of a lure. As the game nears and we can see more of what is behind this title things might change. But I can say that if the tech demo mimics the final game performance there might also be some sales issues as no one using an ATi card will be picking this game up.
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