Nvidia and AMD focused on physics with PhysX 5.0 and FEMFX

Nvidia announced the debut of PhysX 5.0 during 2020. This is the new version of the technology dedicated to the US company's multi-platform physics, capable of scaling starting from smartphones up to the latest multi-core CPUs and GPUs.

PhisX is already integrated into popular game engines including the Unreal Engine and Unity3D, and runs on consoles, PCs and other devices. The PhisX SDK is open source, available under BSD 3 license. In version 5.0, PhysX will introduce support for a unified framework for the simulation of constrained particles.

In particular here is the support a “Finite Element Model” (FEM), a standard simulation technique for deformable bodies. It is widely used in the auto and production industries to accurately reproduce the structural strength of rigid and soft conglomerates. The developers will also be able to simulate liquids better but also clothes or ropes, as it will be possible to reproduce the aerodynamic resistance and the lifting.

However, Nvidia is not the only reality active on the physical front, even AMD is not idle. The company has announced that GPUOpen libraries welcome FEMFXi.e. Finite Element Method. It is the same technique introduced in PhysX 5.0. “Solid objects are represented as a mesh of tetrahedral elements, and each element has parameters relating to the materials that control rigidity, the way in which the volume changes with the deformation and the stress limits in the event of fracture or (permanent) plastic deformation. “.

FEMFX is a library that can take advantage of as many threads as it has available and therefore should make the most of the latest CPUs such as the Ryzen 9 3900X / 3950X which are often not fully used as not all games or software are able to use all cores available.