PhysX questions

[G.M.]

From the wiki:
Use PhysX simulation
This option is required for certain functions such as particle effect collisions
(and at a later date, other physics related features).
It generally has a small impact on performance, but can have a massive effect on performance in some scenarios
(e.g. where there are lots of particle effects in a scene).


If i go to the Trainz TRS19 main directory, I see 9 .dll (Dynamic Link Libraries) starting with PhysX
total over 33MB (is more than the Trainz executable its self)


I have it turned off here, because I found on many loc's, steam was at the wrong place.
someone tipped me, to turn PhysX off.


Do people use it? what is better/are the benefits if you turn it on?
Is still work being done on this?

 

[JCitron]

Hi G.M.

The PhysX part is still broken and is on the list of things to be addressed at some point(tm). With the PhysX engine enabled, we have goofy smoke as you observed, but there are other adverse performance issues including a whopping drop in overall program performance, purely awful stuttering, pauses and other weirdness that goes beyond what we already deal with.

 

[G.M.]

Oki John TY,
so the current best advice is probably just turn it off, until it's fixed

 

[JCitron]

Oki John TY,
so the current best advice is probably just turn it off, until it's fixed

Yup. It sure is.

 

[grazlash]

I turned PhysX SIMULATION off in Trainz because it conflicts with the PhysX on my graphics card. Use the global setting for it in nVidia control panel.

Cheers Graeme

 

[ZecMurphy]

Hi All
The 'Enable PhysX Simulation' option will, currently, turn extended particle effect collisions on/off.

On a route that uses content designed to take advantage of PhysX (ie content with suitably made collision meshes) , it can be a useful feature in Trainz. However as most content isn't designed to take advantage of this, you may see strange or unwanted behavior. One such example is where you drive under a scenery object that forms a bridge, and the smoke effect becomes 'offset' because the emitter (ie the smoke attachment point) ends up within the collision box of that scenery object.

That said, even with this option turned off, particle effect collisions do still occur with the terrain no matter what. Note that turning PhysX on within your NVidia settings will not enable the other particle effect collisions, as they are still turned off within Trainz itself.

Regards

 

[G.M.]

Thanks for explaining that Zec.
So specially Bridges/Tunnels would need that collision mesh first.
is it possible to make simple meshes and add to content later?
thinking loud FI: PEVcollisionmaker
Hope it will be useful in the future.

 

[JCitron]

Thanks for explaining that Zec.
So specially Bridges/Tunnels would need that collision mesh first.
is it possible to make simple meshes and add to content later?
thinking loud FI: PEVcollisionmaker
Hope it will be useful in the future.

There is something like that already, but I can't remember who made them. They're an invisible track-object that fits under bridges. For tunnels, that would be difficult unless that could be applied to tunnel portals.

 

[G.M.]

TY John, will search for it and maybe study what a collision mesh actually is
(in my current idea the outward boundary of any mesh placed)
Thinking further, in the past we needed to make shadow meshes for everything
Now Trainz can do that all by its self.
Who knows in the future Trainz can also create its own collision mesh/info,
from the provided mesh data. It already does so from the terrain.