PhysX physics engine

Some games built with older versions of the PhysX API (before 2.7.1, used until sometime in 2008) may fail to initialize with a more recent PhysX System Software version. The older PhysX drivers distributed with these games might fail to install on a system that is already running a newer version. This source of error can be hard to determine since some games do not specifically mention PhysX as a cause in their crash error messages. For these games, NVIDIA provides a Legacy version of the PhysX system software, which supports these older games and can be installed alongside more recent versions.

Some may have issues starting Windows games using PhysX and the cause is pointed out to be PhysX for some reason. One solution is to uninstall PhysX, use regedit to delete all folders named Ageia, and then re-installing newest PhysX driver. This is likely caused by something being left in the registry from earlier PhysX release by Ageia. The NVidia's releases don't seem to have the same issue, so there should be need to do this only once (unless you do something stupid).

The PhysX driver falls back to software emulation when dedicated hardware - such as a PhysX add-in card or CUDA-enabled GPU (GeForce 8 series and newer) - is not available. Benchmarks and user experience suggests that there's no noticeable performance difference with software emulation except with simulating cloth deformation (barely used in games, so far).

Cross-platform support for Windows, Linux, Wii, X360 and PS3.

Unlike Havok, the SDK is available for all developers (commercial or not) and without fee (see the PhysX SDK link).

Version 2.5.1 and later also included support for 64-bit CPUs and Vista.

[[link:/groups/info/unrealengine3 Unreal Engine 3]] has integrated PhysX support.