NVIDIA PhysX SDK

NVIDIA PhysX SDK is a middleware product designed to implement complex interactions in modern games, aiming to deliver a smooth environment to the end-user. What made it a popular choice among game developers is the rich support for devices, as well as the performance and robustness it can carry out.

Although the term SDK would suggest that the product targets programmers exclusively, this is not the case here. As a secondary purpose, NVIDIA PhysX SDK has been proven to assist researchers, students or educators in complex simulations or in the production of high-quality digital content.

However, the product is aimed primarily at developers. As a multi-threaded physics engine, it helps programmers to create and shape sophisticated game environments and interactions without writing code. This minimizes efforts and results in an increased efficiency and productivity especially for large companies that develop more than one game at a time.

NVIDIA PhysX SDK can take pride in being the basis of a couple hundreds of games, which quickly escalated it to the top of the list in its category. Games developed with the NVIDIA PhysX SDK benefit from the CUDA-enabled technology that makes the most of modern GPUs without taking a toll on the Central Processing Unit (CPU) of the computer.

Features include body and vehicle dynamics (both rigid and soft), character controllers, collision detection (discrete and continuous), as well as cloth and volumetric fluid simulation, ragdolls, raycasting and shape weeps. All of these are able to deliver a realistic gameplay to the end-user, with state-of-the-art effects and fine performance.

The SDK is available for multiple platforms, including MAC OS X, Linux, Playstation 3, Wii and Xbox 360. A few examples of games and software that use the NVIDIA PhysX SDK are Need for Speed, Mafia, Bulletstorm, Unity 3D, Gamebryo and Vision, to name just a few.

In conclusion, NVIDIA PhysX SDK includes one of the most complete and complex game development environments available on the market today. It carries out the purpose of creating better graphics and games beautifully.