Physics simulation software from NVIDIA for C++ applications. PhysX is a software development kit (SDK) for the Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Android, Apple iOS and Wii platforms. Used to enhance the realism in video games, it provides algorithms that simulate the movement of fluids, as well as soft bodies, such as cloth and hair, and rigid bodies, such as boxes and bones (human and animal structures). PhysX is also built into various game engines that developers use as the foundation for their video games.
The Physics of Collision
The primary purpose of physics simulation is to compute the behavior of objects when they bounce or bang into other objects. Soft body simulation requires the most computations and is typically handled by the graphics processing unit (see
GPU) rather than the CPU. Any processing in a PhysX algorithm that is offloaded to an NVIDIA GPU uses NVIDIA's CUDA programming interface (API) for execution. See
CUDA and
GPGPU.