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Dark Physics & Dark A.I. & Dark Dynamix / PhsyX without driver installs!

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bjadams
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Posted: 29th Mar 2008 11:09
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I am a new PhysX user and am quite happy with the various functions on offer in this package.

However I was very disappinted when I found out that any application I create using PhysX functions requires the end user to have to install the PhysX drivers on his machine.

What sold me to start using Dark Basic in the first place was that it created a single executable with all necessary dlls integrated in the exe, so distribution was pretty straightforward. Just click on the exe and it runs straight away.

However with PhysX this is not anymore possible.

Have I thrown away my $ or is there a way to incorporate the necessary PsysX DLLs in my application folder, so that the end user does not have to install any drivers?
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monotonic
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Posted: 29th Mar 2008 14:29
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There is no way around this, the user must install the drivers to run applications using PhysX. Personally I don't fell this is much of a problem, considering that once installed you are able to use a world class physics system.

Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more.
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BatVink
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Posted: 29th Mar 2008 15:49
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It is like wanting a .net application without installing .net, or a Flash game without installing Flash. The PhysX has to come from somewhere
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Olby
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Posted: 29th Mar 2008 16:22 Edited at: 29th Mar 2008 16:23
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Quote: "It is like wanting a .net application without installing .net, or a Flash game without installing Flash. The PhysX has to come from somewhere."


Yeah then explain how Rubux (PhysX Wrapper for Blitz3D) managed to work without drivers? I don't know how they achieved this but it did. Looks like their website currently is down so I cant give you a link. But it looks Blitz will always be a step ahead from DBPro in performance, stability and some other areas.


ACER Aspire 5920G: Core2Duo 2.2GHZ, 2GB, GeForce 8600M GT 1280MB, DirectX10, DBPro 6.7
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david w
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Posted: 29th Mar 2008 16:44
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Well you can always just use PHYSX without DP but you have to learn it. And then make your own .DLL for DBP. So do what you want. Personally I just learned PHYSX on my own.
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BatVink
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Posted: 29th Mar 2008 18:39
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Quote: "Yeah then explain how Rubux (PhysX Wrapper for Blitz3D) managed to work without drivers?"


By wrapping it. But then you are stuck with whatever version they used at the time. PhysX gets an incredible number of updates. Dark Physics takes advantage of any performance boosts by allowing the user to update it independently of the application.
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Olby
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Posted: 29th Mar 2008 21:56
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Quote: "By wrapping it. But then you are stuck with whatever version they used at the time. PhysX gets an incredible number of updates. Dark Physics takes advantage of any performance boosts by allowing the user to update it independently of the application."


I installed PhysX drivers when I bought my new PC back in November and they still have not released any new drivers. http://www.ageia.com/drivers/drivers.html

I guess Mike should did the same and everyone would be happy. I spoke to a lot of casual gamers and they all said that if a game requires additional drivers to install besides DX they tend to think that this is unprofessional and usually they are too lazy to do so.

Imagine if you are creating a small ball game that is 20MB zipped in size and you have to download additional (almost) 40 megs of drivers that only a few games require - now that is what I call a total useless implementation of PhysX in DBPro.


ACER Aspire 5920G: Core2Duo 2.2GHZ, 2GB, GeForce 8600M GT 1280MB, DirectX10, DBPro 6.7
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BatVink
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Posted: 30th Mar 2008 00:35
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Maybe we are looking at this from different perspectives.

PhysX was written for hardware, with the extra option of running it in software mode. At the moment we're in no-mans land, with the majority of people running it without hardware; I don't think this is how Ageia expected it to pan out. In a few months time, it will be back on the hardware where it really belongs, using CUDA on NVIDIA cards.

Back when 3D cards weren't in every PC and you wanted to run in software mode, you had all sorts of workarounds for different hardware configurations. The media was packed with alternative drivers and versions (remember 3dfx?) These days the difference is that you have the internet and one standard download.

Even today you get games that require you to download the latest drivers for your graphics card before they will run.
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Olby
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Posted: 30th Mar 2008 14:17
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Is still have my old 3dfx Voodoo 3000AGP card somewhere - man that was a beast in 1999/2000.

But what I am saying that look from a perspective of a simple gamer that plays our games on fathers computer or in office or somewhere else if they download a small game that requires to install drivers that are larger than the game they 99% will not even bother to download and install them. Then think about what games we are creating here. 99% of the games we have on these forums are not commercial low quality home brew games. For example if HL2, Stalker, FEAR or any other A+++ level game would require us to install drivers no one would moan.

I perfectly understand what are you saying and agree with this but on the other side gamers want to have fun (I am not talking about those hardcore techno geeks) and they don't want to be overwhelmed with another problem of installing something. There are many people that cant even install DX or even do not know what it is, know what I mean?

What I want to say that majority of A+++ games do not require us to install anything besides DX (and in case of OGL nothing at all). When I was playing Quake I/II or Half-Life (the golden era games) or any other top quality game back then even on my Voodoo I was not pushed to install anything additional (there where games that in order to work with 3dfx Glide required us to update the Glide dll file that was no bigger than a meg or two and not a 40meg installer)

Umm.. sorry for such a long post I just still cant understand (from 2006) why TGC could not wrap these drivers if it is quite easy for them to do. Look they do not release updated too frequently, they should do this.


ACER Aspire 5920G: Core2Duo 2.2GHZ, 2GB, GeForce 8600M GT 1280MB, DirectX10, DBPro 6.7
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bjadams
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Posted: 30th Mar 2008 21:19
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my initial query was NOT to have PysyX functions without PhysX libs, but if there is ANY WAY to have the dlls residing at least in your application folder so that no extra stuff has to be installed.

For example if Physx consists of 4-5 dlls, I would just have these in my application folder instead of having to have the PhysX drivers installed somewhere else.
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bjadams
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Posted: 31st Mar 2008 15:03
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Thanks to all the feedback to my initial post.

However IT IS possible to have PhysX applications without having to install the 30+MB drivers from Ageia, as after many painfull hours of testing & trial I have just achived that (using DarkGDK).

At the end I ended up with 5 dll files of 3.6mb in all in my application folder + a reg entry. I am trying to furthure minimise this "package" now...
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bjadams
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Posted: 31st Mar 2008 15:18
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I agree with OLBY, the Dark PhysX library should be wrappable and integrated in the DBpro / DarkGDK exes, and not have to depend on external DLLs or worst, having to install the 30mb Ageia drivers!

Today there are various tools to convert DLLs to LIBs so integrating Phsyx into the EXE should not be that difficult. I have just started with DBPro & Physx & DarkGDK since 3 days so I don't have that much technical knowledge, but I have already got rid of having to install the 30mb drivers.

After I bought this extention (Dark PhysX) and finding out that it was not integrated in my final exes I moved on to DarkGDK, hopeing that someone might develope a better solution or wrapper soon...
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VRMan3D
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Posted: 4th Apr 2008 20:34
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Way to go bjadams. Sounds like a nice option to have (your included dlls and reg merge solution). Perhaps have a simple flag to check for installed newer drivers and use those if the user has the better performing (perhaps) newer drivers? I'd like to be able to offer my customers that sort of install as well....

One thing that's nice about the TGC DarkPhysX setup is if you run your app on a clean machine, without ageia drivers installed, it will auto-launch the machine's browser and bring the poor confused, non-techno-geek to the PhysX drivers download page immediately. So at least they handled that pretty seamlessly. But your idea sounds excellent, especially for smaller tech demo size quickie downloads that people will lose interest in installing fast.

Please update us on your success. Are you planning on sharing your 'package' with the forum community?

Best regards,
-=VRMan=-

World Famous 3D Screensavers
-- http://www.vrman3d.com --
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bjadams
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Posted: 4th Apr 2008 22:06
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for now my "package" works as is.

however nvidia, who have recently took over physx, is going to do some reworking on the dlls, so most probably the "system" will change soon. if they manage to put all the physx stuff in 1 dll you can simply put the dll in the app folder and all this drivers problem will be solved.

will keep you updated...
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FINN MAN
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Posted: 8th Apr 2008 03:06
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bjadams can you attach your above state solution where you say you have "5 dll files of 3.6mb in all in my application folder + a reg entry".

http://www.militaryfreezone.org/
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bjadams
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Posted: 10th Apr 2008 13:47
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i have now made the "solution" dll free!

i am using MoleBox Pro to inlclude the necessary physx DLLs with my main exe (very simple to do)!

i still need to finalise how to write the necessary reg entry using dbpro commands.

i am away from my pc at home right now so i don't have anything at hand...

anyone else has alternative solutions especially using darkgdk?
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entomophobiac
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Posted: 10th Apr 2008 13:52
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Quote: "I spoke to a lot of casual gamers and they all said that if a game requires additional drivers to install besides DX they tend to think that this is unprofessional and usually they are too lazy to do so."


I guess they bugged out on the DirectX run-time applications as well? Their graphics card driver updates?

And of course, they would never update their Internet browsers, operative system or -- for that matter -- any compiler they're using for programming purposes?

Makes sense
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FINN MAN
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Posted: 11th Apr 2008 06:17
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bjadams I was trying to figure this out my self, while I did not figure out how to get the dlls into one dll I did figure out how to write to the reg. using command prompt you can use the command 'reg import' to import a reg file.

http://www.militaryfreezone.org/
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bjadams
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Posted: 11th Apr 2008 14:22
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i already have a reg file and import it that way. but i would prefer if i can write to the registry using the "write to registry" dbpro direct commands.

when i get back to homebase i will check these out
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FINN MAN
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Posted: 12th Apr 2008 23:36
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I don't think that the command "write to registry" has access to that part.

http://www.militaryfreezone.org/
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