NVIDIA provides early look at PhysX with Mirror's Edge - The Slides

Mirror's Edge is a game that is getting a lot of attention behind the scenes and internally as the next big game to really take advantage of the latest PC technology. It is a first person action-adventure video game developed by EA Digital Illusions CE (D.I.C.E.) - it has already been released last month on PS3 and Xbox 360, but the PC version is still getting its final touches.

NVIDIA is the main folk pushing the upcoming title, due out sometime in January by DICE and EA. Unless you've been hiding under a rock for some time now, one major technology feature NVIDIA is really pushing is PhysX on the GPU.

Today we get an early look one of the next biggest games to take advantage of GPU PhysX and we even have a video to show you which demonstrates the difference with the physics technology enabled and disabled, side by side.

First off, though, let's go over several slides that NVIDIA sent over to us promoting the new game and its technology.

The first batch of slides explains in NVIDIA's words the benefits of PhysX in Mirror's Edge.

 

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Below you can see some performance claims made by NVIDIA under Mirror's Edge with GPU PhysX enabled. The comparison is made between ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 (216 core) parts. Up to 89% faster performance claims are made and being an NVIDIA supported game, these types of claims aren't unusual.

 

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Following on with the rest of the slides, NVIDIA has introduced SLi Multi-Card for PhysX which, for example, allows you to upgrade to something like a new GeForce GTX 280 card and continue using an older card such as a GeForce 9800 GT to completely handle PhysX in supported games.

 

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Now you can even select which GPU is to be dedicated to handling PhysX in the NVIDIA Control Panel - as you can see below.

 

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In internal tests with Mirror's Edge using a new GeForce GTX 260 (216 core) and 9800GT, up to 68% performance increases are seen from dedicating the GeForce 9800GT as the PhysX GPU.

 

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Move onto the next page for the video preview!