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Dark Physics & Dark A.I. & Dark Dynamix / Dark Physics on machines with no NVIDIA GPU

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protomni
13
Years of Service
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Joined: 31st Jul 2010
Location: Brazil
Posted: 1st Aug 2010 01:00
Hello,
Since this is my first post, I believe it is common etiquette to briefly introduce myself: my name is Pedro, I am a Brazilian musician and programmer, and it's been about a semester since I started working with DBPro. So far, I've succeeded at solving the doubts I had by searching these forums - after all, I am sure no one likes answering the same question over and over again - but this time I couldn't find any clue about what I describe below. Finally, if you ever happen to need some music for your projects, I am selling some very nice tracks in the store under the name Protomni Multimedia.
Well, I am making a game which uses Dark Physics amongst many other plugins, and everything was progressing smoothly until I decided it was time test it on two other machines that have Intel GMA onboard GPUs - unlike the desktop I use for programming, which has a Geforce 9600GT. On both laptops, when I run my executable, the screen goes black, just for a moment, before the application closes and the default browser loads the drivers page at nvidia.com.
I have already installed DirectX 9.0c and the NVIDIA Physx driver in each computer, but no luck.
Is there any way I can get DBPro software that relies on Dark Physics to run on computers with no NVIDIA GPU or should I just go with the Newton wrapper?
Thank you all very much in advance.

www.protomnimultimedia.com
Interplanetary Funk
13
Years of Service
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Joined: 19th Apr 2010
Location: Ipswich, United Kingdom
Posted: 3rd Aug 2010 01:09
update windows and the graphics drivers, that fixed it for me, and i'm on an ati card.
protomni
13
Years of Service
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Joined: 31st Jul 2010
Location: Brazil
Posted: 3rd Aug 2010 04:44
PlanetaryFunk, thank you very much for your suggestion. In order to troubleshoot this more easily, I will probably stay focused on getting my game functional on a netbook with an Intel GMA 450 - which is vital since I want to take my chances with the Intel AppUp store.
So, based on your tips, I realized that, although I had DX9.0c installed, it was not the most recent build - so I updated it just in case. I also tried different versions of the Physx drivers to verify if it is a version conflict. Finally, I also tried to update the GPU drivers but the latest were already installed.
Unfortunately, my game still closes right after launching - nothing but the immediately first black screen shows - but there is one difference: the browser is no longer directed to the drivers download page of NVIDIA. As for the OS, XP SP3 is up and running - so I think it can also be eliminated as the source of the problem.
Other relevant aspects:
-I have made sure DarkPhysics is set to run in software mode;
-The display mode is set to fullscreen, 1024x600, 32, which is exactly the correct configuration for the machine;
-Just to be clear: the netbook compiles my game successfully, the problem is running it;
-The Newton examples run just fine.
Well, if anyone has an idea, please let me know.
Moreover, I've got a question for Newton users: does the library allow the coder to create a physical representation of a whole level mesh at once, like DarkPhysics does, or is the user really required to build everything from the simple shapes provided? If the latter is true, is there a method you suggest for doing so? Is the Rigid Body Designer useful or do you recommend another approach?
Once more, I thank everyone who took the time to read this through and tried to come up with a solution.

www.protomnimultimedia.com
Interplanetary Funk
13
Years of Service
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Joined: 19th Apr 2010
Location: Ipswich, United Kingdom
Posted: 3rd Aug 2010 21:43 Edited at: 3rd Aug 2010 21:44
what version of windows are you using? I haven't any other suggestion than that, but I had to update windows (I'm on win7 32bit) and that installed everything required.
edit: if that's not clear, I had to use the live automatic update, also installing service pack 1 might help.

If that doesn't work contact TGC customer support or Nvidia directly, I've had no experience with Nvidia customer support though so I'm not sure how useful they'll be if at all.

I hope your problem gets sorted, I know how it feels to have something like this happen.
Braude Interactive
17
Years of Service
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Joined: 1st Aug 2006
Location: Sheffield, UK
Posted: 7th Aug 2010 13:45
as for Newton you can make a Convex Hull or something, it's been a while since I used it, but basically it wraps a mesh around the object and kinda smoothes over it a bit, like wrapping oranges in a net. But it's really very good and the collisions are still spot on, I guess you'd only get issues if you had a very small tunnel or something.

But Newton just feels so cumbersome for me, I'm actually thinking about using DarkPhysics lol, I just bought it
protomni
13
Years of Service
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Joined: 31st Jul 2010
Location: Brazil
Posted: 7th Aug 2010 17:42
Hello, my friends.

PlanetaryFunk, thank you once more for your assistance. The netbook is an Acer Aspire One AOA110, with the usual 1.6 GHz Atom processor, the aforementioned Intel GMA 450, and 1,5 GB of RAM, while it is running Windows XP SP3. I asked my brother-in-law to test my build with his Radeon - I do not remember which model, but it is one of the nicest, I suppose - and the game runs very well. Being so, since he just had to to install the PhysX drivers in order to get things going, I can only suppose I am doing something wrong - I just don't know what yet.

Braude Interactive, thank you also for your feedback and good advice. I have tested the demos that come bundled with the Newton wrapper and my Aspire One runs them with no trouble whatsoever - so it is, at least, a functional option if I do not succeed at getting PhysX to run on the machine. However, I must admit I also found Newton to be somewhat awkward - mainly because I can't just create a complex representation of my meshes without splitting them in simpler shapes - so I am little attached to the idea of developing this project with DarkPhysics in despite of this issue.

As I browsed through the Intel AppUp topic, I found a moderator recommending developers to not use DarkPhysics for netbook apps due to compatibility issues. Based on that, I decided to invest in a simpler shoot-'em-up concept which allows me to use the two-axis physics system of Box2D. I will post something more concrete about it when it is done and ready to submit.

I will let you know through this thread if I discover a solution for this PhysX issue I am facing. Meanwhile, if someone has any idea on this, please let me know.



www.protomnimultimedia.com
SH4773R
14
Years of Service
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Joined: 18th Jan 2010
Location: AMERICA!!!
Posted: 8th Aug 2010 07:05
i keep getting error on phy update # any help?

Who the hell is General Failure? And why is he trying to read my hard disk?

My software never has bugs. It just develops random features.
gwheycs62egydws
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 17th Aug 2009
Location: The World
Posted: 8th Sep 2010 10:42
you need
PhysX_8.09.04_SystemSoftware.exe\"
to make the \"Dark Physics\"

I have the special card but it dose not seem to work
just put a blue light

there is also an update to it
"PhysX_9.10.0513_SystemSoftware.exe\"

one there installed your set to go ;o)

Resourceful@shaw.ca

If a thought is Just a thought ~ so whats the main thought ?

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