AMD brings its FEMFX material physics libraries to GPUOpen

The next generation of consoles will bring with them a focus on CPU performance, with the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 seeing their most significant hardware upgrades on the CPU/Storage front, and not on the graphics side. 

Yes, both new consoles will release with hefty GPU upgrades, but with AMD’s Zen 2 processors comes the promise if monumental performance upgrades for both Sony and Microsoft’s console hardware. This could mean that next-gen games could see advanced physics return to the forefront of gaming, just like it had with early PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 titles. 

With this in mind, AMD has delivered ints FEMFX (Finite Element Method FX) CPU libraries onto GPUOpen, hoping to push games towards realistic material physics and deformation effects. These libraries are designed to multicore processors, making them useful in the next-generation hardware landscape. 

Both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are likely to utilise 8-core Zen 2 processors, making them extremely powerful, even when compared to a lot of gaming PCs. If developers utilise these libraries, they will help push gaming towards higher core count processors, while delivering more realistic physics in games. Thankfully, AMD’s Ryzen CPU released have helped make 6 core processors enter the mainstream CPU market, paving the way for more core-heavy games in the future. 

Below is a video where AMD discusses its FEM-based physics system, which is now available as part of an Unreal Engine Plugin. FEMFX is also available on GitHub. 
 

Features

– Elastic and plastic deformation
– Implicit integration for stability with stiff materials
– Kinematic control of mesh vertices
– Fracture between tetrahedral faces
– Non-fracturing faces to control shape of cracks and pieces
– Continuous collision detection (CCD) for fast-moving objects
– Constraints for contact resolution and to link objects together
– Constraints to limit deformation
– Dynamic control of tetrahedron material parameters
– Support for deforming a render mesh using the tetrahedral mesh