Nvidia GameWorks is a
middleware
Middleware is a type of computer software program that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue".
Middleware makes it easier for software developers to imple ...
software suite
A software suite (also known as an application suite) is a collection of computer programs (application software, or programming software) of related functionality, sharing a similar user interface and the ability to easily exchange data with eac ...
developed by
Nvidia
Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...
. The Visual FX, PhysX, and Optix SDKs provide a wide range of enhancements pre-optimized for Nvidia
GPU
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...
s.
GameWorks is partially
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
.
The competing solution being in development by AMD is
GPUOpen
GPUOpen is a middleware software suite originally developed by AMD's Radeon Technologies Group that offers advanced visual effects for computer games. It was released in 2016. GPUOpen serves as an alternative to, and a direct competitor of Nvid ...
, which was announced to be
free and
open-source software
Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...
under the
MIT License
The MIT License is a permissive software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts very few restrictions on reuse and therefore has high license compatibility.
Unl ...
.
Components
Nvidia Gameworks consists of several main components:
* VisualFX: For rendering effects such as smoke, fire, water, depth of field, soft shadows, HBAO+, TXAA, FaceWorks, and HairWorks.
*
PhysX
PhysX is an Open-source software, open-source Real-time computer graphics, realtime physics engine middleware Software development kit, SDK developed by Nvidia as part of the Nvidia GameWorks software suite.
Initially, video games supporting Ph ...
: For physics, destruction, particle and fluid simulations.
*
OptiX
Nvidia OptiX (OptiX Application Acceleration Engine) is a Ray tracing (graphics), ray tracing API that was first developed around 2009. The computations are offloaded to the GPUs through either the low-level or the high-level API introduced with ...
: For baked lighting and general-purpose ray-tracing.
* Core SDK: For facilitating development on Nvidia hardware.
In addition, the suite contains sample code for
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct" ...
and
OpenGL
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typic ...
developers, as well as tools for debugging, profiling, optimization, and
Android development.
See also
*
PhysX
PhysX is an Open-source software, open-source Real-time computer graphics, realtime physics engine middleware Software development kit, SDK developed by Nvidia as part of the Nvidia GameWorks software suite.
Initially, video games supporting Ph ...
*
GPUOpen
GPUOpen is a middleware software suite originally developed by AMD's Radeon Technologies Group that offers advanced visual effects for computer games. It was released in 2016. GPUOpen serves as an alternative to, and a direct competitor of Nvid ...
*
TressFX
AMD TressFX is a software library which provides for advanced simulation and rendering of hair, fur, and grass to be processed by the GPU. The initial library was written to perform well on AMD's GCN-based products. Version 3 was released on J ...
*
Havok (software)
Havok is a middleware software suite developed by the Irish company Havok. Havok provides physics engine, navigation, and cloth simulation components that can be integrated into video game engines.
In 2007, Intel acquired Havok Inc. In 2008, Ha ...
References
External links
Nvidia GameWorks
{{Video game engines
Free and open-source software
Middleware for video games
Nvidia software
Video game development software