PC Batman: Arkham Asylum delayed on account of PhysX

For PC gamers, Batman is going to be stuck in his Bat-cave a little bit longer. The delay is on the account of late inclusion of Nvidia PhysX support.

Originally scheduled to be simultaneously released with the console versions on August 25th, the PC version has now been pushed back to September 15th in North America, and the 18th in Europe.

For those of you who are not familiar with PhysX, it is a proprietary game physics engine owned by GPU manufacturer Nvidia. The PhysX property was developed by a company called Ageia. They attempted to sell add-on, expansion physics processor cards for computers, but had a somewhat difficult time convincing game developers to add support for PhysX when there was such a small userbase to appreciate the changes, and thus, had a hard time convincing gamers to buy secondary, devoted physics processing hardware. 

Generally PhysX support is included in games earlier on in the development cycle. The is the first time a game was delayed on the account of adding PhysX. It seems likely then that the PhysX stuff will be minor, tacked-on stuff added to the game after it was completed. For example: Batman's cape might wave in the wind a bit better, or wreckage might fly around better in explosions. However according to Nvidia the effects are much more prevalent:

"With PhysX technology enabled, players can explore darkened corridors packed with volumetric fog which reacts to Batman’s movement and cobwebs which tear with his passing. Combat becomes a maelstrom of motion as office papers are thrown into the air alongside soda cans and litter as Batman lands each punch upon The Joker’s henchmen. Throughout the game, the decaying gothic architecture is realized to an incredible detail with wall tiles chipping and breaking, stone pillars crumbling upon impact, and particles from breaking glass and debris shattering and falling down around Batman’s feet."

It'll be impossible to tell how much or how little PhysX does bring to the game until it is released. Was the PhysX an after-though, a way to encourage people to buy Nvidia cards, after Batman: Arkham Asylum looked like it would be a big hit? Or did the developers actually have time to incorporate cool, physics-based effects into the game? Time will tell.

Just to be clear: PhysX support only available to people with Nvidia gaming video cards, the GeForce 8000 series or better. There will be physics in the game for people ATI video cards, but the effects will not be as pronounced. ATI video cards handle physics through the Havok engine, using the shader processors for calculations. Over the next few generations of video cards, it is likely the use of DirectX 11 based compute shaders (that can be used by both Nvidia and ATI cards) will be employed more and more to handle in-game physics needs.  

Here are two screenshots released showing of some of these new PhysX effects. The first shows -- yes -- an explosion, and as for the second,your guess is as good as mine as to what actual physics are incorporated into the shot: