Age of Conan’s Dreamworld Engine to Incorporate Server-side PhysX

To ensure that we’ll be able to squeeze more performance out of Age of Conan and, eventually, Anarchy Online and The Secret World, Funcom has updated their proprietary Dreamworld engine with support for server-side PhysX processing. Essentially, this just means that your PC won’t have to handle all of the physics computations locally like it used to. This trailer should give you a better idea of what to expect from the performance enhancements:

And the announcement text:

‘Age of Conan’ first game to incorporate server-side NVIDIA PhysX technology
– Funcom’s proprietary ‘˜Dreamworld’ engine first to feature server-side NVIDIA PhysX
– Fully rewritten render engine provides major performance improvements on high-end computers, as well as enabling more visual features on lower-end machines –
Durham, USA March 30th, 2011 Funcom and NVIDIA have announced that Funcom’s proprietary Dreamworld 2.5, a leading game engine for massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), is the first game to incorporate server-side NVIDIA® PhysX®. This unique implementation into the Dreamworld engine results in more than a doubling in the speed-of in-game physics processing vs. traditional client-side PhysX technology, delivering realistic collision effects within the online gaming environments.
Dreamworld currently powers two of the world’s most popular massively multiplayer online games: ‘˜Age of Conan’ and ‘˜Anarchy Online’, with a third, ‘˜The Secret World’, currently in development. The updated Dreamworld Engine 2.5 with server-side PhysX is now live in ‘˜Age of Conan’.
“We are excited to be working closely with NVIDIA to integrate PhysX technology into our Dreamworld 2.5 engine,” said Rui Casais, Chief Technology Officer at Funcom. “Server-side collision using PhysX will allow us to add a new level of realism to our online worlds, and we look forward to implementing other enhancements as well, including NVIDIA APEX clothing and destruction, to make our games even more interactive and immersive.”
Recently, Funcom also introduced an entirely rewritten render engine to ‘˜Age of Conan’.
“We are also proud to have launched a fully rewritten render engine for ‘˜Age of Conan’, yielding major performance increase on high-end systems and enabling several new visual features for lower end machines), said Casias. (We have been collaborating closely with NVIDIA in continuously improving the quality of the Dreamworld Render engine, resulting in fully new effects such as shader-based anti-aliasing techniques now being implemented in ‘˜Age of Conan’. The launch of the new engine is a major milestone towards the high requirements for visual performance in virtual adventures required for ‘˜The Secret World’.”
For more information on NVIDIA PhysX and APEX technologies, please visit www.nvidia.com/physx.
For more information about Age of Conan, visit www.ageofconan.com.
ABOUT FUNCOM – Funcom is an independent developer and publisher of online games for PC and consoles. Funcom has provided outstanding entertainment since 1993 and continues to expand its track-record of more than twenty released games. Recent titles include ‘˜Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’, ‘˜The Longest Journey’, ‘Anarchy Online’ and ‘Dreamfall: The Longest Journey’. For corporate information please visit www.funcom.com. For information about Funcom games visit www.anarchy-online.com www.dreamfall.com, www.darkdaysarecoming.com or www.ageofconan.com. Funcom is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker FUNCOM.
About NVIDIA – NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) awakened the world to the power of computer graphics when it invented the GPU in 1999. Since then, it has consistently set new standards in visual computing with breathtaking, interactive graphics available on devices ranging from tablets and portable media players to notebooks and workstations. NVIDIA’s expertise in programmable GPUs has led to breakthroughs in parallel processing which make supercomputing inexpensive and widely accessible. The Company holds more than 1,800 patents worldwide, including ones covering designs and insights that are essential to modern computing. For more information, see www.nvidia.com.