Nvidia has announced that several of its GameWorks graphics technology libraries is now open source. The source code for selected open source Nvidia GameWorks libraries will be made available through GitHub and will include PhysX, PhysX Clothing, PhysX Destruction, Nvidia’s Volumetric Lighting, and FaceWorks technology demo. Other GameWorks technologies such as HairWorks, HBAO+ and WaveWorks will be added soon.
Nvidia’s GameWorks program – ever since its inception – was never far from controversy; mostly because the program was deemed by many as “closed minded” and some even went as far as to label it a “black box” for creating in-game graphical technologies that can only be accessed by its graphics cards. It doesn’t help that games using GameWorks technologies are incredibly taxing on AMD graphics cards, which often results in a significant decrease in performance.
Knowing this, most would be glad that Nvidia has finally made certain technologies from GameWorks open to the public. As a result, more developers are able to use the tools provided in the program to further enhance their games. Interestingly, it seems that Nvidia may be following the footsteps of GPUOpen, which was introduced by AMD late last year.
Despite this, Nvidia hasn’t provided any information regarding the date of availability and the EULA (End User Licenses Agreement) for the selected open source GameWorks libraries. Regardless, the decision to make certain parts of GameWorks open source is a positive step for Nvidia; a move that will surely benefit both the company and developers.
(Source: Nvidia)
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