RTS and physics simulation

[Tunis]

Hello!

I would like to know if it is possible to use a physics library, like Newton, to drive an RTS like Red Alert and such. I know Company of Heroes uses Havok or PhysX or something like that. What I want to have is quite many vehicles (200+), tanks, jeeps etc. and have a nice suspension effect so the units move realistically. That is basically all I wnat from the physics part and it must be deterministic. Can Newton handle this? And if it is not the case, what should I use instead?

Thanks!

Tunis

[Julio Jerez]

Well I do not know how those games can do 200+ vehicles and simulate the with high degree of fidelity plus being deterministic.
All I can assure you there are lots of LOD trick involve in the processes the scene.
Take it from me, I was one of the original graphics programmer on the predecessor of teh first Red Alert game, Commnad and Conquer, back when they were Westwood studio.
I am not saying Read Alert is the same game, but I can assure you it is not brute force physics going on.

In regard to using Newton for that kind of games all I can suggest to you is to download the SDK and see if you think it could be useful to you.
The SDK come with a car demo that place 39 cars in the scene. The SDK do not mix scenes type with other scene type because it is designed as a learning tool.
You can edit the file and change the car count and see how many you can add before the speed start to suffer.

You can try a more elaborated demo place a sufficient object count in a scene here
http://www.newtondynamics.com/downloads ... le_B19.rar

here is the download link for the SDKs
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4922