There are many reasons why the PS4’s unified architecture has been beneficial for developers the world over but it’s been equally rewarding to middleware manufacturers like Persistant Studios, which created particle effects middleware Popcorn FX. How does PopcornFX’s Runtime element take advantage of the PS4’s unified architecture though?

According to Persistant Studios CEO Camille Mirey, “Since we update from the CPU, we suffer from the transfer to the GPU. Therefore, PS4 unified memory architecture speeds things up by removing that expensive transfer altogether.”

Mirey also talked about PopcornFX deals with particle effect simulation due to the presence of millions of particles each having its own physics and attributes.

“Actually, the current generation of games usually deals with thirty to a hundred of thousand particles simultaneously on-screen, no more. Previous generations used to deal with a few thousands to ten thousands of particles, and even games with a high use of particles don’t reach the million which is good mostly for tech demos.

“We put the emphasis on the diversity and the richness of  individual particle behavior, not on their number, although Popcorn has no trouble with high particle counts. And thanks to scripting and heavy batching, each particle is designed to be highly performant and only stores the properties needed, which allows to keep a low memory footprint. For example, a particle whose position is driven by a custom procedural expression doesn’t need physics-specific properties like velocity and mass (ie).

By current generation though, he means the PS4 and Xbox One. Yes, that’s for titles already available (for example, inFamous), we expect that number to increase in the future, as the game engines become more mature on these platforms.”

What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.

Much has been made about the benefits of Microsoft’s recently revealed DirectX 12 API. While some proclaim its capability of increasing performance for the Xbox One, others have doubted whether it can actually do much more than increase the efficiency of the hardware.

Persistant Studios CEO Camille Mirey, responsible for the particle effects middleware PopcornFX, provided his view on one of the benefits of DirectX 12 – that is, the reduction of CPU overhead since PopcornFX particle effects rely on the CPU. With DirectX 12 being such a low level API, will this provide benefits to the middleware?

“We aren’t really affected by this, as we usually make very few driver calls, but we are looking forward to Microsoft’s DirectX 12.”

Camille further clarified that while there is a reduction in CPU overhead, it doesn’t make a very big difference to PopcornFX when calls are made to DX12. “This is a reduction in CPU overhead when calling the graphics driver. We intensively use the CPU, but make very few calls to the graphics driver. Therefore, while this improvement is great when you have lots of drawcalls, in our case, it will be like removing a droplet from a bathtub.”

Speaking about AMD’s own API Mantle, which can increase the number of drawcalls – which the middleware seems dependent on – what kind of benefits would this provide for particle effects? Camille responded that, “Some features of Mantle seem interesting for us, it allows lower level control similar to what we have on consoles.

“About drawcalls specifically, there seems to be a misunderstanding here – our middleware is not hungry for draw calls. This is one of the advantages of our batching system. We typically only have a few drawcalls even with thousands of different emitters.”

What are your thoughts on the matter? Let us know in the comments below.

Persistant Studios’s PopcornFX finally has a new version with 1.5.5 and offers improved particle effects generation for next gen development and VFX. The middleware offers the benefit of particles that can be fully scripted. An extensive library preset also makes things easier for non-technical artists.

With version 1.5.5, PopcornFX has introduced enhanced performance and optimizations for each platform; a flexible scripting system that makes for rapid prototyping; effects metrics and cost control thanks to its data driven design; and customizable effects attributes for gameplay.

Other highlights include the ability to access effect attributes from evolve scripts; accessing parent particle properties using the new “parent-fields” features; workflow improvements for the editor; and the ability to view details in the content browser.

Let us know what you think of PopcornFX v.1.5.5 and its new features in the comments. You can also head to the main site for more information on the benefits the particle system offers.