Age of Conan Implementing Server-Side PhysX

Considering that Age of Conan had such a bumpy start, it is nice to see that FunCom is continuing to support it. First they rewrote the rendering engine and then, in version 2.5 of the Dreamworld Engine, they implemented server-side PhysX for better environment interaction. 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 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 Rui Casais, Chief Technology Officer at Funcom. “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’."