For Horizon Forbidden West, Guerrilla Games switched from a commercial physics engine to Jolt Physics, an open-source physics engine that was born as a personal hobby project. By switching to this new engine, we saved memory, executable size and were able to double our simulation frequency while using less CPU time. This talk describes how we use a physics engine at Guerrilla, how our previous physics engine caused bottlenecks while streaming in data and while interacting with the multi-threaded game object update. Jolt was architected specifically to help solve these two problems and the talk explains two of the systems that made this possible.
After listening to this talk, you should have a good idea of how Guerrilla Games uses a physics engine in HFW and the requirements our multithreaded game object update puts on a physics engine. You'll learn specifically about the implementation of a lock free broadphase and a lock free simulation island building algorithm.
Programmers (Intermediate/Advanced) that have an interest in game engine architecture and/or physics. The core concepts of a physics engine will be explained, but you will get most out of the talk if you have some experience working with a physics engine.
Video: GDC Vault, Slides: GDC Vault, Slides with notes: here