Isaac Lab 3.0 Early Access separates physics, rendering and visualisation backends
SUMMARY
NVIDIA released Isaac Lab 3.0 as Early Access on 17 September 2026. The release lets a supported task switch between physics backends, including Newton (with MuJoCo-Warp among its solvers) and PhysX, and run without installing Isaac Sim; full Isaac Sim workflows now require Isaac Sim 6.1. It ships validated policy-transfer examples between PhysX and Newton, one of them rough-terrain locomotion for the Unitree G1. Until general availability the 3.0 branch takes only bug fixes and stability work.
Drafted with AI assistance from the source and reviewed by WBH. Follow the source link for the full text.
WHY IT MATTERS
EDITORIALHumanoid teams training in Isaac Lab get a built-in sim-to-sim check: evaluate the same policy in a second physics engine without leaving the framework. Projects on Isaac Lab 2.x should expect breaking API changes before moving.