A physics engine executed on a processor to simulate rigid body dynamics of a simulated physical system using an inertia scaling function is provided. The physics engine may be configured to iteratively loop through a collision detection phase, an iterative solving phase, updating phase, and display phase. The physics engine may further be configured to determine a neighboring body weighting value for one or more of the plurality of bodies, and determine an inertia scaling value for the one or more of the plurality of bodies based on the neighboring body weighting value for that body. The physics engine may further be configured to scale an inertia value for a body of that colliding pair of bodies based on the inertia scaling value for the iterative solving phase.