ATI, NVidia and PhysX

It will depend on your Operating System. For Windows 7 theres a hack that supposedly works that lets you use a second geforce card as a PhysX device. Windows XP might support this too. ((I haven't looked that closely at the hack)) Windows Vista can't do this due to its driver display models.

You won't be able to run PhysX on AMD hardware. You'll have to run it off the CPU.

Well I don't mind dedicating some cores to PhysX emulation if it's possible. But I don't really fancy buying an NVidia card just to run PhysX though. And I guess if I was gonna go for that option I'd have to get myself the retail version of Windows 7 too (because it'll be a b**ch when the beta expires).

Any more information?

The cpu wont run physx, i dont think, because it doesnt have proper instructions to do so. You need a nvidia card. i would just wait for fermi to come out, personally.

The physX will still run it is just that the performance will be hit very very hard on ati cards, the cpu does the physX through software so there is a huge hit. I think that it was still possible to have just playable performance with physX activated on certain games. but it would still be crappy performance.

If you have the money and if you have Windows 7 or windows XP. You can buy an ATI card and then buy a separate Nvidia card and put it in your pc. That way you get Direct X11 support and PhysX support.

As long as you use the 185 drivers for the nvidia card then you can use PhysX. if you want to use the latest drivers then you'd have to get the modded drivers that some users have released. From looking it doesn't seem hard to pull off. Look on the internet for advice.

makotech222: Nah, I gotta get myself a new card to replace this temporary one I think. I'm running NFS:Shift at 1fps for f**k sake! (So obviously I'm not playing any high end games right now.) Is Fermi supposed to support PhysX also? Or is the deal - unless you have an NVidia card, you'll never have PhysX enabled in Mirror's Edge? (And other PhysX games.)

bkwegoharder: It's looking like that's the only solution, but financially it's a nightmare...d'you know of this patch which claims to enable PhysX support on Radeon 3### cards? (At good speeds too.) I've seen screenshots of it and apparently it works, but I don't know how to get hold of it or if it was ever updated.

of course it does, fermi is the next gen nvidia cards. im pretty sure that if you dont have an nvidia card, you cant have physx.

There is a possibility that Physx is ported to OpenCL, which in that case, would be supported by amd as well. but, thats up to amd if they want to do that.

Right, I see.

You know what though? I've heard bad things about NVidia. I've heard they've a bad reputation for their cards failing...and considering I've had a 7850 which I gave to my bro when I got my 9800GX2, and that also died a few months after he had it, I tend to agree with that claim. Also, I've heard that apparently NVidia may be screwed in the future because they don't own any license to develop x86 chips (which is apparently the future of PC's -> CPU/GPU in-one solutions). So I'm starting to feel that maybe ATI is the way to go...which is a shame because I really like Mirror's Edge and I wanna play it with the PhysX effects enabled. Playing games with full graphics is part of the experience for me. They're not the same without it I think.

makotech222 said:

The cpu wont run physx, i dont think, because it doesnt have proper instructions to do so. You need a nvidia card. i would just wait for fermi to come out, personally.

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No. All PhysX titles ((except GRAW 2)) have a CPU PhysX fallback incase an Nvidia CUDA GPU isn't detected. Nvidia's drivers only tell the PhysX software that its capable of CUDA accelleration.

However the speed of CPU PhysX is no where close to GPU PhysX.

Chris

Is Fermi supposed to support PhysX also?

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Nvidia is going to keep supporting PhysX. With regards to Fermi. It's shader units are specifically optimized for GPU Compute which is how PhysX is run.

Well, what d'you know? You're right ChrisRay.

I just loaded up Mirror's Edge with my piece of s**t Radeon HD 2400 (frame rate is horrible on lowest settings - I'm guessing about 10fps), and I happened to be saved at a point where the PhysX effects are present in the game. It works...even with this card. (Phew.)

Just hope that the Radeon HD 5750 I'm thinking of getting and my Q6600 CPU perform graphics and PhysX emulation well together.

yeah its generally not worth running the cpu then. Nvidia card longevity depends entirely on the manufacturer you pick. EVGA cards have a lifelong guarantee on all of their cards, so youre a safe bet with them. i personally wont buy any other cards.

capo_2k said:

Well, what d'you know? You're right ChrisRay.

I just loaded up Mirror's Edge with my piece of s**t Radeon HD 2400 (frame rate is horrible on lowest settings - I'm guessing about 10fps), and I happened to be saved at a point where the PhysX effects are present in the game. It works...even with this card. (Phew.)

Just hope that the Radeon HD 5750 I'm thinking of getting and my Q6600 CPU perform graphics and PhysX emulation well together.

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Yes it will "work" in a manner of speaking. But no matter how fast your GPU is it will be limited by the CPU's performance. GPU PhysX titles are generally optimised for Nvidia GPUS. So you'll probably still get 10 FPS when you upgrade your graphic card.

If you really want to enjoy GPU PhysX. Then your best option is to stay with an Nvidia card.

Chris

Hmmm...I'm not sure man.

I just did some more tests:

In Mirror's Edge I get the same frame rate and even the same CPU usage (which is well below 100% in both cases) with PhysX enabled or disabled. The effects are present when enabled and disappear when not which shows that it's working as it should. So I think the frame rate is solely down to the GPU, not the CPU in this case. I suspect that a better card may run it all at full speed. (Hopefully.)

I am sorry but you're wrong. I would really trust me on this as I have alot of experience with the way PhysX works. If you are using CPU to do your PhysX workload than it will be the performance limit of your system. If you won't take my word for it I suggest you start looking at the link below.

Mirror's Edge PhysX Performance: PPU vs GPU vs CPU

Well...f**k.

Thanks for your help anyway.

capo_2k said:

Well...f**k.

Thanks for your help anyway.

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I apologize if I came off crude or anything. I'm just trying to ensure you make an informed decision based off your OP.

Chris

There was in development"?" a 3rd party "port/driver?" of CUDA/PhysX for ATI cards, but I think that's just at an unknown state for now. So yeah, if you really want PhysX then you'll have to go for an nVIDIA card (GF8+ with 32cores and 256MB or more, which are the PhysX minimum requirements). Or you could also try to acquire an Ageia card...

Also, don't consider ATI for PhysX expecting future support, since they just seem not interested in it and rather go for OpenCL and their own Bullet's physics.

KrossX said:

Also, don't consider ATI for PhysX expecting future support, since they just seem not interested in it and rather go for OpenCL and their own Bullet's physics.

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Interestingly, Nvidia is also supporing Bullet physics to some degree. It's an open source project much like OpenGL and being developed to run on OpenCl/DirectCompute. Both of which are also supported by Nvidia. The developer of Bullet uses Nvidia gpu's for his development.

whats bullet? never heard of it before

Bullet is an open source Physics library similar to PhysX and Havok. Bullet has GPU accellerated Physic effects just like Nvidia's PhysX SDK. Despite what some may have you believe. It is not owned by ATI and they just have a partnership. Nvidia also has assisted with Bullet and Bullet uses CUDA for Nvidia. ((maybe eventually OpenCL))

Infact the OpenCL implementation of Bullet was ported from CUDA to openCL using Nvidia software and Nvidia can/will support whichever implementation they finally decide on.

Chris