PhysX Sparkly Fever

phoenix

phoenix

New member
Hi

Saying that I have been going gaga over the PhysX-enabled effects in the handful of games that actually support it goes against everything I have said about pretty graphics not being important, but yes, I have succumbed... :o

I already have a Club 3D Radeon HD6870 and have been wondering whether I should look at getting a low-end Geforce card such as the GT430 [maybe second-hand off Carbonite] to handle PhysX duties, or whether the hassle one goes through to get the different drivers playing together nicely not worth it.

Feel free to slap me around and call me silly.
 
I seem to recall something about nvidia disabling PhysX if the driver detects a non-nvidia card. Not sure if it's still true but I would check it out.
 
As I understand it its not worthwhile if the rest of the gear is powerful enough. i.e. It doesn't add magic, it just takes the load of the rest of the system....so minimal perceived gain if the rest is powerful enough.
 
Um.....as far as I know, if one wants to take advantage of pretty PhysX effects, one needs nVidia hardware, as the aforementioned physics engine is accelerated by nVidia's CUDA processors.

Some reading I have done suggests that it can be done with older/haxx0r3d Forceware drivers.

Perhaps I should have tried to get a 560GTX Ti instead of my 6870 :p

Bedtime reading
 
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Pointless...rather sell you're 6870 and get a GTX570 so you have the muscle to run games on high with PhysX enabled.
 
phoenix said:
Um.....as far as I know, if one wants to take advantage of pretty PhysX effects, one needs nVidia hardware, as the aforementioned physics engine is accelerated by nVidia's CUDA processors.
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No PhysX can run on the CPU too, you get the pretty effects either way. See page 5 of the link you provided. Its rather a question of performance: I see I underestimated just how powerful the rest of the system needs to be to compensate. Powerful to a point where it isn't really feasible. So in practice you'll need a nvidia GPU afterall if you plan on running w/ a decent res.

On the haxed driver front I don't think you've thought that one through well enough. You are I'm guessing running some flavour of Win 7 x64. Which means you need signed drivers...so no haxed drivers for you. You can disable it...but you need to do that every freakin time the OS starts afaik. Also, I wouldn't be comfortable with haxed drivers anyway...punkbuster etc don't like them.

Old drivers could work, but you'll probably take a significant performance hit on the newer games as they optimize the drivers for whatever is being played atm.
 
The Joker said:
Pointless...rather sell you're 6870 and get a GTX570 so you have the muscle to run games on high with PhysX enabled.
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Honestly this is the best and easiest solution
PhysX is awesome if you use the alternate options provided you stand the chance of decreasing system wide performance
And also ATI plus Nvidia don't play well together.

Listen to Joker
 
@HavocXphere: Didn't think it through at all. Didn't know about signed drivers either. I think I may listen to Joker, sell my 6870, and eventually purchase an NVidia card. Maybe a GTX660 when they come out.
 
You guys telling me that nvidia has a clear advantage over ati with this whole physx thing? Sheesh and here I am buying ati this whole time lol fail?
 
@Joker: Did you mean "No PhysX is fail", ie Not being able to enjoy PhysX in certain games is fail, or did you mean "No, PhysX is fail", which is how Giordit has interpreted it?
 
No you okes have it very back-to-front. PhysX is perfectly fine, but since roughly half the gear out there can't use it developers can't really do anything useful with it. i.e. Its relegated to the eye-candy department & can't be integrated into the game mechanics, else you'd halve the market you can sell your game to.
 
It's mostly a bonus, not really worth paying extra or losing fps for.

It will never be big while nvidia keep it to themselves.
 
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Its pointless, uses way to much resources and its not at all noticable once you have graphics maxed an anyway.
I have never liked PhysX, I don't have it Enabled on any of my Nvidia Rigs cause I think its a waste.
 
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