Dedicated PhysX card?
- Thread starter jrmurph3
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JRAtk94
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- May 26, 2013
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Ah, very well.
In that case, I suppose it is "worth it". Although if money is of no issue, surely the word "worth" loses all meaning to one.
Either way, I'd rather use it in tandem with another card to process the image displayed, rather than PhysX.
In that case, I suppose it is "worth it". Although if money is of no issue, surely the word "worth" loses all meaning to one.
Either way, I'd rather use it in tandem with another card to process the image displayed, rather than PhysX.
pauls3743
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- Dec 24, 2011
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It's largely an irrevelvant discussion because
1).the hardware is solely supported by NVidia
2).a few years ago NVidia took the huff and disabled the PhysX drivers if it found an active AMD card present in the system, this was to drive people to NVidia cards
3).PhysX has largely been moved to the processor
4).I challenge you to name a game which actually supports it, I believe it is support by roughly 20 games
5).Everyone has moved onto Tesselation as the next big thing.
1).the hardware is solely supported by NVidia
2).a few years ago NVidia took the huff and disabled the PhysX drivers if it found an active AMD card present in the system, this was to drive people to NVidia cards
3).PhysX has largely been moved to the processor
4).I challenge you to name a game which actually supports it, I believe it is support by roughly 20 games
5).Everyone has moved onto Tesselation as the next big thing.
I drank the PhysX coolaid. After trying several Nvidia graphics cards (440 DDR5 and 640 DDR 3) as a dedicated PhysX card, both slowing down my GTX 680. My GTX 680 was better doing the graphics and PhysX job alone. I added a second 680 in SLI and that really helped with FPS when PhysX was set to high in Batman Arkham City. But... I still drop 20 FPS with PhysX enabled vice no PhysX in BAC. I do like PhysX and think it adds value to a game, but it is an Nvidia only technology, and demands a lot from Nvidia hardware. Is Nvidia PhysX worth it? that is a question answered b y each gamer for themselves.
- Oct 30, 2004
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To me, CPU PhysX is like the proverbial "kissing thru screen door".
Watch the video and decide for yaself.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/batman_arkham_asylum_physx_performance/page2.asp
An old $50 GFX card will do ya fine
Ya don't see much talk about it these days and the current mid range cards handle the PhysX load just fine.
You have to be conscious of where the load is .... in a demanding GPU bound game, you might be better off running it on the CPU.
Watch the video and decide for yaself.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/batman_arkham_asylum_physx_performance/page2.asp
An old $50 GFX card will do ya fine
Ya don't see much talk about it these days and the current mid range cards handle the PhysX load just fine.
You have to be conscious of where the load is .... in a demanding GPU bound game, you might be better off running it on the CPU.
grebgonebad
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Also, as is stated in a previous comment, PhysX is not really that demanding, so a cheaper card will do just fine. Personally I would rather have a PhysX card that is the same as my others, bujt thats just for aesthetic reasons.
Mousemonkey
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Actually it was a certain AMD/ATi employee who said that AMD/ATi users didn't want to use PhysX that caused Nvidia to take that action. And I can name a cou[le of games that use it, BL2 both of the Batman games and Darkest of days of course so that's more than one game mentioned so what do I win? :lol:
17seconds
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I'm going to go back to your original question.
1) A dedicated PhysX card may be worth it if you are not achieving an acceptable framerate in your games that feature GPU-accelerated PhysX. Roughly, you can see about a 25% boost in those games when you add a PhysX card. (Basically look at any PhysX game review showing FPS for PhysX ON and PhysX OFF, and that tells you the expected boost for a dedicated PhysX card, which will raise you up to the PhysX OFF performance level.) However, there will be additional heat generated and power consumption, so the decision is whether you play a lot of GPU-accelerated PhysX games, and whether you are unsatisfied with the performance of your single Nvidia card. For me, all you need is one game that you play frequently to make it worth considering.
And whether PhysX itself is worth it, here's from HardOCP's review this week of Metro Last Light:
"NVIDIA and 4A Games did a great job of implementing PhysX. It had an impact on every scene when it was enabled. PhysX brought the world around us to life by doing simple things like adding more smoke to barrels that are burning, and improving the way cloth interacts with people and the environment. PhysX also brought more particles to life. Anytime a bullet hits a wall, there's sure to be debris spewing out and cluttering together on the ground. Fog isn't just stagnant with PhysX enabled, you can clear a path through it just by walking through it. And let's not forget the large particles that come flying directly at you anytime there is an explosion. It is a shame for AMD users that they will miss out on such great technology.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/05/29/metro_last_light_video_card_performance_iq_review/9#.Uay2XRPn-Uk
2) You do not need to SLI the cards, simply installing the dedicated PhysX card without a SLI bridge is preferred.
3) The latest GTX 600 series cards are very good as dedicated PhysX cards. The key is to have a high number of CUDA cores and a high core clock speed. Generally, a GTX 650 or GT 640 make great cards and generally don't use a lot of energy or create a lot of unwanted heat.
pauls3743
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And there was me thinking it was because gamers were buying the more powerful ATi cards and pairing it with one of the lower end (cheaper) PhysX enabled cards. NVidia saw they were losing out and decided to block the use of PhysX in systems with AMD as the primary card forcing gamers to either sacrifice PhysX or shell out for NVidia's high end cards. At least that's what I was led to believe at the time.
And my challenge was because I couldn't think of any PhysX enabled games of the top of my head but I certainly knew the number was low. The winner gets a kiss when they're sleeping.
Mousemonkey
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http://www.tgdaily.com/business-and-law-features/38392-does-amd-block-physx-on-radeon-development
http://physxinfo.com/news/2279/amd-and-physx-history-of-the-problem/
http://physxinfo.com/news/2279/amd-and-physx-history-of-the-problem/
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