How to use Nvidia for Physix with ATI card? What is "the patch"?

[jay2tall]

I have seen some blips about running an ATI card for rendering and then an Nvidia card for physx. It came across the below review that proves this to be a BIG benefit for games which use physx, such as Batman: Arkham Asylum and Cryostasis. I was curious for both current and furture games. In the article they mention the newer drivers simply do NOT allow the use of an Nvidia card with an ATI card, so they used an older 185.85 driver and "A PATCH". I am wondering, where is this PATCH? I'd like to test this out. I may be able to borrow an 8800GTX from a buddy of mine and mess around with this idea. From the review the benefits are GREAT in a few games, and looks like there is a minimal impact in other games. 1-3FPS decrease over simply a single 5870 card.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5800-crossfirex_3.html#sect0

What is everyone's thoughts?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ATI-physx-patch-gpu,8786.html

click on link at bottom of page, take you to GenL's thread on the subject;
http://www.ngohq.com/graphic-cards/16223-nvidia-disables-physx-when-ati-card-is-present-28.html#post82812

 

[jay2tall]

Awesome thanks!. I might give this a try and see what happens. My only thoughts are there is REALLY no benefit unless the game takes advantage of Physx. Otherwise the card just sits there creating heat and sucking power. Batman performs HORRIBLE with all ATI cards, I found this to be a shock. I am not intending to buy this game, but I am sure in the future there will be titles that have similar performance.

 

[bystander]

I am doing the exact same setup atm. I haven't tried batman yet, but I do play a game with physX on it. It works great and I see no reason way Batman wouldn't work great with this setup, unless Nvidia convinced the dev's to purposefully sabotage ATI cards.

 

[maximiza]

They will keep borking the Phixs driver with every new release.

 

[jay2tall]

I am doing the exact same setup atm. I haven't tried batman yet, but I do play a game with physX on it. It works great and I see no reason way Batman wouldn't work great with this setup, unless Nvidia convinced the dev's to purposefully sabotage ATI cards.

What game was this? Just curious. Right now I am playing MW2, L4D2, and Dirt2. None of which use Physx. The first 2 games aren't demanding at all on the GPU regardless, but you never know what is coming down the pike.

 

[JofaMang]

In my short, and unimpressive run with a 9600GSO for PhysX with my 4870, I found that, at least with my configuration, I was FPS limited to the dedicated card, testing between 3 minimalist physx cards (8600gt, 9500gt, 9600GSO) having low PhysX performance that scaled upward with the card used, and even the GSO limited my FPS to the low-mid 20s, from 60+ running Batman AA without the physx card and just the 4870. I would assume that an 8800GTX would provide a far higher threshold compared to the low-end cards I used. My experience may have also been effected by my old OS, xp64, as the only way I could use physx was with really old nvidia drivers. I can't really know for sure, but I am interested to see your results, and might have to try again since I installed w7u64.

 

[jay2tall]

^ To bad I don't really have a game that uses "PhysX" granted games do use "Physics". When I get one, I am going to try this out.

Otherwise, this was really a gathering of info help thread. I wanted to research it a bit.

 

[JofaMang]

A few buddies and I belong to a software club, where we take turns buying legit copies of games and cycle them around between us, to make sure we can use all the features of the title (something that torrents/cracks don't usually ensure) and to support the industry, while reducing individual costs. If there is a game more than one of us like and want to go online together with, we'll each buy copies, but mostly its just a way to divide the cost of games between us while keeping current with new titles.

Anyway, my point is that I don't own Batman AA for the PC myself (have it for the PS3 though), but have access to a legit copy for just this sort of thing, another perk of our little club. If you got a few friends into gaming like you, try pitching the idea about.

I won't publicly condone torrents, but admit that I was ready to DL batman AAC for testing purposes while undertaking this project, but a buddy came through in getting his copy too me before my patience ran out.

 

[jay2tall]

^I do this on occasion between a friend or two of mine that are still into PC gaming and haven't migrated to console games. Unfortunately none of them are into the 3rd person type games. I am not either for the most part, although I totally loved both MAX PAYNE games from several years ago. We have noticed that is is harder to do this because of things like STEAM, where you have to activate it on your steam account. This is nice in a way that hey I bought the game and i can play it on ANY PC as long as I install and log into steam with my account, but now you can't share or pass a game to someone.

But i know what you are talking about, me and my buddy do this at times, for example Crysis. The campaign was fun, but that was it and we shared that. Most of the games we play we each buy a copy so we can play online together. I am not into pirating games and such, but sometimes I wish they all had demo's that I could download and test out.

I still have a PS2 and have kind of gotten away from console games except for guitar hero. I do intend to get a PS3 specifically for the BlueRay player and a few fighting games. But I still with PC gaming as its also a hobby I can tinker with. I can't tinker with a console.

 

[JofaMang]

I was an early PS3 adopter, being a big gamer in general, and a PS owner since the PS1. Ironically enough, it was the PS3s gaming performance that drove me to update my old computer, at the time a dual core amd with a x1650 pro agp video card, which was shamed by the console.

My wife and I are both fairly hardcore about our gaming habits, albeit in different ways, and having two gaming stations has worked wonders in keeping the peace~

 

[jay2tall]

Yeah I've had a PS and PS2, but sort of came back to more PC gaming when I started hanging out with a few new friends. I used to play alot of RTS games and the PC was the way to go. FPS are just so much faster on a PC as well. I hooked my PC up to my 42" LCD and it just looked better than my buddies PS3 so I never went to it. I don't think I could play a FPS on a console, I tried but its to hard to shoot from the hip. My buddy has a PS3 and doesn't play FPS's, he just uses it for BluRay and fighting games like Soul Caliber and Rockband.

 

[JofaMang]

Weighted FPS like gears and kz2 work really well on consoles, as compared to the twitch shooters like the COD games, which are able to relay the accuracy and speed of KBM control. As for RTS, I got a chance to try Savage Moon for the PS3 last week, and have to admit for a console RTS, its pretty solid.

 

[bystander]

What game was this? Just curious. Right now I am playing MW2, L4D2, and Dirt2. None of which use Physx. The first 2 games aren't demanding at all on the GPU regardless, but you never know what is coming down the pike.

Sacred 2 added PhysX. It added effects to spells and such, but the most impressive is the leaves that float around and fly through the air during breezes, and some spells that cause storms. When I turn off the 8800gt physX support, it crawls to slide show, but when enabled it runs very smooth.

 

[bystander]

Oh, the patch that I used was designed to work with the 195.xxx drivers. You might try them instead. I followed a guide from here: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1456964

or it was here: http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/633137-guide-enable-ati-nvidia-physx-single.html