5870 + 8800GT: Possible / Worth It?

[bikeracer4487]

Hey guys, so last night I finally purchased a 5870 (WOOT), anyways, as you can see in my sig, I'm upgrading from 2 8800GT's and I'm curious about keeping one of them to keep PhysX on. Anyways, I wasn't able to turn up enough info doing my own googling so I'm turning to you guys. I've heard that nVidia removed whatever code was flatout preventing ATI & nvidia from playing nicely together so I'm wondering 1) If I even need to find whatever patch to allow my 8800 to run physx and 2) if it's even beneficial for me to do this, considering how old my 8800 is (see my sig for my CPU, though I expect to OC it a little more soon).

EDIT: Realized that I had created a similiar thread in which I asked a similar question, but what I found was only that patches were in progress that would let me run PhysX on a Radeon card which isn't quite what I was asking, sooo I created a new thread...so please no lmgtfy.com links.

 

[anonymousdude]

It should work fine as I know a couple of people that have done this. Also it's worth it as you already have the 8800gt which is more than enough for a dedicated physx card. It will be beneficial in games that utilize physx.

 

[megamanx00]

If you use older drivers you can use the 8800GT as a PhysX card just fine. Newer drivers will disable that feature if they detect that a Radeon card is also present.

 

[bikeracer4487]

If you use older drivers you can use the 8800GT as a PhysX card just fine. Newer drivers will disable that feature if they detect that a Radeon card is also present.

Yeah, I've heard that it's disabled for any drivers newer than 186, which would be a deal breaker, but I also heard that nvidia had since removed the code that disabled physx when ati cards were present.

 

[OvrClkr]

there is a hacked driver that supposedly works flawless for such setups... google it =)

 

[capt_taco]

Not worth it unless you're playing Batman. Anything else and the payoff probably will not be worth the trouble, even for free.

 

[jyjjy]

Yeah, the Batman game is the only one where bothering with this stuff is worth it.

 

[B-Unit]

Im currently running a 4870 1GB with an 8800GT 512MB as dedicated PhysX. Batman is the only PhysX game Ive played so far (Have UT3 but its pretty limited in its use) and I have to say it is nicely done in that game. Played thru once before I decided to hook up the 8800GT, and it does add a whole other level to this game.

 

[liquidsnake718]

If you use older drivers you can use the 8800GT as a PhysX card just fine. Newer drivers will disable that feature if they detect that a Radeon card is also present.

Really? I still have my 9800gtx+ but I need to get a new MB.... I hate the fact that Atis catalyst and its physics is really lousy and the quality is nothing compared to Nvidias PhysX.... which driver would one use if you are using catalyst?

 

[paperfox]

the newest one. atleast ati dose not disable anything when it sees an nvidia card.

 

[bystander]

Really? I still have my 9800gtx+ but I need to get a new MB.... I hate the fact that Atis catalyst and its physics is really lousy and the quality is nothing compared to Nvidias PhysX.... which driver would one use if you are using catalyst?

You can use any catalyst driver you wish with the setup. There is nothing stopping the dedicated physX from functioning other than a bit of code Nvidia decided to add to prevent it running with when ATI's cards are present. That can be hacked. I also have this setup and been using it with Sacred 2, which also has some pretty nice physX stuff going on.

 

[marney_5]

I never thought about using a Nvidia for physx with my 5870! Does that mean I could use my old 260 as a physx card?

 

[B-Unit]

Really? I still have my 9800gtx+ but I need to get a new MB.... I hate the fact that Atis catalyst and its physics is really lousy and the quality is nothing compared to Nvidias PhysX.... which driver would one use if you are using catalyst?

O dear...

OK, Im going to be crystal clear on this. ATI Catalyst doesnt have any physics. PhysX is a special engine developed by Ageia and bought by nVidia. It only works if the game developer includes special PhysX code. ATI has nothing to do with it.

 

[OvrClkr]

the newest one. atleast ati dose not disable anything when it sees an nvidia card.

True but why would someone install an Nvidia card in the primary x16 slot and then install an ATI in the second? ATI has no PhsyX so there is no point...

 

[OvrClkr]

I never thought about using a Nvidia for physx with my 5870! Does that mean I could use my old 260 as a physx card?

Yes you can

 

[marney_5]

Yes you can

Ahh! Sweet!

 

[jay2tall]

^Yeah but you actually take a small hit in performance if you do the mod to stall an Nvidia card for PhysX with non PhysX games. Besides the obvious that you are using power that is just sitting idle unless you have a PhysX based game.

Here is a review that includes a 5870 and a GTX275 for physix.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5800-crossfirex_3.html#sect0

 

[bikeracer4487]

Best answer selected by bikeracer4487.

 

[bikeracer4487]

^Yeah but you actually take a small hit in performance if you do the mod to stall an Nvidia card for PhysX with non PhysX games. Besides the obvious that you are using power that is just sitting idle unless you have a PhysX based game.

Here is a review that includes a 5870 and a GTX275 for physix.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5800-crossfirex_3.html#sect0

Thanks for the link to that article, it was really helpful, although I think they might have been using an outdated driver for the 5870, as evidenced by the 22FPS benchmark in Batman...but the GTX 275 only seemed to help in 2 games...one of which was Cryostasis (ick) and the other being Batman, but given the poor performance of the standalone and crossfire'd 5870 I can't really draw any conclusions. But thanks for the article...guess I'll just have to test it out myself and let you guys know how it goes.

 

[jay2tall]

^ My buddy has an 8800GTX I could borrow to try this out with, but I wouldn't gain anything besides a better 3Dmark score, as I do not have either game.

 

[bikeracer4487]

Hey, just I thought I'd let everyone know that I did finally get it up and working with nvidia driver 196.21 and the GenL PhysX mod 1.02

EDIT: I should also mention that adding the 8800GT boosted my 3DMark Vantage CPU Score from 10455 to 28825...not bad...

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey