Nvidia has taken a U-turn as it is bringing back support for 32-bit GPU-accelerated PhysX games on RTX 50 series GPUs, after it silently discontinued the tech earlier this year in February. In a recent press announcement for the latest GeForce Game Ready drivers, the company has confirmed that it is adding custom support for top-played PhysX-accelerated games, offering full performance on the latest RTX 50 series GPUs, in line with existing support on previous generation GPUs.
PhysX is one of Nvidia’s oldest technologies, originating in 2004 when the company acquired Ageia. Designed as a physics simulation SDK, it handled ragdolls, cloth, particles, fluids, and other advanced physics effects. Its core promise was to simply offload physics work from the CPU to the GPU for better performance and more detailed effects. The supported games are:
- Alice: Madness Returns
- Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
- Batman: Arkham City
- Batman: Arkham Origins
- Borderlands 2
- Mafia II
- Metro 2033
- Metro: Last Light
- Mirror’s Edge
Batman: Arkham Asylum is slated to be supported in 2026.
After Nvidia adapted the tech to run on GeForce GPUs, PhysX found its way into popular AAA game titles, including the Batman Arkham trilogy, Borderlands 2, The Witcher 3, Metro: Last Light, Metro: Exodus, Metro 2033, Mirror's Edge, The Witcher 3, and several older Assassin’s Creed releases.
By the late 2010s, PhysX adoption slowed significantly as more flexible, cross-platform physics solutions emerged. One of the biggest limitations was its reliance on CUDA, which tied it exclusively to Nvidia GPUs and restricted it from competing hardware, consoles, and mobile devices. Nvidia also gradually dropped support for certain features, leading some developers, such as Warframe’s team in 2018, to move to custom frameworks built on or inspired by PhysX.
The latest Game Ready driver update also brings game optimizations for the upcoming Winter Offensive update on Battlefield 6 ahead of its December 9th release. Nvidia says that gamers can expect average frame rates to increase by 3.8 times, enabling up to 460 frames per second on desktops, and 310 frames per second on RTX 50 series laptops at 4K ultra settings with DLSS 4, Multi Frame Generation, and DLSS Super Resolution enabled. Additionally, the latest drivers bring improved fidelity of DLSS Ray Reconstruction on Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.
To download the latest drivers, visit the official Nvidia driver download page, select your product from the drop-down menus, choose your operating system, and click search. Alternatively, you can download and use the Nvidia app, which can automatically detect your hardware and install the latest driver for you.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
