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Upgrade to 5850/70 or add a GTS 250 for physx

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As the title states. My monitors max res is 1680x1050 and the fiancee will NOT let me upgrade since we are buying a Samsung LED television after we get our house setup. I can play most of my games @ max res with 4xAA and 8xAF without issues.

Also, is Physx a dying technology?
 

crazyeyesreaper

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DX11 should make physx fall to the wayside so i dont think its worth it to be honest and if your not allowed to upgrade id just hold off for a bit till you are allowed to upgrade :D then go balls out :toast:
 
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DX11 should make physx fall to the wayside

That's a bit premature statement, as there have been no indications whatsoever of anyone preparing anything that would fight PhysX in the near future.

Whether or not PhysX is something you should base your decision on is another story. Sure, it's nice, but it does not change the games I saw in a dramatic fasion, in my opinion.
 

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PhysX is basically dead already. So few titles support it, and every game it has been in its been used as a gimmick only.

Dont waste money on it.
 

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indeed, physX is a nice bit of icing for nvidia cards, but not worth the money if you buy a dedicated gpu for it. In game physics simulation will become far more widespread, definitley when the new consoles come out, since they'll certainly be based on our current generation cards (Hd5/6xxx = xbox most likely and gtx3xx = ps4 or the other way round). But we need a standard across all cards, and physX does not run on ATi (blame who you will, but ATi, according to one of their major guys in an interview explicitly said nvidia told them to **** off when they asked after nvidia had told the world that they would let them, in order to paint out ATi to be stubborn). So don't bother with physX, OpenCL or something similar will crush it anyway within two years.
 
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Thanks guys for your input on Physx.

Now is the 5870 worth the almost $100 increase over the 5850?
 
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Physx is deffinately NOT dead. GPU ACCELERATED Physx on the other hand...
 

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Physx is deffinately NOT dead. GPU ACCELERATED Physx on the other hand...

PhysX is dead. GPU accelerated PhysX is dead.

Physics, is not dead. gravity still works at least.
 
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Dragon Age and Trine are both recent titles and both use the physx library ;) but both run perfectly on the CPU . I think that the whole idea about gpu accelerated physx was total crap of bullshit when in 99% of the cases you're GPU bound.
 

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Thanks guys for your input on Physx.

Now is the 5870 worth the almost $100 increase over the 5850?

At stock, there is around a 20% difference for the extra money (33% more in america i believe), so it is feasibly worthwhile. But the hd5850 can have very high over clocking headroom, with some reaching 950MHz. If you can reach 850MHz+ you are likely to gain the same performance as the 5870, since not all shaders seem to be utilised in games that are not dx10 or above (i don't get 100% gpu usage in any dx9 games for example, left 4 dead 2 runs at ~150-250 fps with around 40% gpu usage and 30% cpu usage).

It's a bit of a gamble if you buy based on OCing potential though. But if you're willing to take the chance i would say the 5850 is probably a very good choice.

And we do know physX has purposely cut cpu usage in it's 'nvidia pwns you ati people, ha!' games with physx, so only the nvidia cards can have the effects. I guess that these games just don't cover expenses, so they need to put out cpu physx on the sly.
 
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Dragon Age and Trine are both recent titles and both use the physx library ;) but both run perfectly on the CPU . I think that the whole idea about gpu accelerated physx was total crap of bullshit when in 99% of the cases you're GPU bound.

And what kind of mind blowing physics simulation do you see in Dragon Age?
 

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The use of physics isn't necessary the catalyst that holds the entire premise of a game to sit on a throne. It simply compliments the game which draws attention to it do to its heighten state of immersion that it can bring.

This is why IMO, physics alone in a game will never take off. This is because it's nothing more then a pseduo effect when physics alone is magnified more so then the game itself.
 

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Indeed, but if it becomes open to developers properly, they will pounce on the opportunity to increase the realism of their games. After all, the actual rendered graphics side of things requires a hell of a lot of work for little return over previous games, whereas great physics would make a game stand out a lot more if implemented well. By that i don't mean poxy flags all over the place *stares directly at EVERY physX game* by that i mean terrain deformation (not just explosions, from people walking over dirt ect.), water displacement and destructible environments for a start.

Of course, there must be a limit on these effects to prevent someone just digging out of the map ect. but such additions would add far more to a game than slightly sharper shadows. In my opinion a game with dx9 level graphics but uses dx11 direct compute or similar to achieve the above effects would elevate itself far beyond a pure dx11 graphics game with none of it. To be honest i see the next generation of games (dictated by the consoles) to be far more physics based than just 'shinier' (although the consoles only run at horrendous resolutions and textures at the moment anyhow, so the shiny shiny will come in the form of them actually joining us in 1080p gaming).

However, all is mute if the game isn't good to begin with ofc. Design the game around it's story, not the physics or multiplayer! *stares at modern warfare 2, which twitches in the corner and spouts anti-russia conspiracy theories*
 
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Go for a 5850(and if the premium won't be high I'd say a MSI Cyclone with voltmod),and yes Physics (nVidia's trademarked GPU based library) is in terminal stage
 
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And what kind of mind blowing physics simulation do you see in Dragon Age?

Dude physx isn't only about crazy mind blowing FX, it's about having to write half or less of the original code it would take for simple stuff like body particles flying around, dust, explosions, etc. Reduced production time = faster output = happy gamers
 

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4890 is still an extremely respectable card, I dont see any point of upgrading unless you want to sell it while you still can. 5870 is not worth the $100 premium over 5850, you can just oc your 5850 to bring it to 5870 clocks. Dont bother with PhysX, it never really took off and its use is very limited.
 
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There was a thread like this yesterday of which I cannot find. There was a list posted in that thread of what PhysX games there are. PhysX is not only dying, it's pretty much already dead. Nvidia has done a damn good marketing job since we talk about it all the time. So, unless you like to fold or run benchmarks with PhysX in them it's a complete waste to put a card for PhysX in your system.
 
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Dude physx isn't only about crazy mind blowing FX, it's about having to write half or less of the original code it would take for simple stuff like body particles flying around, dust, explosions, etc. Reduced production time = faster output = happy gamers

Perhaps you misunderstood my post. I just asked you what complex simulation did you see in Dragon Age? Because you said that you don't need GPU accelerated physics based on a game that does not do heavy physics related calculations. But if something could be done better/faster on a gpu (which it can), why do you say it's pointless?

I'm not a fan of selling a title just for physics simulation effects it does. But I believe that it is a nice addon and if running it on GPU can render more realistic and more fascinating results, why would that be pointless?
 

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It's IMO the avenues that allows physics to be coded in a game have been done successfully and competently using resources already available. Alienating potential customers in a marketing attempt to get them to buy a specific GPU is the main reason why it's pointless.
 
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Physx is not only dead, it was still born. Neither ATI nor Nvidia are going to be able to get the entire gaming industry to use a technology that is limited to one brand or the other. ATI's Eyefinity features will never make it either as long as it is limited to just ATI products.
 

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comparing eyefinity and dedicated physx gpus are 2 totally diff animals.

thats like saying AMD will never make it trying to use open standard hyper transport instead of traditional front side bus or vice versa
 
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Perhaps you misunderstood my post. I just asked you what complex simulation did you see in Dragon Age? Because you said that you don't need GPU accelerated physics based on a game that does not do heavy physics related calculations. But if something could be done better/faster on a gpu (which it can), why do you say it's pointless?

I'm not a fan of selling a title just for physics simulation effects it does. But I believe that it is a nice addon and if running it on GPU can render more realistic and more fascinating results, why would that be pointless?

You've got a valid point. It's just that I have yet to be impressed by any of the current offerings to consider them worthy of investing from the precious shader recourses when half the time the CPU runs empty cycles
 
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ATI's Eyefinity features will never make it either as long as it is limited to just ATI products.

Eyefinity does not require any special effort from programmers (apart from allowing more than predefined resolutions).
 
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OpenCL should do the physics in future anyway? Why would you waste such money to get a physx card when you could get more 5850s.
 
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