Is phsyx worth it?

[SiliconSlick]

Version 8xx and beyond work for PhysX

How do you make a second Nvidia card a physX card? i have a old 8500GT lying arounfd, can i put that in my system and use it as a physx card?

GeForce 8 Series and beyond work for PhysX
- you can also make your new main card be the PhysX delivery gpu.

I for one cannot see not using a second card for PhysX if you have it available.

I certainly cannot imagine the raving enthusiasts going gaga over an added capabilty as cool as using a second vidcard for games...

But then again - I see the very first response was by mr ati advert man, and he kind of shrugged it off as blase' - oh whatever, who cares... LOL (BEWARE)

I can hardly wait till the red machine does a similar thing (they CAN'T and probably therefore WON'T - but I never said that ) - by golly then it will be all the rage - oh my- we'll have Sunday worship over it.

So my answer is it would be awesome and really cool, but since ATI isn't doing it we all know it's utterly worthless, and besides, NVidia the raging price gouger (who is losing money and ready to collapse the reds tell me) is just trying to make you buy another NV card or find fraudulent value in one you already wound up with by mistake.
So they're ripping you off. It's a con job. ATI would be honest about it - and not gouge you.

Wait till ATI does it, then it will be worth it. Besides, ATI does it better. And they make a profit , and they aren't price gouging you like Nvidia is :shadedshu losing money.

 

[nanohead]

Is phsyx worth it?

Simple answer.... No

The calculations that get accelerated via the Physx technology can be done in a zillion ways. Ageia had a sketchy business plan to begin with, and Nvidia buying them was a sympathy f*@k for the venture guys that had invested in it. Hardware acceleration is simply not necessary. Havoc has been doing it with software only for years. And certain video game developers write their own physics routines as well.

If physics co processing was so important, the whole world would have jumped on it. It ended up being a solution looking for a problem that wasn't there. No video games that I know of have a physics acceleration deficiency.....

Nvidia tried to get the world to think that Physx was important just around the time ATI started doing well in the market again (after many years....), and it was a classic marketing distraction strategy. Just a bunch of bunk

 

[Binge]

Is phsyx worth it?

Simple answer.... No

The calculations that get accelerated via the Physx technology can be done in a zillion ways. Ageia had a sketchy business plan to begin with, and Nvidia buying them was a sympathy f*@k for the venture guys that had invested in it. Hardware acceleration is simply not necessary. Havoc has been doing it with software only for years. And certain video game developers write their own physics routines as well.

If physics co processing was so important, the whole world would have jumped on it. It ended up being a solution looking for a problem that wasn't there. No video games that I know of have a physics acceleration deficiency.....

Nvidia tried to get the world to think that Physx was important just around the time ATI started doing well in the market again (after many years....), and it was a classic marketing distraction strategy. Just a bunch of bunk

There's a flaw in your logic. Plenty of advances can be held back by market & demand. PhysX is "gimmicky" but they are offering one less step for developers to have to tackle themselves. Why is it nVidia made a wrong move when PhysX is just another badge of achievement? It can do more... who cares if more is PhysX?... and CUDA. Wait wait... Distraction strategy for what? I'm by no means defending them completely. If you can tell me you think nVidia is holding back the next generation of graphics when they have the means to unleash it fully then please let me know.

 

[1Kurgan1]

Physx is not offering one less step for developers to tackle because the game has to support Physx for it even to work. Which is why he is saying Nvidia made a wrong move buying a company that is making a card that costs a decent amount of money, when a software solution can do the samething. And that would be the distraction strategy. Nvidia isn't just a company, they have a fanbase, any of the companies they pickup along the way are going to get this support.

I don't see where he said that Nvidia is holding back the next gen of gfx cards though...

 

[OzzmanFloyd120]

It was all in the tone.

 

[SiliconSlick]

Get the CELL FACTOR demo

Basically i've just ordered myself a 9800gt to replace my ageing 8600gts.

But i'm wondering if it is worth keeping the 8600gts and making it a physx card.

I don't play loads of games but like far cry and play a lot of track mania.

From what research i've done it wont make a lot of differance to me, but i thought i'd ask the pro's first!

Either company's cards can be used to run the Cell Factor demo. It will show you some cool PhysX stuff, but not the new SOFT BODY part of PhysX which is even better.

http://www.gamershell.com/download_19042.shtml

There's the demo link above, if you don't have an Nvidia card only ATI - here's how to run the demo anyway - yes you'll take a huge framerate hit (at least in my experience )

The CellFactor High Graphics shortcut target should read:

"X:Cellfactor DemoSystemGameCellFactor.exe" FullScreen=true FullScreenWidth=1024 FullScreenHeight=768 HDREnabled=true DropShadows=true MaxLowRezDropShadows=20 MaxHighRezDropShadows=4 StaticShadow=true EnablePhysX=false

Note that the X is the drive you installed it on, typically "C".

The CellFactor Low Graphics shortcut target should read:

"X:Cellfactor DemoSystemGameCellFactor.exe" FullScreen=true FullScreenWidth=800 FullScreenHeight=600 AnisotropyLevel=1 HDREnabled=false DropShadows=false MaxLowRezDropShadows=0 MaxHighRezDropShadows=0 StaticShadow=false EnablePhysX=false

Again, the X is the drive letter of the drive you installed it on. "

LINK > http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/185393-33-play-cellfactor-demo-physx

Then there's the new powerpak from Nvidia with one demo game frmo Netdevil called WARMONGER - that's full on PhysX ( I didn't notice the soft body part {did notice the ripping tearing "flags} but somewhere I saw the claim it was a full implementation.

It is a very cool 1st person shooter actually, it's plenty of fun with pretty neat AI opponents.

" WARMONGER FAQ

What is Warmonger?
Warmonger is a first person shooter developed by NetDevil using Ageia PhysX technology to deliver fully destructible game environments.

What are the minimum system requirements to play Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction?
Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo Processor E6400 (2MB L2 Cache,2.13GHz,1066)
2GB RAM
Nvidia 7900 graphics card
PhysX Card strongly recommended

Is Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction *really* Free?
Ohhh yeah baby!

Does Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction require a PhysX card to play?
The game will run without a PhysX but the performance will be greatly degraded. It is strongly required that you have a PhysX card installed in order to fully experience this game.

What version/model of PhysX is required to play Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction?
Any Ageia PhysX card with the latest drivers from www.ageia.com will run Warmonger."
_________________

http://www.warmongergame.com/downloads.php

OK, so there's TWO demos to try out, the second is easier to run without NV physx card, not requiring the hack (that is copied and pasted and linked for Cell Factor).

_______________________________

Now instead of just thinking it sucks ( no not you Crow or anybody )or what is it, give it a try !

Enjoy !

 

[Rebo&Zooty]

GeForce 8 Series and beyond work for PhysX
- you can also make your new main card be the PhysX delivery gpu.

I for one cannot see not using a second card for PhysX if you have it available.

I certainly cannot imagine the raving enthusiasts going gaga over an added capabilty as cool as using a second vidcard for games...

But then again - I see the very first response was by mr ati advert man, and he kind of shrugged it off as blase' - oh whatever, who cares... LOL (BEWARE)

I can hardly wait till the red machine does a similar thing (they CAN'T and probably therefore WON'T - but I never said that ) - by golly then it will be all the rage - oh my- we'll have Sunday worship over it.

So my answer is it would be awesome and really cool, but since ATI isn't doing it we all know it's utterly worthless, and besides, NVidia the raging price gouger (who is losing money and ready to collapse the reds tell me) is just trying to make you buy another NV card or find fraudulent value in one you already wound up with by mistake.
So they're ripping you off. It's a con job. ATI would be honest about it - and not gouge you.

Wait till ATI does it, then it will be worth it. Besides, ATI does it better. And they make a profit , and they aren't price gouging you like Nvidia is :shadedshu losing money.

nvidia has physx, ati has havoc(they are working with intel so that intel's up coming new IGP AND gpu's will beable to accelerate havoc) this is a while off, it works now but neither ati/amd or intel think its ready to hit the market yet from what I have been hearing.

Is phsyx worth it?

Simple answer.... No

The calculations that get accelerated via the Physx technology can be done in a zillion ways. Ageia had a sketchy business plan to begin with, and Nvidia buying them was a sympathy f*@k for the venture guys that had invested in it. Hardware acceleration is simply not necessary. Havoc has been doing it with software only for years. And certain video game developers write their own physics routines as well.

If physics co processing was so important, the whole world would have jumped on it. It ended up being a solution looking for a problem that wasn't there. No video games that I know of have a physics acceleration deficiency.....

Nvidia tried to get the world to think that Physx was important just around the time ATI started doing well in the market again (after many years....), and it was a classic marketing distraction strategy. Just a bunch of bunk

I know you arent gonna like reading this, but havoc SUCKS, its fun for ragdoll effects but its vehicle handling SUCKS, PhysX vehicle's such as in MassEffect feel FAR MORE REAL, they dont bounch around as bad, they turn better, its just a more enjoyable experiance for the gamer and feels more real.

Now im not a fan of the PhysX cards, and till recently I would never have considered one, BUT since nvidia bought the rights to PhysX and is backing it ALOT of game companys/publishers/devs have started picking it up, EA for example has picked up PhysX(i hate EA but they are one of the largist game publishers around).

Now IF the price is right i wouldnt have any problem telling somebody to grab a 2nd card for physx, hell IF i had the money I would likely buy that asus pci-e physx card since my board dosnt support multi 16x slots.

I can say, that with and without physx acceleration you CAN FEEL/SEE the diffrance, I have been VERY impressed by nvidias work on physx, and This from a guy whos a RAGING ATI fan, I only have my current g92 based card because It was the best buy at the time(b4 the 3870 came out) and with current drivers, i feel nvidia has made HUGE strides from the earlyer drivers, quility is almost on par with ATI's drivers now for most things(transparent AA still isnt even close to what ATI offers sorry to say, per hit of super samples pretty big and multi sample looks horrible)

today, physx acceleration via your main videocard OR via a 2nd card, be it a standalone physx card or a 2nd videocard IS A GOOD IDEA, I have read that Nvidia and ATI have both been trying to get MS to allow 2 video drivers to inilize in vista so that a 2nd videocare from eather maker can be used to support their gpgpu(cuda/stream) prosessing abilitys.

really it would be SMART for both companys to do this, it would just sell them more cards.

think about it, you could be a die hard nvidia or ati fan, but still buy a low or midrange card from the other maker to boost your perf/quility in games and even other apps.

more choice is never a bad thing.....

 

[OzzmanFloyd120]

^ +1

 

[Rebo&Zooty]

Either company's cards can be used to run the Cell Factor demo. It will show you some cool PhysX stuff, but not the new SOFT BODY part of PhysX which is even better.

http://www.gamershell.com/download_19042.shtml

There's the demo link above, if you don't have an Nvidia card only ATI - here's how to run the demo anyway - yes you'll take a huge framerate hit (at least in my experience )

The CellFactor High Graphics shortcut target should read:

"X:Cellfactor DemoSystemGameCellFactor.exe" FullScreen=true FullScreenWidth=1024 FullScreenHeight=768 HDREnabled=true DropShadows=true MaxLowRezDropShadows=20 MaxHighRezDropShadows=4 StaticShadow=true EnablePhysX=false

Note that the X is the drive you installed it on, typically "C".

The CellFactor Low Graphics shortcut target should read:

"X:Cellfactor DemoSystemGameCellFactor.exe" FullScreen=true FullScreenWidth=800 FullScreenHeight=600 AnisotropyLevel=1 HDREnabled=false DropShadows=false MaxLowRezDropShadows=0 MaxHighRezDropShadows=0 StaticShadow=false EnablePhysX=false

Again, the X is the drive letter of the drive you installed it on. "

LINK > http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/185393-33-play-cellfactor-demo-physx

Then there's the new powerpak from Nvidia with one demo game frmo Netdevil called WARMONGER - that's full on PhysX ( I didn't notice the soft body part {did notice the ripping tearing "flags} but somewhere I saw the claim it was a full implementation.

It is a very cool 1st person shooter actually, it's plenty of fun with pretty neat AI opponents.

" WARMONGER FAQ

What is Warmonger?
Warmonger is a first person shooter developed by NetDevil using Ageia PhysX technology to deliver fully destructible game environments.

What are the minimum system requirements to play Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction?
Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo Processor E6400 (2MB L2 Cache,2.13GHz,1066)
2GB RAM
Nvidia 7900 graphics card
PhysX Card strongly recommended

Is Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction *really* Free?
Ohhh yeah baby!

Does Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction require a PhysX card to play?
The game will run without a PhysX but the performance will be greatly degraded. It is strongly required that you have a PhysX card installed in order to fully experience this game.

What version/model of PhysX is required to play Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction?
Any Ageia PhysX card with the latest drivers from www.ageia.com will run Warmonger."
_________________

http://www.warmongergame.com/downloads.php

OK, so there's TWO demos to try out, the second is easier to run without NV physx card, not requiring the hack (that is copied and pasted and linked for Cell Factor).

_______________________________

Now instead of just thinking it sucks ( no not you Crow or anybody )or what is it, give it a try !

Enjoy !

dont use that version of warmonger!!!!

this ones more up to date!!!!
http://www.nvidia.com/content/graphicsplus/us/download.asp

also the unreal 3 nvidia updated physx pack
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_ut3_downloads.html
has the latist physx maps/support in it

enjoy

 

[erocker]

I love a good lively discussion as much as the next guy, but lets keep the "fanboy" nonsense and the likes out of it. Try to use a logical and sensible approach to the way your posts tone are directed at other members. And of course, facts before opinion please. Keep it civil.

 

[kysg]

I love a good lively discussion as much as the next guy, but lets keep the "fanboy" nonsense and the likes out of it. Try to use a logical and sensible approach to the way your posts tone are directed at other members. And of course, facts before opinion please. Keep it civil.

Me and I'm betting a bunch of other people are mixed on the aspect of using physx...no joke. I don't see it getting any easier for devs. but we'll see I don't see mirror's edge making headlines with physx I just don't....but cryostasis that might have something going for it.

 

[Binge]

Me and I'm betting a bunch of other people are mixed on the aspect of using physx...no joke. I don't see it getting any easier for devs. but we'll see I don't see mirror's edge making headlines with physx I just don't....but cryostasis that might have something going for it.

Games rarely make headlines unless they completely satisfy the "gamer" and that stereotype changes as much as a transvestite going post op.

 

[G-wiz]

I personally don't see the use of physx atleast for right now. I don't see any improvement, I think nvidia should work on how their GPU's utilize physx properly first before they announce the software for public use.

 

[hat]

If you got it flaunt it. I would just run it off my existing card though. Running extra cards is a waste, i.e. buying an 8400gs or something for physx. Just stick with your current card and keep it enabled.

 

[Rebo&Zooty]

ah, but IF you have the extra card, OR if the extra cards dirt cheap, why not??

and this wont boost FPS much in most cases, BUT it will boost realisim, more elements in action at once moving more accuratly

 

[kysg]

ah, but IF you have the extra card, OR if the extra cards dirt cheap, why not??

and this wont boost FPS much in most cases, BUT it will boost realisim, more elements in action at once moving more accuratly

boost realism, man we got a long way to go before realism does anything remotely useful, to enhance a game, we got a long way to go before that happens.

 

[Rebo&Zooty]

ok so your a "keep it simple" person, i feel that any advance in tech/realisim/gfx quility is a good thing, specly if its added to a good game like MassEffect(wont buy it, US versions got to much DRM for me but the games fun!!!!)

every little step helps, look at unreal1, back then we thought that game was insainly realistic(the water was great!!!)

now its ASS compared to current stuff

but hey, stick with cards that dont support physx OR dont install the physx software if you dont feel it has any valid uses, hell dont install games that use it either, since physx IS hardware accelerated and HAVOC is due to become hardware accelerated pretty soon.....guess thats alot of stuff for you to avoid since physx/physics dont do anything good for games

 

[kysg]

ok so your a "keep it simple" person, i feel that any advance in tech/realisim/gfx quility is a good thing, specly if its added to a good game like MassEffect(wont buy it, US versions got to much DRM for me but the games fun!!!!)

every little step helps, look at unreal1, back then we thought that game was insainly realistic(the water was great!!!)

now its ASS compared to current stuff

but hey, stick with cards that dont support physx OR dont install the physx software if you dont feel it has any valid uses, hell dont install games that use it either, since physx IS hardware accelerated and HAVOC is due to become hardware accelerated pretty soon.....guess thats alot of stuff for you to avoid since physx/physics dont do anything good for games

I guess you wanna shitty jokes like that but um yea, like I said realism it's not happening for a while. and since ATI supports havoc, I would have bought the ATI card unless it didn't have the acceleration whoopdie doo, you know I'll put this way for you to understand when physx actually does something remotely affects gameplay beyond graphics, other than some tech demos showing off shit that isn't go anywhere then we can talk.

 

[Rebo&Zooty]

acctualy physx can be used for more then what you apparently ASSume it can be used for, they can use physx to improove LIGHTING, problem is till very recently nobodys had physx compatable cards really, now that the gf8 cards can support it as well as the asus pci-e physx card being a "reasonable" price, well thats changing, and ati/amd COULD SUPPORT PHYSX, the problem is that they are being stuborn/pridfull, even if they put out un-official cuda physx support it would at least show they are trying to make things better for all their users, hell the onboard 3100/3200/3300(780/790gx chipsets) could be used for physx really leaving the heavy lifting 100% to the videocard.

but again, do ahead and dissable physx/havoc support or dont play games that use them, your the only one who will be missing out

 

[kysg]

acctualy physx can be used for more then what you apparently ASSume it can be used for, they can use physx to improove LIGHTING, problem is till very recently nobodys had physx compatable cards really, now that the gf8 cards can support it as well as the asus pci-e physx card being a "reasonable" price, well thats changing, and ati/amd COULD SUPPORT PHYSX, the problem is that they are being stuborn/pridfull, even if they put out un-official cuda physx support it would at least show they are trying to make things better for all their users, hell the onboard 3100/3200/3300(780/790gx chipsets) could be used for physx really leaving the heavy lifting 100% to the videocard.

but again, do ahead and dissable physx/havoc support or dont play games that use them, your the only one who will be missing out

I guess so man, I guess so
I doubt I'll be able to disable that anyways I'll just take framerate hits up the arse and watch physx work its magic

 

[Rebo&Zooty]

dont get me started on cpu physx/havoc/exct, a genral perpous cpu is just not designed for that kinda math work............i been in beta's where ur perf is knocked in half if u dont got physx hardware(recently) or dissable it, you can dissable most of the physx effects, but the game becomes far mess enjoyable(just dosnt feel like it should, hard to explain) BUT the huge advantege of physx support is how nice things like vehickles feel when ur driving them.......

im waiting for the ability to bounce bullets off stuff to kill enimys