ATI and Physx

[TheMailMan78]

I'm looking at getting a cheap Nvidia card to do Physx until I can afford another 5850 and I was wondering what the latest status of the "ATI vs Physx" drama. Are there new drivers? Does all the old hacks still work? How do I do it?

Here is the last thing I heard.
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=105329&highlight=ati+physx

 

[Bo$$]

i think nvidia disabled it when they detect an ATI card :s

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

They did but it still works with those hacked drivers. Well at any rate I tried it out (first PhysX experimentation too btw) with my old 4870 and an 8800GT from work less than 2 months ago. Worked just fine.

 

[TheMailMan78]

So does this hack allow you to use the latest drivers from Nvidia or are you stuck with an old driver?

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

No the "hack" is a patch for the latest drivers which presumably removes the hardware-type check or whatever it does now to know main GPU is ATI.

 

[Rexter]

geesh, when will we get dx11 physics? then we wouldnt have to deal with all this

 

[GhoXen]

You really don't have to deal with it. PhysX from nvidia is not worth the trouble at all.

 

[digibucc]

true ghoxen ... for the little it offers it is nowhere near the trouble of going through all that.

if however the point is more that you want a new project, then hey - have fun!

 

[jhine5588]

I beg to differ. I've had it working for some time now and works fantastic and looks wicked cool... Up till I started playing newer games (Sacred 2). It tends to crash now but I think that's due to the old drivers I'm running (185.2). Does anyone know where I can get that patch from for the newer drivers?



Jeremy

P.S. Is this the right one?? http://forums.techpowerup.com/showt...sing+newer+nvidia+physx+drivers+with+ati+card

 

[erocker]

I'm looking at getting a cheap Nvidia card to do Physx until I can afford another 5850 and I was wondering what the latest status of the "ATI vs Physx" drama. Are there new drivers? Does all the old hacks still work? How do I do it?

Here is the last thing I heard.
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=105329&highlight=ati+physx

Why bother?

Clearly there are just a small handful of games that actually use it. PhysX is dead. Unless of course you are just looking to get 2000 or so extra fake points in Vantage. You would be waaaayyy better off putting a 2nd matching ATi card in there.

geesh, when will we get dx11 physics? then we wouldnt have to deal with all this

There already are other multiple ways to do physics, even with DX11. Just because "PhysX" isn't stamped on it doesn't mean physics isn't there.

 

[ShRoOmAlIsTiC]

get the latest patch here
http://www.ngohq.com/graphic-cards/...sx-when-ati-card-is-present-78.html#post86252

works with the newest whql nvidia drivers. I believe they are 195.62

 

[jhine5588]

Why bother?

http://i403.photobucket.com/albums/pp112/erocker414/phys.jpg

Clearly there are just a small handful of games that actually use it. PhysX is dead. Unless of course you are just looking to get 2000 or so extra fake points in Vantage. You would be waaaayyy better off putting a 2nd matching ATi card in there.




There already are other multiple ways to do physics, even with DX11. Just because "PhysX" isn't stamped on it doesn't mean physics isn't there.

Check out this thread to answer your question. http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?p=1719858#post1719858



Jeremy

 

[erocker]

Check out this thread to answer your question. http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?p=1719858#post1719858



Jeremy

Yes, I've seen PhysX before. That's nice and all, but it doesn't answer my question or more accurately disprove my statement. With DX11 PhysX is dead. My point really was there's not too much on that list and don't expect much of anything new. Nvidia has DX11 cards coming soon.

 

[jhine5588]

I did so because
A) I already had an ATI card
B) A lot of people were saying it couldn't be done (I've been doing it for over a year now)
C) It cost me $85 to buy the 9600GT, a lot cheaper than another 4870X2, with a lot more performance (PhysX wise)
D) It looks cool

I'm not arguing that DX11 and OpenCL won't replace PhysX, but I don't see that technology out yet and I won't be buying one of them Nvidia cards at any recent point in time. I only bought the X2 cause a buddy was selling it and I couldn't pass up $275 for practically a $500 card!



Jeremy

 

[TheMailMan78]

Why bother?

http://i403.photobucket.com/albums/pp112/erocker414/phys.jpg

Clearly there are just a small handful of games that actually use it. PhysX is dead. Unless of course you are just looking to get 2000 or so extra fake points in Vantage. You would be waaaayyy better off putting a 2nd matching ATi card in there.




There already are other multiple ways to do physics, even with DX11. Just because "PhysX" isn't stamped on it doesn't mean physics isn't there.

It was mostly because of Batman. I love Batman and I wanted the full experience. That and it was rumored at the time DICE was using Physx in their upcoming BF sequels. However Ive pretty much lost interest now. Looking to get another 5850 instead.

 

[erocker]

I did so because
A) I already had an ATI card
B) A lot of people were saying it couldn't be done (I've been doing it for over a year now)
C) It cost me $85 to buy the 9600GT, a lot cheaper than another 4870X2, with a lot more performance (PhysX wise)
D) It looks cool

I'm not arguing that DX11 and OpenCL won't replace PhysX, but I don't see that technology out yet and I won't be buying one of them Nvidia cards at any recent point in time. I only bought the X2 cause a buddy was selling it and I couldn't pass up $275 for practically a $500 card!



Jeremy

I'll admit you make outstanding points. If you currently have games that support PhysX, it's the way to go. I just don't think it's in anyones best interest to buy a PhysX card, just to go out and buy PhysX supported games to play them on.

How are you liking Sacred 2? Worth picking up?

 

[eidairaman1]

this is where we need Havok.

 

[jhine5588]

How are you liking Sacred 2? Worth picking up?

Yes and no...

Pros:
Game play is great, rivals with Diablo 2 which I was huge into however is playable in single player for hours unlike D2
Graphics are fantastic
Came out before D3
Allows me to utilize PhysX

Cons:
Learning curve (never played Sacred 1)
Game is very buggy, even with PhysX not enabled (map bug and quest waypoint bug)
Not many people seem to play online like D2 and B.net

For $20, I'd buy it again even with all of the quirks.



Jeremy

 

[BlackOmega]

Yes physX works with the latest 195.xx driver but you will need the "patch" (hack really). But if you don't feel like messing around with that simply use the 185.xx driver (last driver that didn't disable physx if ATi was detected).

ANd I suppose I'm lucky my board has 4 PCIe slots so I figured, what the hell why not. One of my folding rigs was down anyway (2 9600 GSO's).

As for the games that use it, it looks great. In Batman, if you run the hack it opens up the video settings like AA and whatnot. Not to mention it adds smoke, the leaves, papers and all sorts of other graphical things to the game that are not there unless you're running Nvidia. It also adds "realistic" cape movement.

Aside from that I did it because I actually have 5 or so games that utilize it.

I'd say this, if you already have an Nvidia physx capable GPU laying around go for it. Or unless you can get one really cheap. If not, I wouldn't bother unless you absolutely have to have it to play batman or whatever.

 

[jhine5588]

I agree. I ordered my motherboard mainly to do this... I don't think I would do it again, but I really wanted to get it to work. I had a decent gigabyte board before this (only 2 PCI-E slots) and although I like the Lan Party more, it would have been cheaper for me to buy a quad core and a 4870X2 for the money I had into 2 3870's, a 9600GT and this motherboard. I did it for the challenge and to utilize what some others don't realize is available out there.



Jeremy

P.S. I was running the 185.20's up till today because I found out that was why my game was crashing so much. I now have the 195.62's and they are working better than ever (thanks to the hack ) BTW... does anyone really know how Nvidia names their drivers?? It's always so confusing to me because ATI uses the last number of the year and the month they came out but Nvidia doesn't seem to have a pattern like that.

 

[Tweak-2-]

Heya guys,

wel actually win7 alows u to use multiple whql and drivers, so it can run ati and nvidia together,

the thing is nvidia wants you to waist money on there card for physx.

By default if you dont own a nvidia card physx is renderd by the cpu, and its a rip off open taks manager while running a physx bench , it adresses only 1 core of ur cpu or 25% of the total prossesing power, that means a phenom 940 = a gtx280 in physx,, think im lying?

Check for urself i got the editor of guru 3d to certify my acusation on his site so check there if you want, but if nvidia would do like microsoft requests then physx will be open source but they reject it . So its a scam, a phenom 955 is equal to a gtx 295 or better in physx, so u think for yourself is it worth it?

 

[jhine5588]

Wait, you've lost me. All I know is with my PhysX card disable it runs every single PhysX benchmark and game at about 50% performance or worse.

The PhysX card seems to take a load off of the CPU allowing it to focus on other duties which in turn gives you more processing power to the ATI card doing the rest of the stuff.

If you're saying that PhysX only utilizes part of the GPU then I would agree. There's no way my 9600GT is being used at it's full potential in JUST PhysX calculations because it barely gets a couple degrees over idle.

Startales Benchmark:

Jeremy

P.S. This benchmark isn't like Fluidmark either, in that it doesn't need a special file to be used with ATI cards.

 

[Tweak-2-]

Please take pay closer attention to my posts , i stated CPU , Not GPU and me and my mates have tried to hack the Hd 4xxx series for physx but cant and never will be able antil physX is open source , the ATI cards dont have PPU , Physics processing units , and without that your buggered , but amd did apply such tech to there CPUs but then nvidia went and blacked the addressing of the CPU to 25% or one core as mentioned b4 please read my post again thanx

Anything that isnt adressed as a primary GPU yes will be utilized @ 25% but i'm not certain if 3dcards apply only the CPU tests we ran have provided intel

That bench looks like Nurien Tech with the fashion show ,

 

[jhine5588]

Please take pay closer attention to my posts... please read my post again thanx

I just didn't understand what you were trying to say. I still don't .



Jeremy

 

[Solaris17]

Please take pay closer attention to my posts , i stated CPU , Not GPU and me and my mates have tried to hack the Hd 4xxx series for physx but cant and never will be able antil physX is open source , the ATI cards dont have PPU , Physics processing units , and without that your buggered , but amd did apply such tech to there CPUs but then nvidia went and blacked the addressing of the CPU to 25% or one core as mentioned b4 please read my post again thanx

please

Anything that isnt adressed as a primary GPU yes will be utilized @ 25% but i'm not certain if 3dcards apply only the CPU tests we ran have provided intel

Dont

That bench looks like Nurien Tech with the fashion show ,

multi-post

Second. Nvidia cards dont have physx processing units. They are called stream processors. Recently rename "Cuda cores" however that is just a name and does not in anyway mean they are special. ATI has "programmable stream processors" just like nvidia cards. Next, you are right is saying ATI could if physx was open source (As nvidia only allows GPU phyx calculation on Nvidia GPU's). However it is not limited by hardware as like said above you just need a SP that can take on any kind of calculation and not be limited to geometry, vertex shading etc..That being said your CPU statement about "enabling physx calculations on AMD CPUs" is ridiculous. Their is nothing special about physx processing it is simply a mathematical calculation that can be used on any processor. Physx only using one core depends alot on the software doing physx. Not so much in the physx calculation itself. That and with the performance of todays CPU's the physx calculations arent that hard. you can see this in multiple games and benchmarks such as mirrors edge or 3dmark vantage were their is varying amounts of load due to these calculations. The fact that it only uses 25% of one core has nothing to do with nvidia or the physx technology and is more limited to how the program handles physx (and how multi threaded the algorithm is/program itself) and how much "physx" calculations are actually being thrown at the processor.