Radeon and GeForce Share Work, PhysX Applications Win

[DarkMatter]

You misunderstood me. Say someone has a 4850 and they are trying to decide to either go crossfire (buying a card of equal price as the one they have) or save some money and get a cheap nvidia card. Would they see better performance with the cheaper nvidia card, or with the equally priced 4850?

Some people are on a budget and can't "just buy a 200 series card" lol.

It will depend on the game, obviously. If the game uses PhysX and you have the hardware physics enabled a cheap Geforce will give you a lot better performance. Probably you wouldn't be able to enable hardware physics without a Geforce or Ageia ppu, there's the possibility that some few games wouldn't even work, so in reality it's either more frames with no enhanced gameplay, or less frames but outstanding physics. Choose what you prefer.

It is better just to buy a quad core CPU and to use it's additional 2 cores for physics in games. In this way you will have more balanced PC.

The whole point of this is to have a lot better physics than what an entire (4 cores) Overclocked Quad can handle. Even the 8400 GS has probably more number crunching power than the fastest quad.

 

[Bytor]

I really hope they get this worked out in Vista.



Yes, you can still run a pair of ATi cards and a 3rd for PhysX in XP. CrossfireX is not supported in XP, however having more than 2 graphics cards is. ATi just doesn't want to support CrossfireX on XP for some strange reasons, probably to much of a hassle to work out the drivers.

XP supports at least 3 graphics cards.

Ah I was thinking that after I posted. Only 2 of the cards connected (ATI's via crossfire) and the 3rd card(Nvidia) would be a stand alone to do PhysX...hhhmmmmm

But does anyone know of a way to make a Agiea PhysX card work with ATI video cards in the games that support PhysX?
I tried running fluidmark with this setup but it would not work. (I had the PhysX card drivers installed)

 

[Tatty_Two]

It is better just to buy a quad core CPU and to use it's additional 2 cores for physics in games. In this way you will have more balanced PC.

You wont/cant use cores of the CPU unless the game is programmed in that way, apart from that, a GPU is MUCH more efficient at Px than a CPU.

 

[DarkMatter]

You wont/cant use cores of the CPU unless the game is programmed in that way, apart from that, a GPU is MUCH more efficient at Px than a CPU.

Well TBH and to honor the truth, a CPU is "much" more efficient at physics (almost everything except graphics, indeed), but it's just overwhelmed by the power of the GPUs.

But yeah, because of that, a GPU can do physics a lot faster or bigger = better.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

If it worked on vista,would i be able to run 2x4850's in xfire and an nvidia card in the third pci-e x4 slot for physx?

 

[alexp999]

If it worked on vista,would i be able to run 2x4850's in xfire and an nvidia card in the third pci-e x4 slot for physx?

Yep!

I dont get it, why doesnt it work in Vista anyway?

 

[Deleted member 24505]

I think you cant run nvidia and ati drivers at the same time on vista.

 

[wolf2009]

Yep!

I dont get it, why doesnt it work in Vista anyway?

Its the way Vista Driver implementation is designed . It is designed to prevent drivers from getting entangled with each other and causing BSOD's. So they are not run in Vista kernel ( Something like this ). Thus it allows only one display driver.

Due to this driver implementation, you see less BSOD's on vista.

 

[alexp999]

Its the way Vista Driver implementation is designed . It is designed to prevent drivers from getting entangled with each other and causing BSOD's. So they are not run in Vista kernel ( Something like this ). Thus it allows only one display driver.

Due to this driver implementation, you see less BSOD's on vista.

And I suppose the Ageia physx card doesnt count as a display driver?

i guess the next thing then, is to allow you to have a physx driver install, that allows the card only to be used for that purpose so their is still only one display driver

 

[wolf2009]

And I suppose the Ageia physx card doesnt count as a display driver?

i guess the next thing then, is to allow you to have a physx driver install, that allows the card only to be used for that purpose so their is still only one display driver

yup, for using nvidia card as a physX card, you have to install their control panel with drivers .so it doesn't work .

 

[DarkMatter]

I was not aware that you could only have one display driver in Vista. I have had 2 different cards many times, one for gaming and a professional one for working and I had no problems with them. This is impossible in Vista, I guess. Too bad M$...

 

[Fitseries3]

i dont see why this wont work on vista. it's gotta be a simple fix that should be fixed soon enough. vista wont let you run 2 display drivers correct, BUT the cuda/physx driver is not really a display driver. there has got to be another reason why it's not working yet.

as for XP and multi gpu support.... i had my 2x3870x2's working fine in XP. even gpu-z showed 4gpu CFX enabled.

i think it's just a matter of time before this gets fixed for vista.

 

[suraswami]

Any card 8400 GS upwards.

how about using built-in mobo graphics like GF8200 (my ECS 8200 board) with a ATI 4850 or 3870 card? Or even with my X800GTO?

 

[Tatty_Two]

how about using built-in mobo graphics like GF8200 (my ECS 8200 board) with a ATI 4850 or 3870 card? Or even with my X800GTO?

Should be OK yes.

 

[EnglishLion]

So what's the chance of someone writing 3rd party driver for nvidia gpu to support physics only that's not a display driver so that it's vista compatible.

I have three slots and a cheap low end nvidia card in my 3rd slot would be nice!

 

[Bytor]

I installed my Asus P1 PhysX card with my ATI 3870 in my intel rig. I installed the card drivers and when I tried running fluidmark it said I needed the 8.07.18 or better drivers, so I installed them. Now when I try and run fluidmark the following message pops up.

The card is working fine. I can reset it and play PhysX based games that came with the card, but can't run fluidmark..

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

 

[newtekie1]

Try installing the 8.08.18 PhsyX software. You might have to uninstall all previous Ageia and PhsyX drivers first.

So what's the chance of someone writing 3rd party driver for nvidia gpu to support physics only that's not a display driver so that it's vista compatible.

I have three slots and a cheap low end nvidia card in my 3rd slot would be nice!

I assume that is what is going to have to happen. NVidia is going to have to just release a set of drivers that makes Vista pick the card up as a PPU only, and not a GPU.

 

[cdawall]

I assume that is what is going to have to happen. NVidia is going to have to just release a set of drivers that makes Vista pick the card up as a PPU only, and not a GPU.

thats so not going to happen lol that would be to nice of NV

 

[Tatty_Two]

I installed my Asus P1 PhysX card with my ATI 3870 in my intel rig. I installed the card drivers and when I tried running fluidmark it said I needed the 8.07.18 or better drivers, so I installed them. Now when I try and run fluidmark the following message pops up.

The card is working fine. I can reset it and play PhysX based games that came with the card, but can't run fluidmark..

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

I think Fluidmark is an NVidia bench, thus it requires CUDA and ATi aint got that.

 

[EnglishLion]

thats so not going to happen lol that would be to nice of NV

Certainly Nvidia won't be writing it, they want you to buy nvidia only obviously! But an independant programmer out there might. I know you can get alternative ATI display drivers (don't know if they work in vista) so it might be possible.

 

[Bytor]

I think Fluidmark is an NVidia bench, thus it requires CUDA and ATi aint got that.

In the first post in this thread the bottom pic's show they ran it using a ATI 3800 series card.

 

[JrRacinFan]

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=69658

 

[Tatty_Two]

In the first post in this thread the bottom pic's show they ran it using a ATI 3800 series card.

Lol yes....with an NVidia card so it has CUDA!! You are not talking about using an NVidia card hence no CUDA, you can still have Physx with the Ageia but that does not give you CUDA and therefore you have problems with this NVidia bench......get my drift?

 

[Bytor]

Good point tatty....Cheers...

Not worth spending money on Nvidia at this time..

 

[newtekie1]

I think Fluidmark is an NVidia bench, thus it requires CUDA and ATi aint got that.

In the first post in this thread the bottom pic's show they ran it using a ATI 3800 series card.

Lol yes....with an NVidia card so it has CUDA!! You are not talking about using an NVidia card hence no CUDA, you can still have Physx with the Ageia but that does not give you CUDA and therefore you have problems with this NVidia bench......get my drift?

Good point tatty....Cheers...

Not worth spending money on Nvidia at this time..

Go read Fluidmark's page here.

An nVidia card is not required, you just need the CUDA dll if you don't have an nVidia card. The benchmark will run fine on an Ageia card, or with no PhysX capable card at all. It is a PhsyX benchmark, not an nVidia benchmark, just like Vantage.

thats so not going to happen lol that would be to nice of NV

Certainly Nvidia won't be writing it, they want you to buy nvidia only obviously! But an independant programmer out there might. I know you can get alternative ATI display drivers (don't know if they work in vista) so it might be possible.

NVidia wants the technoligy to catch on. The only way it will compete with Havok is if it can be used on virtually every platform, and nVidia knows that. Which is exactly why they are helping get PhysX running on ATi cards, something not even ATi is willing to help with.

Maybe that will be their solution, if it just runs on ATi cards, then you won't have to worry about getting nVidia cards working with ATi cards in Vista, you can have all ATi cards.