Retro laptop crash on PhysX-enabled games (geforce 260m)

[vorob]

Guys, i'm collecting and using retro laptops. Recently i bought ASUS ROG G60VX with geforce 260m. 3dmark06 runs fine, hour in battlefield 3 also went fluently. But when i tried several physx-enabled games i started catching driver crash or bugs.

I've tried alice madness returns, fluidmark and cryostasis. When i see fluid on screen it ends up ether in driver crash or fluid disappears.

Take a look:

Water just disappeared

Driver crash

I've tried different drivers and physx versions, all from 2010, 2011, 2013 or 2016. No luck. I even tried clean windows install, with only videodriver and directx, no luck.

The most bothering thing here is that i've got similar laptop, a year younger, alienware m11x from 2010 powered by geforce 335m, and there i didn't see any graphical issues in physx titles i mentioned.

Can gpu be partly dead? The part which is used for physx? Can i test it somehow?

 

[80251]

In Nvidia control panel you could try setting PhysX to CPU to determine for certain if it's the GPU.

 

[vorob]

In Nvidia control panel you could try setting PhysX to CPU to determine for certain if it's the GPU.

Good point, i should've mention it. I did a test earlier, gpu is definetly in business. First of all, when i'm using cpu i'm not experiencing any crashes or bugs and also i'm getting lower fps and high cpu load.

(318) 17 March 2023 - YouTube

Left is CPU right GPU.

 

[QuietBob]

Have you tried installing the latest PhysX 9.21? For games released in 2007 and earlier you may also need the legacy PhysX 9.13.

 

[Space Lynx]

there are older games that need the older Physx software like QuietBob said. I had this happen with Dragon Age Origins I think, can't remember.

 

[vorob]

Legacy PhysX driver required on modern computes, when using modern hardware and up-to-date drivers. On my machine I’m using old driver, like I mentioned I tried 2010,11,13 and 16 (latest possible) years, including their own physx drivers. I used ddu to make everything clean.

On m11x, which works perfectly, I have videodriver from 2010 and PhysX package from 2011.

in my desperate attempt to sort this issue I also tried this legacy driver, but no luck.

—
Today I installed Windows Vista 32х, and still PhysX crashes video driver. So looks like it’s driver/os/bittness irrelevant issue.