PhysX review on 9800GTX

[biostud]

http://techgage.com/article/nv...nce_and_status_report/

 

[ViRGE]

I find it odd that only UT3 is supported. PhysX/CUDA was supposed to be a drop-in replacement for PhysX/PPU as I understand it, the software was supposed to see and treat both as the same through abstraction.

 

[SickBeast]

I ran the PhysX UT3 levels and was impressed with the additional special effects...I'm looking forward to trying it out with hardware acceleration so I can actually frag someone.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

As expected, it is great while the GPU has headroom, as soon as it starts to get busy with the graphics, it offers no improvement

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself
As expected, it is great while the GPU has headroom, as soon as it starts to get busy with the graphics, it offers no improvement

Nvidia should let the high end GPU render the game and let user install a $50 nvidia gpu card to do physicx processing. Wouldn't that slove the problem ?

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself
As expected, it is great while the GPU has headroom, as soon as it starts to get busy with the graphics, it offers no improvement

Nvidia should let the high end GPU render the game and let user install a $50 nvidia gpu card to do physicx processing. Wouldn't that slove the problem ?

Good thinking, that should work

 

[BFG10K]

As expected, it is great while the GPU has headroom, as soon as it starts to get busy with the graphics, it offers no improvement

That was my concern too. Most of today's games are massively GPU bottlenecked at high settings so adding physics to the GPU will only slow things down.

Since the CPU has idle times while it's waiting for the GPU to catch up, doing physics on it will be a less of an impact in said situations.

Nvidia should let the high end GPU render the game and let user install a $50 nvidia gpu card to do physicx processing. Wouldn't that slove the problem ?

I think nVidia selling you more GPUs has been their plan all along, and I would have doubts they would enable the feature on the cheaper cards. Hopefully then you?ll buy up to four beefy graphics cards from them (tri SLI + physics).

 

[s44]

If Nvidia is including IGPs on all their mobos now, they should just set those up to do PhysX if you have a separate vidcard installed.

 

[SickBeast]

Does anyone know if the physics are accelerated throughout UT3, or only on the 3 special PhysX maps? If it's only on the 3 maps, I find it hard to get too excited about the feature at this point. The additional eye candy on those maps is incredible though.

Hopefully down the line there will be a physics 'standard' so that all games can feature these cool physics effects, and everyone can run them.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: s44
If Nvidia is including IGPs on all their mobos now, they should just set those up to do PhysX if you have a separate vidcard installed.

Chances are the SPs on the IGPs aren't powerful enough to run PhysX. They will be able to do this once they have a G80/G92 based IGP though.

Great idea though.

I personally wish that IGPs were more common. Right now I find that they're almost exclusively on Mini-ATX motherboards that are seriously lacking in expansion slots and features.

 

[biostud]

or you could install both an AMD card and nvidia card and for physX titles use the AMD card for videorendering and the nvidia card to physX, and in games that uses Havok you could use the AMD card for havok and nvidia for rendering

 

[chizow]

CUDA PhysX works in Mass Effect as well. I saw a nice increase in FPS with the 177.41s. I'll see if it helps in GoW too, as that's another UE3 game.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: chizow
CUDA PhysX works in Mass Effect as well. I saw a nice increase in FPS with the 177.41s. I'll see if it helps in GoW too, as that's another UE3 game.

No, no it doesn't. Mass Effect does not support hardware acceleration for PhysX. If you saw any improvement, it was unrelated to PhysX.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: chizow
CUDA PhysX works in Mass Effect as well. I saw a nice increase in FPS with the 177.41s. I'll see if it helps in GoW too, as that's another UE3 game.

No, no it doesn't. Mass Effect does not support hardware acceleration for PhysX. If you saw any improvement, it was unrelated to PhysX.

It doesn't support PhysX or CUDA PhysX?
PhysXCore.dll in ME folder
ME listed in PhysX game list
Its possible some of the difference was from my mobo swap from PCI 1.1 to 2.0, but I highly doubt it was simply from an improved driver w/out PhysX. I'll try 177.35 again and see if FPS drops again.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
Does anyone know if the physics are accelerated throughout UT3, or only on the 3 special PhysX maps? If it's only on the 3 maps, I find it hard to get too excited about the feature at this point. The additional eye candy on those maps is incredible though.

Hopefully down the line there will be a physics 'standard' so that all games can feature these cool physics effects, and everyone can run them.

PhysX is used in all maps, it's just that the "regular" maps are kept light in effects so that you could play them w/o a PPU.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: chizow
CUDA PhysX works in Mass Effect as well. I saw a nice increase in FPS with the 177.41s. I'll see if it helps in GoW too, as that's another UE3 game.

No, no it doesn't. Mass Effect does not support hardware acceleration for PhysX. If you saw any improvement, it was unrelated to PhysX.

It doesn't support PhysX or CUDA PhysX?
PhysXCore.dll in ME folder
ME listed in PhysX game list
Its possible some of the difference was from my mobo swap from PCI 1.1 to 2.0, but I highly doubt it was simply from an improved driver w/out PhysX. I'll try 177.35 again and see if FPS drops again.

It doesn't support hardware accelerated PhysX(PPU or GPU). It does use the PhysX software package for physics (which is why you are seeing PhysX files) but it doesn't use the hardware accelerated version.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
I find it odd that only UT3 is supported. PhysX/CUDA was supposed to be a drop-in replacement for PhysX/PPU as I understand it, the software was supposed to see and treat both as the same through abstraction.

I am seeing benefits on my 8800GTS 512 with mass effect and with city of heroes. City of heroes does not allow me to enable "extra" PPU physX options because it does not detect a PPU.
But I can push the regular physX options to levels I shouldn't be able to without a PPU.
So I am getting a partial benefit there.

 

[eosmund]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: chizow
CUDA PhysX works in Mass Effect as well. I saw a nice increase in FPS with the 177.41s. I'll see if it helps in GoW too, as that's another UE3 game.

No, no it doesn't. Mass Effect does not support hardware acceleration for PhysX. If you saw any improvement, it was unrelated to PhysX.

It doesn't support PhysX or CUDA PhysX?
PhysXCore.dll in ME folder
ME listed in PhysX game list
Its possible some of the difference was from my mobo swap from PCI 1.1 to 2.0, but I highly doubt it was simply from an improved driver w/out PhysX. I'll try 177.35 again and see if FPS drops again.

It doesn't support hardware accelerated PhysX(PPU or GPU). It does use the PhysX software package for physics (which is why you are seeing PhysX files) but it doesn't use the hardware accelerated version.

Actually, if you look at the list of PhysX Titles, Mass Effect is listed. At the bottom of the page there is a note that claims:

"Note: This game listing is not representative of all titles that will be available, just those that AGEIA and it's developer and publisher partners are able to disclose. To avoid confusion, PC titles that do not take advantage of AGEIA PhysX hardware acceleration are ommitted from this listing."

Maybe I'm not understanding this right, but it seems there are quite a few titles that do take advantage of PhysX hardware.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: eosmund

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: chizow
CUDA PhysX works in Mass Effect as well. I saw a nice increase in FPS with the 177.41s. I'll see if it helps in GoW too, as that's another UE3 game.

No, no it doesn't. Mass Effect does not support hardware acceleration for PhysX. If you saw any improvement, it was unrelated to PhysX.

It doesn't support PhysX or CUDA PhysX?
PhysXCore.dll in ME folder
ME listed in PhysX game list
Its possible some of the difference was from my mobo swap from PCI 1.1 to 2.0, but I highly doubt it was simply from an improved driver w/out PhysX. I'll try 177.35 again and see if FPS drops again.

It doesn't support hardware accelerated PhysX(PPU or GPU). It does use the PhysX software package for physics (which is why you are seeing PhysX files) but it doesn't use the hardware accelerated version.

Actually, if you look at the list of PhysX Titles, Mass Effect is listed. At the bottom of the page there is a note that claims:

"Note: This game listing is not representative of all titles that will be available, just those that AGEIA and it's developer and publisher partners are able to disclose. To avoid confusion, PC titles that do not take advantage of AGEIA PhysX hardware acceleration are ommitted from this listing."

Maybe I'm not understanding this right, but it seems there are quite a few titles that do take advantage of PhysX hardware.

PhysX is an API that supports processing on the PPU and the CPU, so just because the game uses that API doesn't mean it will benefit from dedicated physics hardware.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: eosmund

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: chizow
CUDA PhysX works in Mass Effect as well. I saw a nice increase in FPS with the 177.41s. I'll see if it helps in GoW too, as that's another UE3 game.

No, no it doesn't. Mass Effect does not support hardware acceleration for PhysX. If you saw any improvement, it was unrelated to PhysX.

It doesn't support PhysX or CUDA PhysX?
PhysXCore.dll in ME folder
ME listed in PhysX game list
Its possible some of the difference was from my mobo swap from PCI 1.1 to 2.0, but I highly doubt it was simply from an improved driver w/out PhysX. I'll try 177.35 again and see if FPS drops again.

It doesn't support hardware accelerated PhysX(PPU or GPU). It does use the PhysX software package for physics (which is why you are seeing PhysX files) but it doesn't use the hardware accelerated version.

Actually, if you look at the list of PhysX Titles, Mass Effect is listed. At the bottom of the page there is a note that claims:

"Note: This game listing is not representative of all titles that will be available, just those that AGEIA and it's developer and publisher partners are able to disclose. To avoid confusion, PC titles that do not take advantage of AGEIA PhysX hardware acceleration are ommitted from this listing."

Maybe I'm not understanding this right, but it seems there are quite a few titles that do take advantage of PhysX hardware.

That list is wrong, and I've told NVIDIA as much; several of those games even predate the PhysX hardware. If you want an accurate list, try this one.

 

[taltamir]

physX API can do processing on the PPU, GPU (finally) and CPU. And actually can split the load, using both the CPU and GPU at once to do physX. So even if the title was written prior to the existance of the PPU or GPU physX, it could still use it.

This is similar to the openGL method of doing things, the game gives a command, and the openGL layer will have either the CPU or GPU render it, depending on the capabilities of each.

The thing is... for older games, this could very well mean that there is no discernable difference to the end user... it just changes the CPU from 60% to 30% utilization and the GPU from 30% to 40%.
Or increases your FPS if you don't use vsync. (again, at amounts where it does not matter).

But such games are not useful for benchmarking regular hardware either... once a title gets 100+ FPS on all modern video cards it doesn't really matter in terms of hardware comparison.

According to users postings on mass effect forum:
1. physX is enabled by default
2. the amount of effects used is determined by weather or not the game detects a PPU.
3. If the game does detect a PPU, destruction of certain items, such as "boxes" looks far more impressive.

In theory: regardless of weather it detects a PPU or not, the FPS should improve since physX, either simple or complex, is offloaded to the GPU. unless you have a really powerful CPU and a dinky video card, in which case the opposite might be true.