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Buy a vid card with Physx or without?

Buy a vid card with Physx or without?

  • Yes

    Votes: 4 28.6%
  • No

    Votes: 10 71.4%

  • Total voters
    14

Divinehammer

Grizzled Veteran
Mar 9, 2006
1,397
6
Sunny, Obamalot
So it is time to upgrade the video card again and a friend is trying to push me to buy a Radeon which I have been a solid Nvidia guy forever. So here is my question how important is having physx available? It certainly adds to the game when you have it I have been watching the youtube videos. Would you miss out on eyecandy if I went with the Radeon. I currently have physx with my 8800GTS so I am wondering what can I expect if I moved to the Radeon? I am currently looking at either a Nvidia GTX 560Ti or a Radeon 6950 with 2GB(future proofing). The majority of the games I play are.
RO2 (Does RO2 use Physx)
RO
Total War Series
Killing Floor
Looking forward to ARMA3 and Diablo3

So is Physx obsolete or still a good feature? It also seems like if I went with Nvidia again I could have dedicate my 8800 to physx.
Thanks for your input.

**Should have been "worthwhile" in the poll but I dont think I can edit it.
 
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I think best way is to get decent GTX card. PhysX generally is cool feature, however for me optional. Only in few Single Player games you notice PhysX.

For example:
Batman: Arkham City NVIDIA GeForce GTX PhysX PC Trailer - YouTube

Mafia II | PhysX Comparison [HD] - YouTube

I have GTX 560Ti SoC from Gigabyte and I'm happy. I couldn't afford more expensive card, but it is enough good for me. I guess for such titles as Batman you would need GTX570 or better to run everything on High w/ PhysX on. PhysX is FPS killer sometimes.
 
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Wish I could give you a good answer, just a quick comment.

I had two 8800GT's (I have two monitors). One eventually died, and with the second one the secondary output stopped working, the main output is fine. I bought an MSI GTX 560Ti Twin Frozr as my main card and moved the 8800GT to run Physx and my second monitor.

Not sure if there is any difference in the games I play.
 
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It is nice to have, but not essential. Mostly it is just used for extra graphical affects in generic games. A lot of new games can run Physx software for AMD cards, though with a performance penalty. BIS claims ArmA 3 will be like this (or that there is even no performance penalty for AMD users, the posts were not to clear to me). Though Physx in ArmA 3 is the primary reason I went with Nvidia over AMD this time, as any performance benefit in an ArmA game is worth it to me. For something like Metro 2033 or Batman I won't care very much.

Something to consider is that the HD6950 2GB is cheaper than the GTX 560ti 2GB and it uses less power. If you want to go with AMD I could get the Saphire HD6950 2GB dual fan with the BIOS switch on it. My EVGA GTX 560ti 2GB has been a lot of trouble (or maybe it is my motherboard), so I would not recommend it.
 
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It is nice to have, but not essential. Mostly it is just used for extra graphical affects in generic games. A lot of new games can run Physx software for AMD cards, though with a performance penalty. BIS claims ArmA 3 will be like this (or that there is even no performance penalty for AMD users, the posts were not to clear to me). Though Physx in ArmA 3 is the primary reason I went with Nvidia over AMD this time, as any performance benefit in an ArmA game is worth it to me. For something like Metro 2033 or Batman I won't care very much.

Something to consider is that the HD6950 2GB is cheaper than the GTX 560ti 2GB and it uses less power. If you want to go with AMD I could get the Saphire HD6950 2GB dual fan with the BIOS switch on it. My EVGA GTX 560ti 2GB has been a lot of trouble (or maybe it is my motherboard), so I would not recommend it.

Regarding ArmA 3, physx will be the physics engine of the game, just like it in all Unreal Engine 3 games by default. The Nvidia physx thing is just the same thing except hardware accelerated on the GPU, though usually game devs go overboard with the physics stuff resulting in lower performance :D
 
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Regarding ArmA 3, physx will be the physics engine of the game, just like it in all Unreal Engine 3 games by default. The Nvidia physx thing is just the same thing except hardware accelerated on the GPU, though usually game devs go overboard with the physics stuff resulting in lower performance :D

So in ArmA 3 the Physx should be the same on AMD/Nvidia cards, correct? And there is no "performance penalty" or anything for AMD users?

And I do have to say, a lot of the Physx things in Batman AC look like they can be easily done without Physx, and are just gimmicky. Very over done IMO.
 
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Yeah, you don't mention what M/B you have.

I have a GTX560Ti that performs well with RO2. I haven't tried Arma 2 with it yet, but I struggled playing it with two 8800GTS's in SLI with an o/c'd 6750. That setup didn't play RO2 well at all either. This new M/B, i5 cpu and 560Ti seem to work well together.

I think you would be happy with either...but just for information overload, here is a link to the Tom's Hardware forums with someone asking virtually the same question: [url]http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/309055-33-radeon-6950-1536mb[/URL]
 
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Thanks for the posts well the poll has said it isnt worthwhile but reading the posts you guys definitely see some benefit. I have decided to go the 560Ti route and like what many of you have said I can use the 8800 to run physx. One of the posts made it seem like Physx is not used in multiplayer is that true? so someone with Physx off may not have these sheets and curtains in RO2 to look around and Smoke effects would be diminished if I understand correctly.
That is if I have enough juice to handle all of that.
I have an Asus P5N-d mobo currently it needs to be upgraded also but then I have to change out all of the other things at the same time so I am holding off on that for now.

Currently I am looking at the EVGA OC edition of the 560TI Fermi (not the extra cores edition) so if you have opinions about that.
 
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It's sad that Nvidia has hobbled Physx so much just to sell more hardware. It would be much more widely used, and wouldn't just be a little extra eye candy, if they didn't. It's not just unoptimized either, but purposefully written to run slower on a CPU. So much so it's not funny. If optimized, it would run better on modern (AMD 64 x2, Intel core, and beyond) CPU's than it does on Nvidia GPU's.

Don't think I'm some AMD/ATI fanboi either. I may have an AMD 1090T x6 processor, but my GPU is a GTX 570. I know we are not getting the most out of physx. That's because it's only a marketing tool to Nvidia.
 
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Thanks for the posts well the poll has said it isnt worthwhile but reading the posts you guys definitely see some benefit. I have decided to go the 560Ti route and like what many of you have said I can use the 8800 to run physx. One of the posts made it seem like Physx is not used in multiplayer is that true? so someone with Physx off may not have these sheets and curtains in RO2 to look around and Smoke effects would be diminished if I understand correctly.
That is if I have enough juice to handle all of that.
I have an Asus P5N-d mobo currently it needs to be upgraded also but then I have to change out all of the other things at the same time so I am holding off on that for now.

Currently I am looking at the EVGA OC edition of the 560TI Fermi (not the extra cores edition) so if you have opinions about that.

This is not a good idea. Spend the extra money and get a GTX 560ti 448 (slower GTX 570) or GTX 570. Sell the 8800s. The 560ti + 8800 will use more power, create more heat and noise, and make your PC harder to work in. Additionally, SLI/Crossfire setups seem to suffer the most in terms of driver issues. If you want Nvidia and want to get more frame rates, just get a faster Nvidia GPU and sell your 8800.
 
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does a 8800 dedicated to physx run as hot and hungrey as one doing all your graphics work? The 560 itself is a power efficient card so phaps things wouldn't be too bad with the 2.
And if you can afford the new card without selling the 88 then you can at least try them together.
I agree that driver issues become more apparent the more complex your setup thou, stands to reason.


All told thou I imagine the option to run physx if desired is better than not being able too, all other considerations being equal.
it's not like nvidia cards are incapable in other regards.
 
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does a 8800 dedicated to physx run as hot and hungrey as one doing all your graphics work? The 560 itself is a power efficient card so phaps things wouldn't be too bad with the 2.
And if you can afford the new card without selling the 88 then you can at least try them together.
I agree that driver issues become more apparent the more complex your setup thou, stands to reason.


All told thou I imagine the option to run physx if desired is better than not being able too, all other considerations being equal.
it's not like nvidia cards are incapable in other regards.

GTX 560ti being power efficient? In most benchmarks it uses more power than the HD 6950, and even the 6970 if I am not mistaken.

That being said, the side of the box on mine claims it requires 30 amps on the 12v rail whereas my GTX 260 claims it requires 40. :p
 
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You won't need to run the 560 and 8800 in SLI so no problem there at all. There may be a space issue inside the case though but then if you had two 8800's before...

The temps on the 8800 running Physx really don't move at all, but most likely the fan on the old 8800 isn't the quietest either.

Yes true about the power consumption with two cards using more.
 
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So in ArmA 3 the Physx should be the same on AMD/Nvidia cards, correct? And there is no "performance penalty" or anything for AMD users?

And I do have to say, a lot of the Physx things in Batman AC look like they can be easily done without Physx, and are just gimmicky. Very over done IMO.

What I'm saying is that PhysX is a physics engine just like Havok. It just has the ability to run on your GPU too.
So saying that "things in Batman AC look like they can be easily done without Physx" is rather silly for obvious reasons ;) (How would stuff fly around at all, ragdolls move or do anything without a physics engine)
 
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What I'm saying is that PhysX is a physics engine just like Havok. It just has the ability to run on your GPU too.
So saying that "things in Batman AC look like they can be easily done without Physx" is rather silly for obvious reasons ;) (How would stuff fly around at all, ragdolls move or do anything without a physics engine)

The way I read it is that PhysX runs on your GPU almost entirely using the cores on it versus your CPU cores. I would think that this would actually benefit someone with an older CPU like mine I have a Intel 8400. Also a good point was made about drivers I was wondering how I would update the drivers if I were using both cards, thoughts were to just get the latest drivers for the lates card but I am not for sure. I may run some benchmarks to see how this benefits me does anyone know of a benchmark for PhysX? or what benchmark tool I should use? I know the common ones like 3dmark and such but I am sure there are others.
 
Upvote 0
The way I read it is that PhysX runs on your GPU almost entirely using the cores on it versus your CPU cores. I would think that this would actually benefit someone with an older CPU like mine I have a Intel 8400. Also a good point was made about drivers I was wondering how I would update the drivers if I were using both cards, thoughts were to just get the latest drivers for the lates card but I am not for sure. I may run some benchmarks to see how this benefits me does anyone know of a benchmark for PhysX? or what benchmark tool I should use? I know the common ones like 3dmark and such but I am sure there are others.

Yes, if the game supports hardware accelerated physx and you turn it on. ArmA 3 doesn't have this, and won't have it from what I've heard. The physics engine in HoS is physX too, but it doesn't offer any kind of accelerated physX stuff.
In the end the hardware accelerated PhysX is all about eye candy, nothing major.
 
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The way I read it is that PhysX runs on your GPU almost entirely using the cores on it versus your CPU cores. I would think that this would actually benefit someone with an older CPU like mine I have a Intel 8400. Also a good point was made about drivers I was wondering how I would update the drivers if I were using both cards, thoughts were to just get the latest drivers for the lates card but I am not for sure. I may run some benchmarks to see how this benefits me does anyone know of a benchmark for PhysX? or what benchmark tool I should use? I know the common ones like 3dmark and such but I am sure there are others.

If they are both NVDIA, then it shouldn't be a problem with the drivers and different cards.
 
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