PhysX question

[Private Who?]

I have an HD3870 gpu. We all know ATi cards do not support PhysX, and RO2 will use PhysX. But, the HD3870 is still a very good card, and I have only had mine a little over 16 months.

I have seen demo videos of PhysX, so I have SOME understanding of what it is.

My question is what EXACTLY will I be missing out on if I do not switch out my GPU. I am doing a new build for RO2, but I am on a budget and IF I do not need to upgrade my GPU then that is $150 I can spend elsewhere.

For ATi users, how will RO2 behave differently without PhysX? Will I be at a significant competetive disadvantage? Or is it mainly for the visual appeal of the effects?

THANKS!
[TxM]Private Who
[url]www.texasmilitia.com[/URL]

 

[mistk�fer]

from my experience with other physx games it will just bring you better visual effects, giving you a disadvantage in gameplay just because you do not own a nvidia gfx card or a physx card would be rediculous.

 

[omarfw]

physx is purely cosmetic. If you have a beefy enough cpu and gpu then you don't need a physx card.

 

[worluk]

physx is purely cosmetic. If you have a beefy enough cpu and gpu then you don't need a physx card.

Read up on what physX actually is...
PhysX is as much cosmetic as much as Karma Physics was for UE2.

Dependent on the extent of implementation and optimization a card supporting PhysX will give you better FPS. If you dont have one, your CPU will carry the burden. As an example: the UT3 PhysX maps run without HW PhysX at about 12 fps on my crappy old machine. With HW PhysX i get around 35-40 fps.

 

[Private Who?]

Thanks guys.
That's interesting worluk. I figured I'd get better performance handling PhysX through the GPU, but I didn't know it would be that different.

So far I am planning on an AMD Phenom II X3 720, 4 gigs DDR3 ram, and Win7 64 bit. Now it looks like I will need to swap out my HD3870 for a 9800GT. (Remember I am on a budget here...don't go telling me how great your 280GTX is ). Actually I'll just leave the HD3870 in the rig it's in now and give that one to my kids. But anyway...any comments on how that set-up might fare with RO-2 (or other UT3 games)?

 

[worluk]

Thanks guys.
That's interesting worluk. I figured I'd get better performance handling PhysX through the GPU, but I didn't know it would be that different.

So far I am planning on an AMD Phenom II X3 720, 4 gigs DDR3 ram, and Win7 64 bit. Now it looks like I will need to swap out my HD3870 for a 9800GT. (Remember I am on a budget here...don't go telling me how great your 280GTX is ). Actually I'll just leave the HD3870 in the rig it's in now and give that one to my kids. But anyway...any comments on how that set-up might fare with RO-2 (or other UT3 games)?

The big difference is probably due to my pretty ****ty CPU.
If you intend to only get an nvidia card for playing due to physX you might want to consider your options. (I run a gtx260 btw., the newer revision, which is nowadays only slightly above the better 9800 ones.)
If you do stuff that can also utilize CUDA, it might be worth the money (Photoshop supports CUDA to a certain extent, 3ds Max does)

Im by far no expert in ATi cards, so i cant judge yours, if it is on par with the rest of your system you can run UT3 quite decently.
If you want to upgrade you should probably wait for the next batch of cards to be released.

 

[Private Who?]

The big difference is probably due to my pretty ****ty CPU.

Well currently I run a Athlon X2 4000+, which does OK for RO, but really struggles on Darkest Hour.

I see today on sale at Fry's a Phenom II x2 550 Black Edition with an AM3 MSI motherboard for $145.00. I've looked pretty closely at the performance differences between the x2 and the x3 chips for UT3, and for the price that deal can't be touched right now.

That savings will make switching back to nVIdia GPU's more palatable.

 

[Lt_Kettch]

I would wait for the game too come out. I get pretty low frame rates with the UT3 physx maps (GTX 275) and you are not missing anything if you don't have physx.

 

[Yoshiro]

Some of you need to remember, all UT 3 maps have physX, it's the base physics engine of the game. Those run just fine even when you have ATI cards (it runs on CPU like every other physics engine known to man). The PhysX maps are examples from Nvidia (well from the company before Nvidia purchased them) of how to turn up the physics in the game to require a dedicated PhysX card (or the ability to run it on the gpu).

Do not go out of your way to purchase the ability to run higher level PhysX for RO:HOS as tripwire has not made a statement on this.

However just as an example there are several ways to go.

1) Just use the base physics engine (this is what most unreal engine games do, or they switch to Havok, another physics engine) Both run fine on the cpu.

2) Implement cosemetic PhysX, for those of have the ability this lets those with the power to do so see more impressive effects but is kept cosmetic. Example would be Mirror's Edge PC. Those that have it can see some awesome cloth and glass physics but has no impact on gameplay.

3) Go all out. Implement high level physics in the game and require it (Only games that do this that I know of are example games from Nvidia such as Warmonger). This would require all users and the servers to be running a certain level of dedicated physics hardware. The physics would need to be mirrored perfectly on all machines/servers and would increase net traffic.

 

[LemoN]

Well currently I run a Athlon X2 4000+, which does OK for RO, but really struggles on Darkest Hour.

huh?

my computer is 5 years old, still exept the gfx card unchanged and i can run DH just fine with everything maxed

its a athlon 64 3500+
2 gb ram (DDR1)
a nvidia 7900 GS

seriously, you are doing it wrong!


btw: i didnt tweak my .ini files at all