8500gt used for physx only

Z

zshift

Weaksauce
Joined
Nov 13, 2007
Messages
98
Hi, my current setup is listed in detail in my signature below, and I was wondering if it would be possible to add in a secondary gpu (nvidia 8500 or 8600) to be used exclusively for physx. I was wondering if anyone had tried this and if it would work since my main gpu is a 4870. seeing as i can get an 8500 or 8600 for about $50 i thought it might be a good upgrade to be able to enjoy physx.

if anyone knows if this will work or not, please let me know. I'm sure if it works there are many more people that would be interested in trying this out.
 
It would be a waste, I've seen tests, and generally for phsyx the base minimum card level for actual performance gain is a 9600gt.

a 8500gt is too weak, and would slow you down more.

the only OS's that support multiple drivers, are windows xp and windows 7 too.
 
Agreed, I cant recommend less than an 8800GT after seeing how much horsepower Cryostasis needs for PhysX.
I havent been enticed enough to buy Cryostasis but I dont want to bet thats its another Crysis (ie I dont think its going to be the most hardcore use for PhysX).
So its wise to not cheap out on your PhysX card.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTY0NiwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0
Edit:
Ah damn, forgot they didnt test with extra Physx card.
There are a few posts in the forum detailing the PhysX needs with a separate GPU.
 
It depends on the game. UT3 got improvements with an 8400GS when I tested it vs a 9800GTX alone last year, showing that anything is better than using the primary video card for PhysX in UT3. The Nurien demo choked badly on the 8400GS though. The 8500GT is only slghtly better in GPU speed, but has more memory bandwidth and memory bandwidth probably isn't the limiting factor on the 8400GS.

What OS do you have? With XP you can add an nvidia card to work alongside your 4870. With Vista/Win7, both cards have to be the same GPU manufacturer because 2 different video drivers can't be loaded at once.
 
pxc said:
With Vista/Win7, both cards have to be the same GPU manufacturer because 2 different video drivers can't be loaded at once.
Click to expand...

I thought Windows 7 got back the functionality to use 2 different video drivers. Or is it buggy to the point of being unusable?
 
450 said:
I thought Windows 7 got back the functionality to use 2 different video drivers. Or is it buggy to the point of being unusable?
Click to expand...

Windows 7 RC doesnt support more than one video driver.
The final version is supposed to.
 
I'm currently using windows vista, but I've been prepping for win 7 already by starting to backup my info. I also have windows xp on a separate hdd so I'll try that out as well.

Btw I really appreciate the feedback. I didn't think I would get such great responses so quickly, but then again thats why the [H] has always been good to me. Thx for all the info, I think I'll wait for now on the dedicated physx card.
 
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