Crossfire with physx

[madmike0408]

I have crossfire 4850's working perfect in crossfire and scaling great. I also bought a cheap ($10) 8500GT to use as physx. I can't seem to figure out how to do so. I have installed drivers and physx software but it doesn't show the card as being able to be enabled for physx

Here is what I see

 

[Brackle]

I have crossfire 4850's working perfect in crossfire and scaling great. I also bought a cheap ($10) 8500GT to use as physx. I can't seem to figure out how to do so. I have installed drivers and physx software but it doesn't show the card as being able to be enabled for physx

Here is what I see

From what I read, it only works in XP pro, and windows vista?...i could be wrong though

 

[madmike0408]

I saw it could be done on windows 7, so I hope so, I just installed windows 7 and really don't want to go back to xp

 

[Brackle]

I saw it could be done on windows 7, so I hope so, I just installed windows 7 and really don't want to go back to xp

Yea I agree with ya.....hmmm good question though, I have seen it work as well.

Maybe try the Nvidia forums?

 

[silent-circuit]

Vista is incapable of running more than one graphics driver at a time; XP and Windows 7 can. Therefor, you have to use one or the other for this. I'd mess around with it, but my current motherboard doesn't have another GPU-capable slot available, so I can't.

Also to the OP: The 8500GT is a fine backup card at $10, but it's horrible for PhysX. Useless, in fact. Completely. If you even get it working it will make any game you try to use it with unplayable. You need at least an 8800GT (which is more powerful by several orders of magnitude) for a solid dedicated PhysX card.

 

[madmike0408]

Aww that sucks Oh well, thanks for the help any way guys!

 

[risqu3]

btw, there was a review on physx acceleration thru a gpu, and a gtx260 + gtx285, the gtx260 only helped with 2-3 frames, so take your performance boost in mind with what you buy, you need a capable card to be able to "physx" fast.

 

[Smiththers2]

I thought i just read somewhere that Nvidia stopped people from doing this in their newer drivers?

 

[Somnambulator]

I thought i just read somewhere that Nvidia stopped people from doing this in their newer drivers?

i heard the same thing, that the last few FW releases disabled hardware physx on systems with an AMD gfx card installed...

to a prev post about speed, if you have an AMD card you cant get hardware physx at all so the performance boosts are irrelevant. it's better to have hardware physx with the extra effects than run software and not so long as it's not dog-ass slow

 

[Gorankar]

It works under Xp and Win7 but not Vista if you use the older Nv drivers.

PhysX with an AMD card is disabled in the new Nv drivers, but you can still use the older ones for now. And it seems likely that someone will hack the newer drivers to work as well. For how long they are able to do that, depends on how far Nv goes to lock down the PhysX drivers and how far Nv's lawyers go past cease and desist letters.

 

[vjcsmoke]

Can't you just use an Ageia add in card for PhysX?

 

[Wildace]

Can't you just use an Ageia add in card for PhysX?

its probly smarter to just use an 8800 or equivlent card. probly costs more for an ageia card. and thats all it does. but atleast if you get tired of using an 8800 for physx you can take it out and stick in another system as a video card.

i guess each option has its benifits and draw backs.

Ageia card pros - ease of setup, power use? / cons - price, other functions

8800 card pros - price, multi uses later / cons - setup with ati system, power use?

if he simply cant get his 8500 to work even if it works horrible his only option would be an Ageia card but if he gets threw the hassle of getting the 8500 to work and has plenty of power the 8800 would be the best choice.

 

[enzolt]

interesting how you are using a non-genuine copy of windows 7.....

 

[Wildace]

interesting how you are using a non-genuine copy of windows 7.....

oh noes call da police we gots to catch dem pirates arrrr

 

[Gorankar]

interesting how you are using a non-genuine copy of windows 7.....

The RC

 

[TerraPhantm]

build 7600 is rtm, not rc, but just give him the benefit of the doubt in that he might get a valid license when it's officially released.

 

[cyclone3d]

build 7600 is rtm, not rc, but just give him the benefit of the doubt in that he might get a valid license when it's officially released.

I just installed the RTM release a couple days ago after running the RC for a few months.. and I already purchased a Win7 License when they were running the pre-order special.

Now that that is out of the way... for PhysX to work with an AMD and Nvidia card installed, you need the Nvidia 186.16 driver set and you also need to replace the nvapi.dll files with the 185.68 versions.