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Dedicated physx card question

N

newbs

Gawd
Joined
Jul 7, 2010
Messages
735
HI I just upgraded to a gtx 295 and it is great and really fast for the most part. I have some spare cash and was thinking of getting a dedicated physx card but not sure what to buy. I have been messing with the the mafia II demo and with physx on my frame rates get cut in half. Also do you connect the two cards together with an sli connector? Thanks
 
Just put the dedicated physx card into another PCI-E slot. It does not need a SLI connector. If you are going to use a second card for physx, it would be good to invest in at least a GT240 or a 9800GT at the minimum. You could get by ok with a 9600GT, but anything lower will hurt your fps and will be detrimental to your game performance.
 
with a gtx295 you can disable sli and use one of the gpus for physx and the other for graphics.
 
cannondale06 said:
with a gtx295 you can disable sli and use one of the gpus for physx and the other for graphics.
Click to expand...

Probably better to just let the card do both graphics and Physx, without actually dedicating one of the GPUs to the Physx.
 
@cannondale06
then he may had just turn SLI on leave it on as that would auto half the performance any way

personally i think its just the detail thats cutting the performance in half, Physx should use at most 10% of an single GPU an GTX295 is 2 GTX260 cards so it should easy be able to handle it most likely to high ingame settings once physx is enabled) only test that uses one GPU maxed out is Benchmark softwares makes little sense to over tax an video card subsystem for Physx as that would Force every one to buy 2-3 video cards (single card or SLI + dedicated Physx)

an GTS240/9600gt 512mb (i think are the same thing) or GTS250/9800gt (are the same thing) 512mb will do

and no the card runs on its own (No SLI bridge) you open the Nvidia control panel and change it from Auto to pick the dedicated card you have installed (it may correctly pick the new card any way)

edit your post if your going to reply to me
 
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Forceman said:
Probably better to just let the card do both graphics and Physx, without actually dedicating one of the GPUs to the Physx.
Click to expand...
no because the way I described it is how you are supposed to do it for sli unless something has changed. if you leave sli on and try to run graphics and physx its only going to use one of the gpus anyway to try and do both.
 
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cannondale06 said:
no because the way I described it is how you are supposed to do it for sli. if you leave sli on and try to run graphics and physx its only going to use one of the gpus anyway to try and do both.
Click to expand...

I'm not an expert on SLI, but does it dedicate one of the cards/cores to Physx and one to graphics automatically? In a single card solution (GTX 480) the card will do both graphics and Physx (80% graphics and 20% Physx maybe?). Seems like it would make more sense, in an SLI config, to have one card doing 100% graphics and the other doing 80% graphics and 20% Physx, than having one card doing 100% graphics and the other doing 20% Physx and nothing else (because it is dedicated to Physx).
 
it will not use One full gpu power to use physx that be stupid (as my last comment posted) Physx does little to an cards performance (less the i say more likely single 1-10% really) Physx does add a lot more objects to the screen thought so card has to render them

@Forceman
your correct more like 10% or less for Physx (only bechmarks can Max an video card out on Physx)
 
i can and will

Physx will not Max an GTX260 based card out if an game is using Physx (Quite sure if you had one of the Dedicated PCI physx cards that would handle it fine and they are many times slower then an video card)
 
greenfrogman said:
it will not use One full gpu power to use physx that be stupid (as my last comment posted) Physx does little to an cards performance (less the i say more likely single 1-10% really) Physx does add a lot more objects to the screen thought so card has to render them

@Forceman
your correct more like 10% or less for Physx (only bechmarks can Max an video card out on Physx)
Click to expand...

lol, if the OP enables physx on his GTX295, his fps will be halved at best. No, it uses far more than 10% of the GPU, more like 50-80%+ depending on the GPU itself.

edit:

also, physx will buckle a 9500GT and will max out a 9800gt as well, so saying that it uses less than 10% is silly.
 
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bad game programming if it needs an dedicated video Physx card

see what this mafia II demo does to my GTX480 setup as its only 1.1gb (done now 5.5MB/s, wish all steam games come down that fast)
 
greenfrogman said:
i can and will

Physx will not Max an GTX260 based card out if an game is using Physx (Quite sure if you had one of the Dedicated PCI physx cards that would handle it fine and they are many times slower then an video card)
Click to expand...

They handled it fine back in 2005, not in 2010. Those cards were the exact equivalent of an 8500GT 256MB card. Those cards wouldn't even begin to be useful with physx in todays games and would be a massive bottleneck on any computer.
 
greenfrogman said:
bad game programming if it needs an dedicated video Physx card

see what this mafia II demo does to my GTX480 setup as its only 1.1gb (done now 5.5MB/s, wish all steam games come down that fast)
Click to expand...

If you are running dual GTX480's, I'm sure your second card will run physx just fine, but running them together in SLI with physx is going to limit your performance.

Also, stick in an 8500GT to run physx with a GTX480 and watch your fps drop like a rock. ;)
 
greenfrogman said:
bad game programming if it needs an dedicated video Physx card

see what this mafia II demo does to my GTX480 setup as its only 1.1gb (done now 5.5MB/s, wish all steam games come down that fast)
Click to expand...

It's not bad programming, it's just hard for a GPU to handle physics instructions and graphics instructions at the same time. I've heard this problem has been helped with the GTX400 series cards due to new architecture implementations (SP's being able to handle more than one task at a time) but the problem still limits cards older than the GTX200 series.
 
game runs like shit on my GTX480 even thats on med setting for Physx (game bit buggy as well) seems to pig all 8 threads on my i7 as well (for about 2-5 secs at the start) 30 FPS when Physx is on wounder if its even using the GPU at all

i seen other games do more Physx then what this game is doing

i got an noisy GTS250 darknight and i put me CPU back to 3.8Ghz see what that does
 
I scrounged up a 250 just to try it and my fps jumped up to avg of 41 at 1680x1050 with all settings maxed out from the 30 without the 250. The 250 is also a downclocked 250 because its a sparkle low profile one. This machine is no power house by any means either. i5-750 4gig 1066 old 500gb sata1 gtx 295(now) sb audigy
 
newbs said:
I scrounged up a 250 just to try it and my fps jumped up to avg of 41 at 1680x1050 with all settings maxed out from the 30 without the 250. The 250 is also a downclocked 250 because its a sparkle low profile one. This machine is no power house by any means either. i5-750 4gig 1066 old 500gb sata1 gtx 295(now) sb audigy
Click to expand...
so you don't think a gtx295 and i5 750 is a powerhouse? TBH I cant believe you play games at just 1680 with that pc.
 
That's the monitor I have for that pc a 22 inch samsung. My main gaming rig is an overclocked 940 with tri 470's but I am only running 1600x1200 x3 until I can buy new monitors and then those will be given to my father for his need for speed addiction which he has a gtx295 so he'll be doing triple monitor as well.
 
the game is using on avg 50% of an gts250 for Physx med or high (so an 9600gt should be ok to handle it)

GTX480 load is around 90% load less when AA was off

110 FPS aa off
77 FPS aa on
60-70 FPS with med and aa off
55-65 FPS with High and aa on

the tests above are quite quick tests (first 30 secs of each) but test seems to vary per test

was getting 30-30 FPS soon as Physx was turned on med or high, that was with no GTS250 (this is the only game i know of that requires an dedicated card still think its not been optimized correctly yet as in the min specs with Physx says an 470 can run it with out an dedicated card)

still thats about 25 % use of an GTX480 seems way to much for whats going on the screen (Smell Nvidia trying to push users to buy 2 video cards)

you Must restart the game even if it does not tell you to as its buggy and does not save the settings until game has been restarted

i think the Nvidia driver was smart enough to pick the GTS250 on its own (i did not see witch one the auto select was before i forced it to pick the GTS250 {look at the arrow above the video card box's}, as i have never switched it before but when i pick auto on my system is picking the gts250 on its own)
 
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With no physx the 295 gets low 60's with everything else maxed. I just like the eye candy but it does seem to need optimization.
 
until they fix the game most likely have to get an Quite 9800gt card (GTS250 cards seem noisy) to off load the rock, bullet affects and some fire (that do not seem to warrant even half of an GTS250 use)

if i was going to keep this GTS 250 darknight i need to use an bigger slower fan on it as its always noisy
 
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