Dedicated PPU or NVIDIA for Physics?

M

maleficarus

Gawd
Joined
Nov 17, 2004
Messages
744
My take on this who debate is this: From what I have read (could be wrong here) in order to fully utilize a NVIDIA card for both graphics+pysics you need a HIGH end model pretty much. Low end Geforce cards/mid range NVIDIA cards just don't have the power to handle both; at least this is what I see. So for all of us that have low to mid range Gforce8/9 series cards the only other option is to buy a second Geforce8/9 series card and run them separately. Now that seems fine at first until I read in order to do this one would have to hook up each card to its own monitor. Am I correct in assuming this? If so, then that option is absolutely retarded and would cost an arm and a leg in the end. 3rd and final option would be to simply buy a dedicated PPU card with 1 single monitor and be good to go correct?

Well, me personally, I would vote for PPU dedicated, less hassle, less worrying about driver conflicts and 1 single fucking LCD! If I'm way off here please correct me.... :confused:
 
Can you post where you read the stuff about multi-monitor requirements?
I never heard of that and it doesn't quite make sense from how I understand the stuff to work. I would not prefer a dedicated PPU because you need to upgrade it, I think, or are they all the same? Whereas with nVidia you can just keep sliding your last card down to physX duty. For example, buy a 260, use the 8800 for physX. Buy a 290, use the 260 for physX. I haven't found much more than 1-2 games that I own to take advantage of physX, though, so it's very minor at this point of the game.
 
I read several guys had to do this to get it working. Could that be just a rare thing or what?
 
Never heard of the multi-monitor requirement.

PPUs don't hold a candle to even the 8x00 series of Nvidia cards in terms of processing power, and in many cases will be cheaper. The only advantage of a PPU now is:

-if you want to use hardware physx with an ATI video card or some other non-physx capable card (older nvidia cards, for instance)
-you have some sort of expansion slot restrictions preventing you from using a second video card for physx but you have a PCI slot free
-or you really want to play one of the physx-enabled games that currently only respond to the Aegia physx card without recognizing Nvidia's GPU physx (I think the original GRAW is one of these, for example)
 
A dedicated PPU is no longer a good choice, over a CUDA-ready mid-range card.
Obviously, PhysX and graphics at the same time, are not meant to be done on a low-end card, which doesn't have power to spare. But a mid-range card, such as the 9800 GT is capable of producing the same results as a dedicated PPU in terms of physics, while also processing graphics. We are basically getting an additional feature, just by owning a graphics card and that's always a plus.
 
Balthazor said:
Never heard of the multi-monitor requirement.

PPUs don't hold a candle to even the 8x00 series of Nvidia cards in terms of processing power, and in many cases will be cheaper. The only advantage of a PPU now is:

-if you want to use hardware physx with an ATI video card or some other non-physx capable card (older nvidia cards, for instance)
-you have some sort of expansion slot restrictions preventing you from using a second video card for physx but you have a PCI slot free
-or you really want to play one of the physx-enabled games that currently only respond to the Aegia physx card without recognizing Nvidia's GPU physx (I think the original GRAW is one of these, for example)
Click to expand...


you forgot:
- if you only want to draw 28 watts...maximum for your physis solution.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top