GT 640 as a dedicated PPU

I picked up a refurbed 640 on newegg around xmas for $50. My main card is a gtx680. When I did the batman:AA benchmark with the 640 as physx, I picked about 10 FPS over using the 680 for physx.

So I would say it depends on your main card and looking at your system is its VERY similar to mine, so yes I would say it can help.

I played Planetside 2 when it first came out and back then the phsyx was locked to cpu. Have they enabled phsyx for GPU? I would look into that first.

I will try to play some tonight and let you know what I find, it will be difficult to benchmark is multi player is not a repeatable event.
 
Thanks I pretty sure Physx is enabled through the GPU in this game. I'm just looking for how the game feels when your playing rather that number data. Does game-play feel smoother with the dedicated card or without in Planetside 2?
 
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IMO, the only reasonable solution for PhysX is a dedicated card.

It seems like even when the GPU utilization is small, it still takes a lot out of the FPS. I remember playing Mirrors Edge on a GTX 260 without a PhysX card and it totally tanked the FPS. Running with a second GPU for graphics and the GTX 260 doing PhysX, it looks like the PhysX GPU utilization is only 10% max and less than 3% most of the time.

That said, I think anything at least as good as the GTX 260 would run PhysX pretty well. Even in BL2 with max PhysX, GPU utilization is only 30% or so. I haven't tried it myself, but I have seen some SLI users post that they were getting better results running with the second card as a dedicated PhysX card then in SLI.
 
I've been running an MSI GTX 680 Lightning + MSI GT 640 (dedicated PhysX) setup since last September with excellent results. Most of my Steam games would crash in less than 10-15 minutes before I added the 640.

Just this week, however, I've noticed a new and different problem. The most recent games I've played, Deus Ex HR and Devil May Cry DMC, would randomly go black, then stutter and finally crash my whole system. I've never seen this before. The only thing that seems to correct the problem is to scale back the resolution from 2560x1600 to 1920x1200 or even 1280x800.
 
I have seen notes that some games won't run PhysX on the second card without removing some of the PhysX DLL that come with the game, eve when the primary card is nVidia. I don't know how true that is, because I run hybrid physx, but it seems worth checking out. A good place to start is monitoring GPU load with gpuz on the second card.
 
Form the looks of the articles i've read and comments on other forums it varies from game to game. Will have to look into it more before I purchase anything. Thanks for all your advice and keep posting them if you have thoughts or opinions they'll be appreciated.
 
I got some PS time in today. GPU physx is working. I see between 17% and 40% usage on that card (640).

I see no slow downs. I play in 2560x1440, everything on high. I do not drop below 40fps even in 40+ man fire fights.

Hope that helps you OP.
 
Don't bother with that 640. Just get another 660 for SLI. The performance increase is so much more worth it
 
and about $200 more expensive.
what? a 660 is about 100 bucks more than a 640. and a 660 sli setup will let all your games be faster not just the 2 or 3 with demanding hardware physx. and really BL 2 would be the only game with physx where that 660 could not max out and stay above 60. so if anything getting a 640 for basically 1 current game seems silly. and Planetside 2 is well known to be extremely cpu limited so that will be more of an issue than physx. in fact I dont even think it currently offers hardware physx anyway.
 
The only reason I grabbed the 640 is because it was a refurb and onsale so it was about $50 bucks.

Retail for a 640 is about $90....at that price I would look into a 650 or a 650ti on sale.

650ti has been shown to keep up with a 690.

If your main card is a 660...you might want to look into a used 460 SE (768vram) model off ebay. They can be had for $40-$60.

Fermi is also a stronger physx processor compared to kepler, or keep watching newegg for a refurb 640.
 
I found a used EVGA 2GB 650ti on eBay for $100. :D

Installed it today and I'm back to gaming at 2560x1600 and high settings without trouble. If the good times continue, I'll be listing my GT 640 in the For Sale section in a few days.
 
The errors are back... and even worse. I checked with MSI and they think my 680 is bad. I'll RMA it for a replacement, tomorrow.
 
speaking of which, anyone wanna buy a EVGA GTX 640 2GB :p Still in box, tested in a machine then pulled out as onboard video was good enough for the users needs
 
Probably overkill.

I use an old gtx460 768mb for physX, and in PhysX enabled games, I've never seen it register more than ~1% GPU utilization max.

This was when paired with my GTX680. Now paired with my Titan. No significant differences noted.

I did get it up to 2-3% utilization, but only by running the PhysX benchmark and turning the settings up crazy high.

PhysX simply doesn't use very much GPU power.
 
um wrong. it needs TONS of gpu power in some spots. a gt640 is not even close to overkill and in fact is a bit weak if you already have a good card for you main gpu. one reason a dedicated gpu will not get much utilization is because the main gpu is already doing just as good a job at physx and graphics. and you just proved that because your gtx680 and especially Titan does just as good if not better than trying to offload the physx on to a gtx460 nevermind the even more modest gt640. but really physx is just poorly optimized. you can test a scene without physx and have more gpu utilization than with it sometimes.
 
um wrong. it needs TONS of gpu power in some spots. a gt640 is not even close to overkill and in fact is a bit weak if you already have a good card for you main gpu. one reason a dedicated gpu will not get much utilization is because the main gpu is already doing just as good a job at physx and graphics. but really physx is just poorly optimized. you can test a scene without physx and have more gpu utilization than with it sometimes.

In my test case, the GTX460 was set up as dedicated PhysX in the Nvidia Control Panel.

I ran Metro 2033, Red Orchestra 2 and Just Cause 2 (the only titles I have with PhysX support.)

Main GPU was configured to the best graphics that would allow ~60fps in in all titles.
 
Zarathustra[H];1039802909 said:
In my test case, the GTX460 was set up as dedicated PhysX in the Nvidia Control Panel.

I ran Metro 2033, Red Orchestra 2 and Just Cause 2 (the only titles I have with PhysX support.)

Main GPU was configured to the best graphics that would allow ~60fps in in all titles.
that does not change what I said. if you see little to no improvements than that means you main gpu is already doing a better job. that does not mean that physx is not gpu intensive as again it simply means the card you are using for dedicated physx is no better than just using your main gpu for both graphics and physx.

Metro 2033 uses the least amount of hardware physx of any hardware physx game. and Red Orchestra 2 does not use hardware physx that I am aware of and I know Just Cause 2 does not have any physx whatsoever and uses havok for physics. that explains your zero utilization. it makes me wonder if you even enabled the optional physx in Metro 2033 if you think those other games had hardware physx.
 
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that does not change what I said. if you see little to no improvements than that means you main gpu is already doing a better job. that does not mean that physx is not gpu intensive as again it simply means the card you are using for dedicated physx is no better than just using your main gpu for both graphics and physx.

Metro 2033 uses the least amount of hardware physx of any hardware physx game. and Red Orchestra 2 does not use hardware physx that I am aware of and I know Just Cause 2 does not have any physx whatsoever and uses havok for physics. that explains your zero utilization. it makes me wonder if you even enabled the optional physx in Metro 2033 if you think those other games had hardware physx.

What game would you recommend for a good taxing test?
 
Zarathustra[H];1039803037 said:
What game would you recommend for a good taxing test?
Borderlands 2 has really demanding physx in some spots. again though its somewhat poorly optimized and most of the spots that dip down will dip down for everyone.
 
How are you hooking up the other video card to use them as a physX card? are you using a SLI bridge?
 
How are you hooking up the other video card to use them as a physX card? are you using a SLI bridge?

640.PNG
 
FYI; Just Cause 2 uses CUDA for it's effects not the PhysX library. What this means is that the CUDA work can not be offloaded to another GPU like PhysX. It runs off of the main GPU running the game.


Unless the game has been patched (patched as in re-written...) this is the case when it came out and is still the case now. (Believe there was a [H] and Anand article on this game and it's use of CUDA.)


Thus having a dedicated PhysX card for Just Cause 2 won't do a thing for you.
 
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I finally got around to finishing metro 2033.

My physx card was getting some usage. I guess they patched it so it can use gpu physx now.
 
I finally got around to finishing metro 2033.

My physx card was getting some usage. I guess they patched it so it can use gpu physx now.
it has always had optional hardware physx. if you did not select advanced physx in the game options then you were not using gpu physx though. and Metro 2033 hardly uses any gpu effects anyway so even with setting on there is almost no visual difference.
 
it has always had optional hardware physx. if you did not select advanced physx in the game options then you were not using gpu physx though. and Metro 2033 hardly uses any gpu effects anyway so even with setting on there is almost no visual difference.

yeah its really a moot point these days.

It was my understanding that Metro2033 came out with only cpu physx in the game and gpu physx in the benchmark and then at some point they enabled it in the game.
 
Hey guys thanks for all the suggestions. Just to give you an update i did purchase the gt 640 and have been using it for about a week and half now. It hasn't made much difference in my gaming experience on Planetside 2. At first i thought it wasn't working but i used the MSI afterburner program to check the GPU load and it's been hovering between 10-20% low load light firefights to 50-60% high load during heavy firefights. I recently just purchased Borderlands 2 and its the same thing it still feels laggy during online co-op play. I've already returned the card and ordered another gtx 660 to make my system SLI. Hopefully that will address my performance issues.
 
I remember years ago when my GTX260 was actually a "new" thing: I paired it with a 9800GT for physics and if anything, it brought performance down. The problem is that a lower range card usually can't respond fast enough to send the physics calculations, hence dragging down the higher range GPUs output. When I took the 9800GT off my board, the 260 on its own gave more performance again: it was being bogged down by the 9800. SLI-ying your 660 will certainly be a much better idea... although I always avoid multi-GPU solutions myself, but that's a matter of preference...
 
I remember years ago when my GTX260 was actually a "new" thing: I paired it with a 9800GT for physics and if anything, it brought performance down. The problem is that a lower range card usually can't respond fast enough to send the physics calculations, hence dragging down the higher range GPUs output. When I took the 9800GT off my board, the 260 on its own gave more performance again: it was being bogged down by the 9800. SLI-ying your 660 will certainly be a much better idea... although I always avoid multi-GPU solutions myself, but that's a matter of preference...
sorry but that claim is nonsense. when your gtx260 was new, a 9800gt did NOT slow it down and was in fact a good match for it. even back then it would take a card slower than the 8600gt to bog down the gtx260.
 
Cannondale06: You seem to have a good grasp of PhysX... at least a helluva lot better than me. What's a good PhysX match for a GTX 680 Lightning? Mine will be back from its RMA replacement in 1-2 days. I had a GT 640, but will replace it with a GTX 650Ti 2GB I found on eBay for $100. I really have no interest in spending another $400+ to SLI the 680. Will the 650 do a decent job? Thanks for any comments.
 
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Cannondale06: You seem to have a good grasp of PhysX... at least a helluva lot better than me. What's a good PhysX match for a GTX 680 Lightning? Mine will be back from its RMA replacement in 1-2 days. I had a GT 640, but will replace it with a GTX 650Ti 2GB I found on eBay for $100. I really have no interest in spending another $400+ to SLI the 680. Will the 650 do a decent job? Thanks for any comments.
well personally I would not fool with a dedicated card for physx if you have a gtx680. BL 2 has the most demanding physx out there and my gtx660 ti stays pegged at 60 fps for 99% of the game. the only spots that drop down will drop down for everyone because physx is not as optimized as it could be.
 
well personally I would not fool with a dedicated card for physx if you have a gtx680. BL 2 has the most demanding physx out there and my gtx660 ti stays pegged at 60 fps for 99% of the game. the only spots that drop down will drop down for everyone because physx is not as optimized as it could be.
I had huge problems with my games crashing (started with BL2, then spread to damn near every game on my PC) until I added the 640. Everything I read seemed to point to PhysX as the culprit. Almost all of my crashing problems disappeared after I added the 640.

My 680 started causing all kinds of freezes, crashes, etc. a couple of weeks ago. MSI had me return it for replacement. I guess it's possible my 680 was the real problem all along.
 
Hi guys once again thanks for all the advice. I got the card and added it to the system yesterday ran a few PS2 play sessions and my gameplay has improved beyond my expectations. Game now runs butter smooth with physx on. I'll run some of my other games that support physx and report back on the performance. For me at least SLI does beat a dedicated PPU.
 
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