How to Activate Hardware PhysX to play with an ATI Video Card

[vjcsmoke]

Warnings: Proceed at your own risk. The patch used here is not an official patch from Nvidia but it works. It was written by GenL. It works great for me so far, but your results may vary. If you're willing to take the plunge, read on!

Assumptions: You have an ATI card plugged in that you wish to use as main render. You have an Nvidia card plugged in that you wish to use for dedicated Physx. Both their drivers have been installed.

Step 1: Download latest nvidia driver. Pick the driver that fits your card and OS. I picked the latest beta drivers for 9 series cards and win 7 64 bit.
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Step 2: Download the physx patch. Found here.
http://www.ngohq.com/graphic-cards/...sx-when-ati-card-is-present-30.html#post82837
There's mod 1.01 lite for x86 or 1.01 lite for x64. I personally picked 1.01 lite for x64.

Step 3: Goto the control panel and Uninstall any previous Nvidia drivers/Nvida Physx/Nvidia stereo vision.

Step 4. Install the latest Nvidia drivers that you previously downloaded. I chose the beta drivers.

Step 5 Restart your system in safe mode by hitting F8. Choose the top most safe mode. Now run the physx patch you downloaded in step 2. It should report several files have been patched.

Step 6: Reboot your system again. Right click your desktop and click on screen resolution. Click Detect. This should give you an greyed out imaginary monitor. Click on that monitor icon, then with that monitor, select available display output on nvida video card. Then click try connect anyway on vga and then apply.
Next click on extend desktop to this display. So now you have two monitors extended plus an imaginary nvidia monitor extended as well. Now you are ready to start enabling physX!

Step 7: Rightclick your desktop and then click on nvidia control panel that now appears. Click set physx configuration. Then Click on enabled for set Physx GPU acceleration choices.

And now you're done! You may run Fluidmark to confirm that hardware physx has been enabled. Higher Vantage 3dmark scores will also result. And yes now you can finally play batman with your ATI doing massively pretty rendering and still get all the cool physx effects eye candy turned on at the same time.

ATI+Nvidia -- The way it was meant to be played!

Don't forget the prize:

PhysX at your command!

 

[jeremyshaw]

Awesome! Now I need to upgrade from the 8500gt that I thought could do Physx...

EDIT: woah... now some idiotic nvidia plant inside this forum will compromise this, and let it die in the next 'driver revision to ensure quality and speed.'

Please don't let this get beyond [h].

 

[vjcsmoke]

I was asked by several people to do a step by step working guide. NOt sure how long this will last but if you've got two different video card brands, might as well make use of both of them, eh? Even if it's only as a 'sidekick' card. You did pay good money for it after all.

 

[jeremyshaw]

I was asked by several people to do a step by step working guide. NOt sure how long this will last but if you've got two different video card brands, might as well make use of both of them, eh? Even if it's only as a 'sidekick' card. You did pay good money for it after all.

Fry's = bad price, unless if it just came out.

But yeah, I pulled the 8500gt from a HP retail, and now have a 9800gt/9500gt combo.

 

[buzzbomb]

It was over a year ago that Regen @ NGOHQ announced the ability to do this, then flaked and claimed legal pressures were keeping him from releasing the info. Glad it finally made it out, going to try this later!

 

[RADEoN]

Thanks smoke. Gotta pull the 8800GTS out of my closet now.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

 

[vjcsmoke]

Thanks smoke. Gotta pull the 8800GTS out of my closet now.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

No problem. Just let us know how it workedout for you and maybe show us some screenshots of your fluidmark/3dmark scores. I'm thinking the 8800GTS might perform a bit better for Physx but I'm not sure. I believe that physX only computation is mainly ROPS and bandwidth dependant.

 

[tesfaye]

This is awesome! Time to upgrade my PSU. I don't think it'll be a wise idea for me to try and run the 5870 along side my GTX280 with only 620W of power.

 

[Godmachine]

Now if only this was a worthwhile feature that was well supported in lots of great games...

 

[tesfaye]

Now if only this was a worthwhile feature that was well supported in lots of great games...

I'm about to try and run my GTX280 with my 5870 and if it works, I'm rockin' that config until I finish Batman. I prefer to play it with the extra PhysX fluff. It looks better.

 

[snaggletooth]

Before I toss an 8800GT into my x48 rig and swap my PSU's (HX520, HX620)...

Interested in hearing some more user-reports. I'm sure it works and would like to give it a go.

Blaming laziness on my part, at this point.

 

[vjcsmoke]

I'm about to try and run my GTX280 with my 5870 and if it works, I'm rockin' that config until I finish Batman. I prefer to play it with the extra PhysX fluff. It looks better.

I've been told that a less powerful PhysX card will work nearly as well if you're only doing PhysX calcs with the Nvidia. One guy speculated that a 9600GT Green edition is nearly ideal because of the low power consumption and pretty good performance. Apparently the number of ROPS and bandwidth are the main things for physX calc. But yeah a 5870+GTX280 should be killer on Batman Arkham Asylum since the 280 has 32 ROPS.

 

[tesfaye]

Requisite warning...
Solid information...
ATI+Nvidia -- The way it was meant to be played!
Obligatory pics...

Fuck yeah! I don't know if my PSU will blow up at some point as a result but it's working! I didn't play Batman, I just ran the benchmark to see if it ran smoother and it did! 28/60/50 was the result. I had V-Sync on.

Oh and to those who are looking to try this: You won't get GPU accelerated physics if you don't extend the desktop to your second display. So after enabling the Nvidia card for physics processing, leave things the way they are. I thought I was Mr Slickshit and turned it off. The result was 18FPS max in Batman. The effects were there but it was slow. I guess the CPU was doing the work. I turned it back on and the results were back to normal.

I've been told that a less powerful PhysX card will work nearly as well if you're only doing PhysX calcs with the Nvidia. One guy speculated that a 9600GT Green edition is nearly ideal because of the low power consumption and pretty good performance. Apparently the number of ROPS and bandwidth are the main things for physX calc. But yeah a 5870+GTX280 should be killer on Batman Arkham Asylum since the 280 has 32 ROPS.

I wish I had a lower power card. I'm stuck with my GTX280 until I sell it. I checked some old [H] reviews and it seems that the GTX280 idles at about 60watts. I can live with that. I'll look into downclocking the card and lowering the voltage when in 2D mode, if that's even possible with that card and in mixed GPU environment.

<sidenote>
I need to OC my Q6600 some more or move to Core I7. Before I tried this patch I only got 14,2xx in 3DMark Vantage which is a whole 2K less than what I've seen around these parts for people running the 5870. I'm running 3.0Ghz at the moment. The 780i board is not the best for overclocking. I should have sold this thing when I got it back for the upgrade and went with an Intel board.
</sidenote>

Anyway, this is some awesome shit! Now I can get back to enjoying my favorite game with all of the added fluff!

 

[vjcsmoke]

Anyway, this is some awesome shit! Now I can get back to enjoying my favorite game with all of the added fluff!

Hehe, glad to hear it worked for you too! It is really an awesome experience to have both the 5870 and Nvidia PhysX working together. Enjoy your gaming!

 

[Schwartz]

I have my 5870 and 280 running together too. The PhysX seems to work fine using this patch. A question I have, is there a benefit from faking the display or should I just connect my second display to the 280 instead of the 5870?

 

[vjcsmoke]

I have my 5870 and 280 running together too. The PhysX seems to work fine using this patch. A question I have, is there a benefit from faking the display or should I just connect my second display to the 280 instead of the 5870?

I believe that faking the extra Nvidia display and extending it, forces the Nvidia Physx support to extend to all your other displays which are currently rendered by and connected to the 5870.

Feel free to experiment though if you feel like messing around some more and let us know what happens. But since it's working for you fine as is, doing that probably won't improve your performance.

 

[buzzbomb]

Please don't let this get beyond [h].

Too late...it's on the front page of slashdot...I give it a week, it'll be defeated.

 

[wolf2009]

It was over a year ago that Regen @ NGOHQ announced the ability to do this, then flaked and claimed legal pressures were keeping him from releasing the info. Glad it finally made it out, going to try this later!

this is not that. you still need a nvidia card to do physX. this allows you to have a ati card for 3d rendering and nvidia card for physx in the same system.

 

[Domingo]

Works wonderfully while it lasts...I'm playing Batman totally maxed with hardware PhysX on high and still getting 60fps.
Glad I kept that GTS250 around as it seems more than up to the task of a secondary PhysX card.
I'm sure future Nvidia drivers will break this, but there really isn't much reason to upgrade to them for the moment either.

 

[miguelito]

I'm sure future Nvidia drivers will break this, but there really isn't much reason to upgrade to them for the moment either.

Nvidia is dumb...why the hell would they disable PhysX when an ATI card is present

Because of this thread (revealing the mod), I will probably go and buy a 9800gt so that I can run PhysX. But, if Nvidia would just coop with ATI and not given them the palm...more ATI users would probably buy an Nvidia card also!

 

[Matrices]

That's the funny thing that those idiots don't understand.

 

[dnottis]

This just isnt working for me. PhysX is still disabled in the CP. I have tried the 1.04 and 1.01 lite. same thing though.

 

[Domingo]

When setting it up, I never actually went into safe mode.
Just uninstalled my PhysX driver and then installed the latest Nvidia drivers. Patched everything and rebooted. From there, read the section on setting up the second monitor via VGA carefully. It's a multi-step process, but once that kicks in - you'll be up and running...hopefully!
Honestly, I'm not exactly sure what Batman really gains from it, though.
You get some new banners, cobwebs, rocks, papers and leaves, but nothing really groundbreaking. Still, if you have the card, might as well get those effects.

 

[vjcsmoke]

This just isnt working for me. PhysX is still disabled in the CP. I have tried the 1.04 and 1.01 lite. same thing though.

ok do you have an ati and nvidia card? Have both cards been installed? What step are you getting stuck on?

 

[bytemuncher]

vjcsmoke, thanks for putting this guide together. The readme file included in GenL's patch was lacking a little. Cheers.

 

[dnottis]

ok do you have an ati and nvidia card? Have both cards been installed? What step are you getting stuck on?

Well the OS had GTX 280 / 9600GT. But I recently moved to HD5870, I'm not stuck at any step on the guide, it all works, but in the physx CP its always disabled. I cannot enable it. Using the 9.10 R7 beta for ATI and 191.03 beta, this is Win7 x64. Im just wondering if there is something in the registry screwing this up because the 280 was the main card at one point.I just reformatted last week, the HD5870 didnt come till Friday. I uninstalled Nvidia, ran driver sweeper, etc to clean out the drivers too. I still cannot get it to activate though.

 

[vjcsmoke]

Did you get the message that files were patched when running GenL's physx patch?

Ok, make sure all your monitors are plugged into the 5870. You need to create a fake monitor to add to your extended desktop.

1. Right click your desktop then click screen resolution.
2. Click detect, and you should see a monitor icon come up.
3. Now click on next to display options dialog and choose "available display output on: Nvidia card".
4. Now click on multiple displays dialog and select "try to connect anyway on vga.
5. Once that is done click on Apply on the bottom right.
6. Finally select the dialog to extend this display to your desktop.

Now when you right click your blank desktop, Nvidia control panel should show up. Click on it. Go down to the Set Physx Configuration dialog setting and simply click on enabled. Close out of Nvidia control panel and you're set! Run FluidX benchmark to confirm "hardware physx" mode has been activated for the benching.

PS Use only one nvidia card for Physx and connect your monitors only to the 5870.

 

[dnottis]

Did you get the message that files were patched when running GenL's physx patch?

Ok, make sure all your monitors are plugged into the 5870. You need to create a fake monitor to add to your extended desktop.

1. Right click your desktop then click screen resolution.
2. Click detect, and you should see a monitor icon come up.
3. Now click on next to display options dialog and choose "available display output on: Nvidia card".
4. Now click on multiple displays dialog and select "try to connect anyway on vga.
5. Once that is done click on Apply on the bottom right.
6. Finally select the dialog to extend this display to your desktop.

Now when you right click your blank desktop, Nvidia control panel should show up. Click on it. Go down to the Set Physx Configuration dialog setting and simply click on enabled. Close out of Nvidia control panel and you're set! Run FluidX benchmark to confirm "hardware physx" mode has been activated for the benching.

PS Use only one nvidia card for Physx and connect your monitors only to the 5870.

I'm only using one monitor. But I did 1-6. Also, yes I got the message all files were patched, no errors.

 

[Mr. Wolf]

Guess I'll hang on to my GTX 285 instead of sending it to eBay. Thanks, OP!

 

[T4rd]

*Bookmarked* Excellent post! Now I can use my X1900XTX with my GTX 280 for PhysX! Lol, j/k. Hopefully I can get a 5850 for Christmas or something so I can do this trick (if nVidia hasn't went out of their way to disable it again by that time).

 

[Domingo]

I'm surprised this isn't front page news this morning as it is a pretty big deal and it works.
Nvidia can really only go so far to block this from working. They can block it with future driver revisions, but as long as the PhysX games (like Batman) don't force you to use newer runtimes, this should keep working. I might update my Catalyst drivers, but it seems like as long as you don't touch the Nvidia drivers, this should work indefinitely. Plus, you have to think that there will be more work-arounds in the future, too.

 

[dnottis]

Everyone needs to get onboard - http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/physx/

I will be sure this gets to Nvidia, help us get some support behind this though, there is no reason why Nvidia should remove this ability as a current Nvidia GPU customer I deserve every feature they sell it to me based on. I know some of you guys hate petitions - we need as many signatures as possible so please, just sign it!!

 

[Vermillion]

Nice hack. Too bad we have to do stuff like this to make our hardware work the way we want it to.

Sad thing is I give 2-3 weeks tops before NV disables it again.

 

[00PS]

It looks like nVidia has new driver releases dated 10/5/2009, I'm assuming these are to counter this mod (correct me if I'm wrong). Just ran a couple of test downloads for a 8/9/200 series on windows7 64 and kept receiving a page error, probably because their still being uploaded or not ready yet.

This didn't last long before they patched it up...at least its appears thats what they are doing?. Any one know where I can get the last driver revision (before 10/5/2009) for a GeForce 9 Series?

 

[dnottis]

It looks like nVidia has new driver releases dated 10/5/2009, I'm assuming these are to counter this mod (correct me if I'm wrong). Just ran a couple of test downloads for a 8/9/200 series on windows7 64 and kept receiving a page error, probably because their still being uploaded or not ready yet.

This didn't last long before they patched it up...at least its appears thats what they are doing?. Any one know where I can get the last driver revision (before 10/5/2009) for a GeForce 9 Series?

Under 'Beta and archived drivers' right on the driver page.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us

 

[00PS]

Under 'Beta and archived drivers' right on the driver page.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us

Doh, thanks.

 

[tesfaye]

It'll be interesting to see if they start secretly patching the archived drivers. There has to be something illegal about what Nvidia is doing with the whole Physx situation. They took a technology that should work regardless of the video rendering card being used and made it so it fails to run if you aren't using all nvidia products with your system. F'ing lame.

I wonder if this GenL person is going to keep up with nvidia's fixes whenever updates are required? When and what is the next major PhysX title due for release?

 

[SicKlown42012]

It'll be interesting to see if they start secretly patching the archived drivers. There has to be something illegal about what Nvidia is doing with the whole Physx situation. They took a technology that should work regardless of the video rendering card being used and made it so it fails to run if you aren't using all nvidia products with your system. F'ing lame.

I wonder if this GenL person is going to keep up with nvidia's fixes whenever updates are required? When and what is the next major PhysX title due for release?

If he does, I wouldn't be surprised to see Nvidia threaten legal action. They seem to think that PhysX is a main factor as to why people buy their cards, and they'll protect that at all cost.

 

[dnottis]

If he does, I wouldn't be surprised to see Nvidia threaten legal action. They seem to think that PhysX is a main factor as to why people buy their cards, and they'll protect that at all cost.

You know what? I paid good money for my Nvidia cards too. I should be able to use physx whether the nvidia GPU is in slot 1 or 2. We need to rise up and tell them that. Now. They are fucking me over as a current customer.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/physx/

 

[KaptainKhaos]

works fine with the latest wql drivers 191.07 -batman close to 80fps ave ftw