Is PhysX even relevant anymore?

I never really understood the point of physx, shouldn't the physics be coded in the server anyway? Ex: if I'm playing a FPS and I can break a window to go through it, that should be happening server side, so that it will affect everyone else (they should be able to see the same thing I see when it breaks and also have the same ability as I do to break it). With physx it's client side and hardware specific, so how does that even work for multi player games?

If I was coding a game I would want to make sure my game is compatible with any video card and does not rely on proprietary stuff like Physx.
 
bottom line: PhysX is a bonus if you have an Nvidia card but you're not missing much by not having it
 
I ran Metro LL benches with a 780 with and without a 460 as a dedicated physx card and saw little to no difference in performance.
 
Any physX implementation i've seen has been buggy or really not worth it. Just added fluff that gets in the way. It's extra, non-essential code that devs have to deal with. It's never going to be the same quality code as the rest of the game it resides in.

PhysX will continue to be virtually useless unless it's made open. Spending a significant amount of time to develop for only half your playerbase at best is not a wise business decision for any developer. That's why we see PhysX not really mattering in games - devs spend the minimal amount of time to get the "PhysX" checkbox complete and move on to other projects that benefit everyone.
 
Not much supports it.. and when it does its not like you cant live without it.
 
Warframe shows you the power of PhysX in this video with PhysX on /off transitions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhBZeZ5uQBQ

My buddies with Nvidia cards cut it off 100% of the time because they couldn't see the enemies to kill them. I would end up with 80% damage done in Warframe if they run Physx lol.

Yeah, that looks nice. But it doesn't mean much if they don't program it where the particles have an effect on the AI. I hate when AI can see through that stuff. It's like enabling a wall-hack for the AI to cheat you.

Kinda like how some games put in grass layers, but don't make this block your view from the AI. So you're really just blinding yourself.

Stupid design decisions are stupid.
 
PhysX is kinda cool when you see if for the first time, however IMHO you will not really miss it. The batman series is about the only good use of it.
 
I thought about keeping my gtx 670 as a PhysX card to go along with my R290 but I don't think it's worth the extra heat in my case just for the random game that uses it. Plus, I could always grab a cheap 650 or something if I really wanted PhysX.
 
Always felt it was a gimmick

Same here. I've played games that uses PhysX such as Batman, Metro, Assassins Creed black flag, Mirror's Edge, Boardersland 2, Alice Madness Returns, Mafia 2 & such. Other than some extra particles or additional effects, I don't really see the big deal about it, but that's just me.
 
Please play Borderlands 2 and report back.

Maybe it's because my 570 is a bit if ild tech, but I have everything turned up in BL2 and I don't see any real difference between that and my AMD rig.
 
Maybe it's because my 570 is a bit if ild tech, but I have everything turned up in BL2 and I don't see any real difference between that and my AMD rig.

Have you actually turned physx on? There's quite a noticeable difference especially in performance for single gpu rigs like yours.
 
Have you actually turned physx on? There's quite a noticeable difference especially in performance for single gpu rigs like yours.

Other than a frame rate drop, no. Maybe it's another setting that I'm missing somewhere. I will revisit it when I get home from work.
 
I'd say so,

Ever try playing Borderlands 2 without setting your graphics card as the primary physics processor?
 
I'd say so,

Ever try playing Borderlands 2 without setting your graphics card as the primary physics processor?

Sorry don't see any real difference between how the gam looks vs. my AMD rig. I'll toss a 9800gtx+ in it later and see if it's any better with a dedicated physx card.
 
Sorry don't see any real difference between how the gam looks vs. my AMD rig. I'll toss a 9800gtx+ in it later and see if it's any better with a dedicated physx card.

I'm talking about the performance. There is a noticable performance hit when you make your CPU do the calculating.

Use your CPU to calculate physics instead of your GPU (if the option is available for AMD hardware) and you will see what I am talking about.

Mine looks like this
 
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There is a very noticable difference in visual effects in Borderlands 2 with PhysX on High vs Low. Take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdWJLJyE9rw

Fun fact, I have been playing it the whole time with physx turned on and my 570 selected in the nvidia control panel and it's been looking like the no physix unit. After pluging in the 9800 and seleting that as the primary physx processor I can see all the effects, I get about 10 extra fps and everything runs 3* hotter.......... (gpuz reports less than 18% load on the 9800 and 99% load on the 570 now as well )
 
Fun fact, I have been playing it the whole time with physx turned on and my 570 selected in the nvidia control panel and it's been looking like the no physix unit. After pluging in the 9800 and seleting that as the primary physx processor I can see all the effects, I get about 10 extra fps and everything runs 3* hotter.......... (gpuz reports less than 18% load on the 9800 and 99% load on the 570 now as well )

I'd say it's now relevant.:D
 
I'd say it's now relevant.:D

yeah, but it's also the only game I have that really makes use of it. I also want to add that I switched the 9800gtx+ I had lying around for an 8600gt. It does just as well as the 9800 and takes up a lot less space, so it's not like you need a high end nvidia card, or even one that's really relevant to get get the physx effects. It runs at 50-85% power.
 
Weird - I've been running with close to the same setup as you in BL2 and get the yummy effects.
 
PhysX is the name of a marketing gimmick for something that shouldn't have a special name.

Yes, physics simulation is part of the future. PhysX is anti-competition smoke and mirrors.
 
PhysX is the name of a marketing gimmick for something that shouldn't have a special name.

Yes, physics simulation is part of the future. PhysX is anti-competition smoke and mirrors.

I think that's why it's implemented in so few games. It is nice to be able to off load specific tasks to specific gpus though.
 
It is nice to be able to off load specific tasks to specific gpus though.

For sure. But, I think that sort of processing falls under general programming advances, and nVidia is going out of its way to be incompatible with other brands just to pretend like it has something proprietary and special. In other words, it would be as if Intel suddenly decided to call multicore support for games "HYPERX COMPUTING" and then paid programmers to write their games to only support multicores from Intel instead of both Intel and AMD.

"HYPERX COMPUTING ONLY ON INTEL."

And then, to top it off, Intel could pay game companies to create an over the top graphics checkbox that simply turned up color saturation on your monitor and made particle effects follow needlessly complex paths so that the game requires artificially high amounts of CPU power that can only be supplied by the false demand that Intel created in the first place.
 
The current game with the best PhysX is Borderlands 2. Try using your CPU vs GPU on that game and you will clearly see a difference in performance and visual quality.

not if you have a decent pc, its a 2 year old game, my 3770k and 7950 ran it just fine with max physx, now with my R9-290x Crossfire i can't imagine how it plays
 
not if you have a decent pc, its a 2 year old game, my 3770k and 7950 ran it just fine with max physx, now with my R9-290x Crossfire i can't imagine how it plays

Well, I can't say the same. If you look at my sig, it really doesn't get much better than that and I can definitely see a difference in my frames if I force the CPU vs the GPU for PhysX. You might be surprised the difference it makes if you had a dedicated PhysX card for a game like Borderlands 2.
 
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