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PhysX and Radeon. How does that work?

U

Undercover_Man

[H]ard Surgeon
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Hello, I am building a new PC again. My current one was built like when Radeon 9700 Pro came out. Long time.

I have recently chosen to go with Ati (I refuse to call them AMD :p) and was wondering about PhysX. Is this an nVidia thing only? I see that there are older dedicated cards made by only two manufacturers and I see that come cards come with it I think. Does it work with Radeon cards? Can Radeon users experience PhysX? What is the history cause I've not really paid any attention since I finished building my current PC. I know the dedicated cards are hard to find and I don't think are being made anymore. Is it because they are incorporated in today's video cards? Would having a dedicated card still help if your video card says it can do it too?

Can someone update me on this please?

THANX
~ Undercover_Man
 
They are now AMD, why does that bother you? Just fanboyism?

The PhysX IP was bought by nVidia when the original company coudn't fully push it out on their own. The dedicated cards went the way of the dodo when they did. But their technology, and their hardware engine was implemented into nVidia's latest GPU's using their shader processing cores, GPGPU stuff. And yes, only hardware accelerated on nvidia GPUs, not AMD. Games that use it still run fine, it runs in software mode on the CPU. A modern dual-quad core doesn't have much issue with it in my experience.

Dedicated cards offered little to no performance increase.
 
If you want to use PhysX with an ATI card you will need to buy a dedicated card or Nvidia GPU capable of using CUDA (8 series and above). Then you will need to use a driver hack to make it work. Its not terribly complicated to do, between troubleshooting, finding the right drivers, and finding the right hack it took me all of half an hour to get my 9800 GTX to work as a PhysX card.
 
So a i7 920 cpu with either a 3-way 5870 or 5970 setup in a 3 display eyefinity mode can handle PhysX stuff pretty good? And no I don't know my resolution or screen size because I'm still researching a display. Thanx for the help thus far.
 
I'm currently running a Radeon 5870 and a Geforce GTS 250 as a PhysX card. The process to making it work is pretty easy. Just choose any of Nvidia's last-gen cards and you'll be fine, although most of the tests online showed the GTS250 was the best "bang for your buck" card.
All you need to do is build the system normally, only after you install your video drivers for both cards, you then run the patch (in safe mode) and your PC will see the Nvidia card like an overlay monitor. People have used it with multiple monitors, although that's only been a recent and somewhat buggy experience. If you're serious about the multi-monitor thing, you might hold off for the moment.

As for PhysX itself, it's value has been a pretty big debate on here and pretty much every other similar forum. Pretty much the general consensus (if you can call it that) is that PhysX has a lot of potential, but it may never be realized because of how it's being handled. For now, there aren't that many A+ titles that use it or plan to use it, although Batman uses it very well...and perhaps the sequel will too.
 
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