PhysX card for ATI user.

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MrDowntempo

Weaksauce
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Jul 8, 2008
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I loved Mafia 2. Story was excellent, and I was able to max out the graphics on my 5870 2gb. I'm gonna be playing through it again for sure and the DLC as well when it comes out. Now I'm thinking about picking up a nvidia GPU for the physx. I bought batman back when it was on sale and haven't beaten it yet so I'd actually get some real use outta the investment. Still I don't wanna drop a ton of money on an accessory I can only use in a few games, but I can justify a small chunk of change. Dunno what to get though. I know the number of stream processors are what is most important, but how important is the VRAM? Better to have 512 of gddr5 on a 240, 1gb of GDDR3 on the same 240? My local store has a 9800gt with 512 of GDDR3, but I know they make a 1gb version as well, dunno if its worth paying the extra money to get it shipped in though. Or maybe I should go all out and find a 250. Whats the best physx investment for ATI users?
 
You have to buy an nVidia graphics card and use some hacked up drivers to get it to work as a Physx card when ATI/AMD is the primary graphics adaptor.
 
wrangler said:
You have to buy an nVidia graphics card and use some hacked up drivers to get it to work as a Physx card when ATI/AMD is the primary graphics adaptor.
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Why doesn't nvidia introduce an additional revenue stream by selling physx cards?

I understand that they potentially will increase sales of graphics card by not giving the ATI buyers (fanboy or not) a choice if they want physx.
 
Alright, maybe I wasn't clear. I have an ATI card. It doesn't do physx. It IS possible to use an nvidia graphics card with a hacked driver for dedicated physx processing. Its just like using an nvidia graphics card with a 2nd nvidia card for dedicated physx (I'm not talking SLI), the only difference being your primary graphics card is ATI and you have 2 drivers installed.

So back to my main question. What card should I get? It seems like everything from the 9500gt to the gts250 would be workable and anything more powerful would be hella overkill. How important is VRAM for a dedicated physx card. Is it more important to have more vram or faster vram with physx processing. Should I not worry about ram at all and just get the cheapest card with the most cuda cores? Whats the sweet spot for purchasing a dedicated physx card on a budget?
 
If you are patient enough you should be able to get a really good deal on a GTS250. Back when I decided to get a seperate card for Physx, I ended up getting a brand new GTS250 for $78 shipped off of Ebay.

It took a couple weeks of sniping cards using Gixen, but I was finally able to nab one for the price I was willing to pay.

You can also use it to Fold for [H] when not using it for gaming.
 
I would get one of the lower end cards for the lower heat output and power usage. Physx doesn't require a powerful card, a 240 would be good, or even a 220. A good friend of mine is using his old 9500 GT with good results.

Just make sure you're not running Windows Vista because it doesn't allow you to run more than one graphics card driver at a time. Windows 7 is fine.
 
i wouldnt use anything less then the GTS 250 if your gonna spend the cash and want results.

makes for a capable backup card to incase main card goes down.
 
Gtx 260s are pretty cheap now, you can get one used for $100. Or wait a bit for the GTS 450 to come out. I'm thinking of getting that for PhysX because I heard there might be a low profile/single slot version coming out.
 
After taking another look at my case, i realized a single slot card is my only option. I haven't been able to find any single slot GTS250s do they exist? I know galaxy has made a single slot 260, but they're ultra rare and expensive if you can find one. I'd really like to spend less than $100 bucks, but I might go up to $110 or $120 if its a good deal on a powerful card. I would love the galaxy razor single slot fermi thats coming out, but it too is way outta my price range. I'm only doing this for a few games that support it, this won't be my primary GPU so I can't really justify that kinda money. Thats why I'm very interested in how important the VRAM size and speed is for a dedicated physx card. If physx never uses more than 512 it'd be pointless to spend the extra 10 or 20 bucks on a 1gb version.
 
So pissed I missed the shell shocker Zotac GTS 250 ECO version for $75 AR. It's slightly downclocked than a regular, but I thought it would be good for PhysX. It's a bit shorter too, so another thing was I thought it would let my GTX 480 fan breath even if it was directly below it.

I know this says for "ATI" user, but really what's the difference? You want a capable PhysX card, provided the hacked drivers are still out there. ATI cards are also long, so maybe the length pro can apply as well.

I wish they would make a rear exhausting, single slot, PhysX card with a decent GPU. Just omit the video connectors in the back. Would make a nice niche product.
 
If you live near a fry's and can wait they have GTX 240's and 250's cards on sale fairly regularly for under $50. AND... Black Friday is coming.
 
Nope, don't live next to any fry's down here in Floriduh ಠ_ಠ.

I wish they would make a rear exhausting, single slot, PhysX card with a decent GPU. Just omit the video connectors in the back. Would make a nice niche product.
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Amen brother.
 
It's not worth it mate, I so a GTX 480 bench with everything maxed out including the physics and it ran like shit. Anything that involved the mass amount of physics made it drop from a solid 60 to a mere 15-20FPS.

Even using the "Hacked up" drivers your not going to get a huge performance boost with those physics. Also MSI Big Bang Fusion motherboard allows a mix of Nvidia and ATI cards without needing special hacked drivers.

HOOPSTANK!
 
MrDowntempo said:
After taking another look at my case, i realized a single slot card is my only option. I haven't been able to find any single slot GTS250s do they exist? I know galaxy has made a single slot 260, but they're ultra rare and expensive if you can find one. I'd really like to spend less than $100 bucks, but I might go up to $110 or $120 if its a good deal on a powerful card. I would love the galaxy razor single slot fermi thats coming out, but it too is way outta my price range. I'm only doing this for a few games that support it, this won't be my primary GPU so I can't really justify that kinda money. Thats why I'm very interested in how important the VRAM size and speed is for a dedicated physx card. If physx never uses more than 512 it'd be pointless to spend the extra 10 or 20 bucks on a 1gb version.
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well considering the original PhysX "PPU" wasn't even a specifically designed chip, I'd be willing to bet that almost anything would work. get a gts 240 or something on the cheap and call it a day. The VRAM and clockspeed are going to be perfectly fine. Like you said, anything more (and more money) is just complete overkill. I can't see it being worth it to have spent 100+ on nicer physics in a couple games
 
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