possible to have ati and nvidia?

[dr papadakalis]

i will stop stealing that other kind sirs thread.

if i got a 4870, would i be able to keep this 9800gtx running physx on my current rig?

specs are in sig, minus the fact that i have a x3 720 on the way

 

[kumquatsrus]

yes - w7 or xp only though

 

[dr papadakalis]

yes - w7 or xp only though

hm, might be time to go to windows 7. would i be able to notice the performance increase?

 

[RADEoN]

Not worthwhile increases.

 

[dr papadakalis]

so i guess i will go ahead with my intention of selling the card.

thanks !

 

[Elledan]

What? A 9800 GTX will mean that you can play PhysX-enabled games with all physics effects on. A 4870 or other ATi card means that you're limited to CPU-only PhysX, which is a joke.

 

[dr papadakalis]

What? A 9800 GTX will mean that you can play PhysX-enabled games with all physics effects on. A 4870 or other ATi card means that you're limited to CPU-only PhysX, which is a joke.

oh wow all like 20 of them

i think i have one game on my pc right now that supports physx, and that is mirrors edge

 

[Elledan]

oh wow all like 20 of them

i think i have one game on my pc right now that supports physx, and that is mirrors edge

Quite a few more, see the list of titles at Wikipedia. This year many more games will be released that support PhysX. Don't hate on something that is new.

 

[kumquatsrus]

Quite a few more, see the list of titles at Wikipedia. This year many more games will be released that support PhysX. Don't hate on something that is new.

it's okay if he wants to sell. some people just don't see the value personally for utilizing gpu physx. just because you and me might make use of it alot, doesn't mean others will. though, he might kick himself in the near future with plenty of games down the pipeline this year with physx support, though - or not. just depends on what games he really wants to play. i got a copy in the mail of mirror's edge too for the pc - got it through a contest - i hardly ever win anything, lol. have to say it is quite a bit more enjoyable on the pc with all the physx eyecandy than on a ps3 or 360, imo.

 

[Elledan]

Well, as a game developer whose company utilizing a game engine heavily reliant on PhysX, I only use nVidia videocards and don't even have the option of going with ATi

But yes, he can sell the card if he wants. He can always buy another one

 

[soulesschild]

Once windows 7 comes out, I'll probalby buy some cheapo nvidia card for PhysX

 

[Atech]

Not worthwhile increases.

Bollocks:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1376657

 

[deddyeka]

xp possible to have ATI and NVIDIA as long as you have 2 pciex slot

not VISTA

don't know on windows7

 

[madh83]

I hope they update vista's permissions to allow this to work....especially considering they could change vista to 7 in a service pack.

 

[Elledan]

I hope they update vista's permissions to allow this to work....especially considering they could change vista to 7 in a service pack.

It's not about permissions, this is about updating the entire graphics subsystem of Vista to the newest WDDM version, which'd require patching/swapping out lots of files. Yes, it could be done, but don't expect MSFT to be that nice

 

[madh83]

It's not about permissions, this is about updating the entire graphics subsystem of Vista to the newest WDDM version, which'd require patching/swapping out lots of files. Yes, it could be done, but don't expect MSFT to be that nice

I wasn't really sure how it works techincally, but conceptually I understood it as vista only allowing one graphics driver to be loaded at a time. Is WDDM what's preventing that?

 

[Elledan]

I wasn't really sure how it works techincally, but conceptually I understood it as vista only allowing one graphics driver to be loaded at a time. Is WDDM what's preventing that?

Yes, WDDM 1.0 as present in Vista does not allow more than one graphics driver to be loaded at any time. The WDDM version in Win7 allows for this. It's a technical limitation, in other words.

 

[madh83]

Meh, doesn't seem like it'd be much work at all to modify WDDM to give "permission" =p for two different drivers. Especially considering the code is there for win7 and the OS kernel is almost the same.

However, I get what you're saying about MSFT probably not wanting to be that nice.

 

[Elledan]

Yeah, Vista could relatively easily be patched into something resembling Win7, but that would nuke MSFT's bottomline, which is the sole reason why they would never even consider doing so

 

[bigdogchris]

If you think Vista could be upgraded to 7 via a Service Pack, you're absolutely nuts and can not be helped. They completely re-wrote the kernel for 7, it just looks like Vista, doesn't mean it is Vista.

 

[Elledan]

If you think Vista could be upgraded to 7 via a Service Pack, you're absolutely nuts and can not be helped. They completely re-wrote the kernel for 7, it just looks like Vista, doesn't mean it is Vista.

Okay...

Vista is NT 6.0, Win7 is 6.1. Minor number, ergo it's a tweaked 6.0 kernel. Other comparisons plus benchmarks also show that Win7 is essentially a tweaked Vista OS. WDDM 1.1 vs 1.0, basically same subsystems and mostly a different UI.

 

[11jkarrasch]

i dont think you could but good luck to you

 

[matrix563]

i don't think win7 can support both ati and nvidia, at least not instlaling 2 different drivers, from what i've read

 

[Elledan]

i don't think win7 can support both ati and nvidia, at least not instlaling 2 different drivers, from what i've read

And you would be wrong, as WDDM 1.1 in Windows 7 supports multiple graphics drivers being loaded simultaneously.

 

[DeFex]

when a card is being used for phys-x and you are not actually playing a game or other phys-x related thing. does it turn itself completely off? or still use "idle" wattage.

 

[Elledan]

when a card is being used for phys-x and you are not actually playing a game or other phys-x related thing. does it turn itself completely off? or still use "idle" wattage.

It would go into idle, I'd presume. As it's not being used for 2D tasks either it should not use as much power as if it were idling at the Windows desktop or so, though.

 

[dmr]

when a card is being used for phys-x and you are not actually playing a game or other phys-x related thing. does it turn itself completely off? or still use "idle" wattage.

Of course that in idle still consumes power. Thing that I do is simply down the clock of gpu/memory in idle for 8800gts to 260/400. And when I play physx games I put clock on 650/1000MHz

 

[Elledan]

Of course that in idle still consumes power. Thing that I do is simply down the clock of gpu/memory in idle for 8800gts to 260/400. And when I play physx games I put clock on 650/1000MHz

That's indeed an effective way to curb idle power usage, plus it extends the life of the card

 

[GotNoRice]

A 4870 or other ATi card means that you're limited to CPU-only PhysX, which is a joke.

Well, as a game developer whose company utilizing a game engine heavily reliant on PhysX, I only use nVidia videocards and don't even have the option of going with ATi

You can still use one of the older Ageia PhysX PPUs, either the PCI or the PCIe 1x card. They work fine with ATI cards. I use one with my 4850 Crossfire and it is a big increase over CPU physx. It might not be as fast as something like an 8800GT as a PPU but in most of the benchmarks it still bridges a lot of the gap between that and CPU physx.

 

[Elledan]

You can still use one of the older Ageia PhysX PPUs, either the PCI or the PCIe 1x card. They work fine with ATI cards. I use one with my 4850 Crossfire and it is a big increase over CPU physx. It might not be as fast as something like an 8800GT as a PPU but in most of the benchmarks it still bridges a lot of the gap between that and CPU physx.

True, though buying a new PPU at this point doesn't really seem like such a good idea when a GPU at the same price level can give much better performance. Good thing WinXP/7 allow for multiple GPU drivers to be active, I guess.

 

[Unknown-One]

Yes, WDDM 1.0 as present in Vista does not allow more than one graphics driver to be loaded at any time. The WDDM version in Win7 allows for this. It's a technical limitation, in other words.

You can, in fact, run both ATi and Nvidia video cards at the same time under Windows Vista. The trick is using Windows XP drivers instead of Windows Vista drivers.

Both cards will work with their separate respective drivers, but Windows XP's drivers aren't WDDM certified, so you won't get Aero Glass.

Vista is NT 6.0, Win7 is 6.1. Minor number, ergo it's a tweaked 6.0 kernel.

Wrong, it's 6.1 for compatibility reasons. Lots of software checks against your Windows version number to make sure it's compatible before installing, a jump from 6 to 7 would break a lot of poorly written version detection schemes. By changing the minor-version instead of the major-version, you give these version checks a better chance of succeeding.

This is the same reason Microsoft went from NT 5.0 for Windows 2000 to 5.1 for Windows XP.

 

[Elledan]

You can, in fact, run both ATi and Nvidia video cards at the same time under Windows Vista. The trick is using Windows XP drivers instead of Windows Vista drivers.

Both cards will work with their separate respective drivers, but Windows XP's drivers aren't WDDM certified, so you won't get Aero Glass.

Interesting, didn't know that.

Wrong, it's 6.1 for compatibility reasons. Lots of software checks against your Windows version number to make sure it's compatible before installing, a jump from 6 to 7 would break a lot of poorly written version detection schemes. By changing the minor-version instead of the major-version, you give these version checks a better chance of succeeding.

This is the same reason Microsoft went from NT 5.0 for Windows 2000 to 5.1 for Windows XP.

Got some references to back this up? It's the first time I have heard of such a thing...

 

[Unknown-One]

Got some references to back this up? It's the first time I have heard of such a thing...

Mike Nash, Corporate VP of Windows Product Management had this to say on the matter (Source):

So we decided to ship the Windows 7 code as Windows 6.1 - which is what you will see in the actual version of the product in cmd.exe or computer properties. There's been some fodder about whether using 6.1 in the code is an indicator of the relevance of Windows 7. It is not. Windows 7 is a significant and evolutionary advancement of the client operating system. It is in every way a major effort in design, engineering, and innovation. The only thing to read into the code versioning is that we are absolutely committed to making sure application compatibility is optimized for our customers.

 

[Elledan]

Mike Nash, Corporate VP of Windows Product Management had this to say on the matter (Source):

That comment is on the link between the name (7) and the kernel revision number (6.1), followed by some marketing speak guaranteeing that Win7 is really, really better than Vista, promise.

 

[Unknown-One]

Are you really having that much trouble reading into it? Fine, here's something a little more direct and recent. Rafael Rivera of Within Windows recently contacted Microsoft about this very issue, here's the response he got back (source):

We learned a lot about using 5.1 for XP and how that helped developers with version checking for API compatibility. We also had the lesson reinforced when we applied the version number in the Windows Vista code as Windows 6.0– that changing basic version numbers can cause application compatibility issues.

So we decided to ship the Windows 7 code as Windows 6.1 […].

 

[Elledan]

Are you really having that much trouble reading into it? Fine, here's something a little more direct and recent. Rafael Rivera of Within Windows recently contacted Microsoft about this very issue, here's the response he got back (source):

I can quote too:

lthough the number of changes to the Windows® XP kernel is small compared to the changes between Windows NT® 4.0 and Windows 2000 (the internal version number confirms this—Windows 2000 was originally Windows NT 5.0; Windows XP was version 5.1, not NT 6.0), there are a number of important changes that make Windows XP more reliable, more scalable, and more broadly compatible with existing applications.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc302206.aspx

Don't trust marketing speak. It is a well-known fact that Win7 is built on the Vista code base and the number of changes are relatively minor (NT 5.x to 6.0 is a huge shift, like NT4 to 5 before it). Win7 is mostly refinements to the Vista kernel and evolutionary changes to various subsystems like WDDM.

 

[Reus]

Don't trust marketing speak. It is a well-known fact that Win7 is built on the Vista code base and the number of changes are relatively minor (NT 5.x to 6.0 is a huge shift, like NT4 to 5 before it). Win7 is mostly refinements to the Vista kernel and evolutionary changes to various subsystems like WDDM.

Exactly. Win7 is Vista with some fine tuning, anyone who thinks otherwise is just drinking the Microsoft kool-aid.

 

[Unknown-One]

Exactly. Win7 is Vista with some fine tuning, anyone who thinks otherwise is just drinking the Microsoft kool-aid.

Is this an informed opinion? Have you actually used Windows 7 (build 7100)? Have you read up about all the changes being made to the OS on Paul Thurrott's blog?

Get back to me on that...

 

[Malakai]

Does ATI Stream work with physX yet? Will it in the future?

I always thought physx was independent of nv/ati, but nv had cuda much earlier than ati developed stream.

 

[Atech]

Does ATI Stream work with physX yet?

No.

Will it in the future?

Doubtfull as AMD dosn't wan't to be depandant on NVIDIA...and they are supporting Intel's Havok instead.

I always thought physx was independent of nv/ati, but nv had cuda much earlier than ati developed stream.

That was before NVIDIA bougth AGIEA and thus the PhysX API.