Could getting a Ageia Physx PPU lower fps with a HD4870?

[AndroidVageta]

Well, Ill try to make this short, Im just a very detailed writer and like to get my thoughts out it full, but bare with me if you can...

OK...so alot of games I play (and even more in the future) implement Physx, which just off the top of my head include Mirror's Edge, Cryostasis, GRAW 2, and World in Conflict, and yes, these are games that I play regularly. So after going to a HD4870 from a 9600GT Ive lost my ability to use Physx, so now I'm looking into getting a Ageia Physx PPU to make up for my loses since ATi's stubborn ass doesnt seem to want to pick up on this great and increasingly more common tech.

I know that the Nvidia cards can do Physx processing better than the Ageia PPU, won't argue that fact, but I don't have an extra PCI-e 16x slot and I don't think my PSU could even handle another graphics card...and I've heard that drivers have a bad conflicting way about them when running ATi and Nvidia, so please no "get a 9600/8800 card for Physx" stuff, just can't/won't happen.

I'll be using Mirror's Edge as a reference point for my questioning here.

OK, so without Physx enabled I get a rather solid 60fps at all times using my HD4870. With Physx on (processed by CPU) I get in the range of 10-15fps. My question is...will using a Ageia PPU still result in lower frame per second?

From what I've seen looking around, if I use a Ageia PPU even though my fps will be higher vs. using a CPU to process the Physx, I will utimately get slower FPS because the PPU will struggle to keep up with the HD4870 in processing the physics vs. what is going on graphically. For example, as described above were talking 60fps with no Physx, but with Physx on I'll get 45fps because the PPU, although able to process the physics, can't keep up with all the processing that needs to be going on thus hindering the HD4870 from getting 60fps because the PPU is essentially bottlenecking the video card trying to keep up with the physics.

Make sense? Basically:

No Physx = 60fps
Physx done by CPU = 10fps
Physx done with PPU = 45fps

Thats all I can post...brain is fried, can't go into more detail without writing a few more paragraphs LOL! Sometimes Im too thorough for my own good.

 

[AndroidVageta]

http://www.firingsquad.com/har..._update/images/ut3.gif

Looking at that picture as a reference I thing the PPU does limit FPS...seeing as how the 9800GTX, 8800GT, 4850, and 4870 basically score the same when using the Ageia PPU. I know for a fact that the 4870 would crush the 8800GT, but using the PPU all cards score 30fps across the board, CPU obviously not being the limiting factor as the 9800GTX when also acting as the Physx processor gets almost 40fps.

Does anyone actually have any experience with this? I mean, the Physx in the games I mentioned above look nice, but I want max FPS then subpar FPS using Physx PPU... I don't know, this is a tuffy!

 

[vj8usa]

http://www.firingsquad.com/har..._performance/page6.asp

Looks like performance in Mirror's Edge doesn't get bottlenecked by the PPU as much as it does in UT3. Framerates will still go down a bit, though.

 

[aka1nas]

If you are rendering more stuff on-screen due to the enhanced physics, it's going to be slower. Not much you can do about that.

 

[AndroidVageta]

Would it being slower be cause by the inability of the PPU to process all the objects or the graphics card inability to render all the additional objects?

 

[aka1nas]

Could be either, but from that Mirror's Edge Benchmark posted earlier I would guess GPU limited. Adding a PPU always increased performance over having a GPU handle both tasks in that benchmark.

Usually, the newer GPUs are so much faster than the old PPU that they still score around the same or higher even if you use them for rendering and PhysX. For the now relatively slow PPU to have that much of an improvement over GPU PhysX, the GPU resources must have been somewhat constrained.

The UT3 benchmark is sort of worthless as they didn't test with AA or AF enabled. It might actually have been somewhat CPU limited regardless of the PhysX setting.

 

[Schmide]

I would imagine it is a combination of both.

When rendering physics you have an extra actor in the pipeline thus more communication latency and less chance of parallelism. It is harder for 3 objects to work in conjunction. Extra elements and their complexity add an extra burden to everything.

 

[AndroidVageta]

True...well, if anything, if I can get one cheaply its worth a try...I just love what Physx can do...I mean, has anyone played Cryostasis? Or atleast checked out the tech demo? Amazing...and thats just the tip of the iceberg.

I really think that Nivida should release a seperate Physx card like Ageia did...I understand they want people to use the Geforce cards for that, but honestly, how many people who are even Nvidia owners can use Physx? No one with a 6xxx or 7xxx series can use it let alone every ATi user out there. And even the people who own Nvidia and can use Physx doesn't mean their cards can handle it in conjunction with graphics rendering. Thats just my view point, but a justifiable one in my opinion!

 

[aka1nas]

Not much point now for them to do that, you can grab a cheap nvidia card that is faster than the PPU for less than what PPUs are still selling for. Vista is the only OS that's problematic as you can't mix GPU vendors, but it's not a problem with Windows 7 or XP.

Folks who are still running DirectX 9 hardware aren't going to drop any money on a separate card for PhysX. They would be much better served by upgrading to something like an 8800GT.

 

[AndroidVageta]

Well there in lies the problem. Driver complications...again, a new PPU would be best, a show of hands of how many people here use Vista with a ATi card that would like Physx? I understand the "get a new Nvidia card for Physx" argument, but what about all those that couldn't support another PCI-e 16x card? Those using Crossfire, or those with only 1 PCI-e 16x slot...Nvidia is basically discriminating against these people...a group of people that Im sure far out weight those with Physx supporting GPU's

 

[nosfe]

don't worry, you'll be able to have both nvidia and ati drivers at the same time in windows7

 

[CoinOperatedBoy]

Originally posted by: AndroidVageta
Well there in lies the problem. Driver complications...again, a new PPU would be best, a show of hands of how many people here use Vista with a ATi card that would like Physx? I understand the "get a new Nvidia card for Physx" argument, but what about all those that couldn't support another PCI-e 16x card? Those using Crossfire, or those with only 1 PCI-e 16x slot...Nvidia is basically discriminating against these people...a group of people that Im sure far out weight those with Physx supporting GPU's

I don't understand your complaints. Nvidia is discriminating because they don't make a dedicated PPU that will work in PCIe slots with lane widths lower than 16x? How does that make sense? If you want to use PhysX, you need the supporting hardware one way or another. Nvidia doesn't have to magically create a PCIe 1x dedicated PPU for you, and they have little control over Vista's driver support.

 

[AndroidVageta]

I'm just saying that their market share would be better giving the end user another option for Physx then the "buy a new Nvidia card or youre shit outta luck".

Its just not fair and doesn't make sense. How would you feel if games and programs were designed to only make use of a certain companies CPU? Say something like Crysis and Photoshop will only work on AMD processors...so if you have an Intel your just left in the dark.

 

[aka1nas]

Not really, if you do fall in that group you can either:

- Wait a few months for Windows 7 (and/or downgrade to XP in the meanwhile)
- Buy a PCI PPU (they are still available for sale and still receive driver support from Nvidia)

 

[evolucion8]

Is funny that Mirrors Edge was made single threaded so it won't be able to use the other CPU cores for PhysX and then force us to disable it, or use nVidia or AGEIA cards, but the AGEIA card is more powerful for PhysX than a 9600GT (I saw a review somewhere that proved that but I can't find the link), but is behind the 8800GT, nVidia hasn't updated the drivers for the AGEIA card since august, but it does keep updating the runtime which is still compatible with that card, does it mean the end of support of the AGEIA card?

 

[aka1nas]

The drivers for the PPU are probably mature at this point, and with no new PPUs forthcoming, there's not really any reason for a driver update unless they find a bug.

 

[AndroidVageta]

If the PPU is really faster than the 9600GT than I guess I really don't have anything to worry about as Mirror's Edge at max settings with a 1680x1050 resolution with Physx on ran really smoothly and I never had any issues with it. So for ATi winners = PPU FTW?

 

[CoinOperatedBoy]

Originally posted by: AndroidVageta
I'm just saying that their market share would be better giving the end user another option for Physx then the "buy a new Nvidia card or youre shit outta luck".

Its just not fair and doesn't make sense. How would you feel if games and programs were designed to only make use of a certain companies CPU? Say something like Crysis and Photoshop will only work on AMD processors...so if you have an Intel your just left in the dark.

This is nothing like that. PhysX is an optional extra feature that caters to a niche crowd. Of that crowd, how many people do you think actually fall into the category you describe:

- Using an ATi GPU
- On a mobo that will support multiple GPUs
- Running Vista
- Can't (for some reason) run Windows XP or 7
- Can't afford or otherwise use an nVidia card that supports PhysX
- Cares deeply enough about PhysX to feel screwed

Are there any high-profile games that even require PhysX to run? Other than tech demos.

A more apt comparison would be if we magic'd ourselves back to 2004 and you were complaining that Pentium 4s included support for SSE3 instructions, but Athlon64s didn't. Intel wasn't "screwing" anybody by including SSE3. Meaningless to most people, mattered a lot to very few, and those folks knew they had to get the hardware to get the feature. (Until 2005, anyway.)

Yeah, I just don't get it. If you lack PhysX, you don't see some extra glass shattering, banners waving, or some particle effects. If it matters that much to you and you are in the above situation, yes, buy a new Nvidia card or you're shit outta luck.

 

[Pelu]

Originally posted by: CoinOperatedBoy

Originally posted by: AndroidVageta
I'm just saying that their market share would be better giving the end user another option for Physx then the "buy a new Nvidia card or youre shit outta luck".

Its just not fair and doesn't make sense. How would you feel if games and programs were designed to only make use of a certain companies CPU? Say something like Crysis and Photoshop will only work on AMD processors...so if you have an Intel your just left in the dark.

This is nothing like that. PhysX is an optional extra feature that caters to a niche crowd. Of that crowd, how many people do you think actually fall into the category you describe:

- Using an ATi GPU
- On a mobo that will support multiple GPUs
- Running Vista
- Can't (for some reason) run Windows XP or 7
- Can't afford or otherwise use an nVidia card that supports PhysX Jobless
- Cares deeply enough about PhysX to feel screwed

Are there any high-profile games that even require PhysX to run? Other than tech demos.

A more apt comparison would be if we magic'd ourselves back to 2004 and you were complaining that Pentium 4s included support for SSE3 instructions, but Athlon64s didn't. Intel wasn't "screwing" anybody by including SSE3. Meaningless to most people, mattered a lot to very few, and those folks knew they had to get the hardware to get the feature. (Until 2005, anyway.)

Yeah, I just don't get it. If you lack PhysX, you don't see some extra glass shattering, banners waving, or some particle effects. If it matters that much to you and you are in the above situation, yes, buy a new Nvidia card or you're shit outta luck.

I...

by the way the lines in bold seem to fit with the Ilic ones

 

[Broken]

using a PPU and ATI 4870X2's. No problems here. Just don't use newer PPU drivers from Nvidia as they don't work on the PPU. Physx and framerates are good.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: Broken
using a PPU and ATI 4870X2's. No problems here. Just don't use newer PPU drivers from Nvidia as they don't work on the PPU. Physx and framerates are good.

The PhysX_8.09.04 are the last ones which works on AGEIA PPU, but you can install the newer ones on top of it and will update the runtime which is good, but it won't update the drivers.