nVidia disables PhysX when ATI card present in Win7

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
Thilan, I specifically remember you posting that "it did not work on all occasions". in another thread a while back. Has that changed with new drivers?

Were you talking about the cards "seldom" working together in general or in PhysX? I thought you meant in general in Windows and replied as such. The 2 cards just in the system worked fine with no BSODs or anything like that. In terms of PhysX I had it working at the time in Mirror's Edge and MOST tech demos. I never tried it with Cryostasis (didn't really like the reviews it got..but it did work with the tech demo initially and then for some reason it stopped working properly) or Sacred 2 (not my type of game). And there haven't been any other games that I really wanted to try with PhysX. The Cryostasis implementation was pretty cool I have to say.

As I said I don't mind that it's locked to nV cards and so since I DO have an nV card why shouldn't I be able to at least try it (I don't expect it to work every time since it isn't "officially" supported)?

 

[OCGuy]

Who cares, Physx is terrible anyway, right?

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
Ummm. Folks who kept saying that PhysX is not worth anything, useless, checkbox feature etc. etc. are bothered by this because........?

Hehe, it's only when they "can't" have something that they are bothered by it.

From a business standpoint, I can see why Nvidia would do this. They put all the time, effort, money, resources into PhysX, so why should any ATI system benefit from it when ATI will not nor would not come on board?

From a consumer standpoint, for ATI primary card users at least, it's kind of a bummer. But I don't think they'll place the "blame" where it belongs. I think that no matter what they actually say "write" here, they all know where the blame lies.

Sorry if this posts "sounds" a bit fanboyish guys/gals, but not what is intended. Just my observations.

Sorry, but this reply seems like a damage control spin on the situation. For the record, I don't care about Physx in it's current state. But that doesn't mean 6 months from now there may be some really great games that just are better with Physx than without that I would be interested in. Nvidia would get my money for a 9600GSO type card, they'd get a sale. But they want to force me go with a higher end solution, but what is much more likely to happen is I'll skip Nvidia all together unless they happened to be the better value.

Say I got in on one of the outstanding 4890 deals that Nvidia wasn't even close to with the prices of their competing cards. Down the line I'd like to purchase an Nvidia card to run Physx since there is a game I'd like to play with in enabled. Why shouldn't I be able to purchase it and run it? Because Nvidia feels that they can force me into getting one of their cards to replace my 4890. Sorry, but lately I just haven't cared for the way Nvidia does things and I'm becoming less inclined to purchase their hardware. Of course if they make a killer card at the better price, I'm sure I'll reconsider. But as of now I see myself sticking with AMD for future purchases.

I kind of figured you'd come up with this little chestnut spin of your own.

And in bold above? I didn't think you'd ever be caught dead posting something like this, well, at least until Thilan posted this thread that is.

I guess it's pretty simple. If you want a graphics card that supports PhysX, buy it. If you don't. Don't buy it. You have da power to choose.

Actually that's been pretty much my stance for as long back as I can remember. From my own limited experience with Physx and seeing videos and what not it just not look to be something that I'd worry about factoring in to my purchasing decision if I were buyingn today. I've said it before and I'll say it here again, I think Nvidia needs a killer app to really get Physx going. Something that is an incredible game with it, but without it you really miss out on a great experience in comparrison. From what I've seen there just isn't a game like that out yet. But we don't know what's coming in the future and what degree Physx will play in an upcoming game. If it's mroe debri and more realistic physic with barrels floatin in water, I don't care for it. But there may come a game that completely changes my opinion, we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[Qbah]

If you want PhysX, buy an nVidia card. It's their standard, they can do whatever they want to with it. And since I don't see PhysX picking up momentum anyway, not really a big loss. If a loss at all - seriously, who was running both cards anyway?

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Qbah
If you want PhysX, buy an nVidia card. It's their standard, they can do whatever they want to with it. And since I don't see PhysX picking up momentum anyway, not really a big loss. If a loss at all - seriously, who was running both cards anyway?

I DID buy an nVidia card (8800GT). I ran both cards to try PhysX out...unfortunately there aren't any games that I absolutely want to play that requires GPU physx or I would have kept the 8800GT in my system (it's just sitting in a box doing nothing and I'd rather not sell it since I probably wouldn't get much for it anyway). I'd like the option to run it if I want but can't anymore.

 

[SSChevy2001]

Originally posted by: thilan29
I DID buy an nVidia card (8800GT). I ran both cards to try PhysX out...unfortunately there aren't any games that I absolutely want to play that requires GPU physx or I would have kept the 8800GT in my system. I'd like the option to run it if I want but can't anymore.

Same here, but now I can sell my 8800GTS and buy another 4870 for some CF action.

Just another nail in PhysX's coffin.

 

[akugami]

Originally posted by: OCguy
Who cares, Physx is terrible anyway, right?

I know you're only saying that in jest but I wouldn't say PhysX is terrible, it did add a bit of graphical fluff which is a good thing. It just wasn't a game changer in that it didn't add enough to the game experience, either visually or by how you play the game, to make it a must-have tech.

I personally think physics acceleration is the future of gaming but I'm not so sure that PhysX is the one that will dominate. The market is simply too young. Some people who have an axe to grind (we know who they are) take this view to mean that we are anti-nVidia.

Originally posted by: Qbah
If you want PhysX, buy an nVidia card. It's their standard, they can do whatever they want to with it. And since I don't see PhysX picking up momentum anyway, not really a big loss. If a loss at all - seriously, who was running both cards anyway?

I agree with what you're saying. Not being able to enable PhysX is really no big loss at this point in time. However, who's to say it won't become the dominant physics implementation two years down the line and totally trump Havok?

It's really puzzling from a business standpoint not to try to maximize adoption of PhysX. By artificially limiting the primary GPU to that of nVidia only and not allowing an ATI+nVidia combination it seems nVidia is limiting the market reach of their products.

The reason I was laying the blame on nVidia is because they own PhysX. They write the drivers and software that enable PhysX on their video cards. While Vista's WDDM 1.0 didn't allow multiple display drivers, Win7's WDDM 1.1 does. There is no reason why we can't have ATI as a primary GPU along with nVidia for PhysX acceleration.

However, the thought just occurred to me that we can't conclusively say it's all nVidia's fault. It's possible that the WDDM 1.1 bites and still doesn't properly play nice with multiple drivers. Thats an investigation for those more knowledgeable about programming and the underlying tech behind Windows than I.

For now, I'm more inclined to blame nVidia.

 

[Elfear]

Stupid move on Nvidia's part. I'm not really impressed with the current ability of PhysX to enhance game play but I HAD been considering a cheap Nvidia card to try some of the PhysX titles. I guess Nvidia just lost a sale.

 

[Quiksilver]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Just how exactly are they disabling Physx?

They are disabling using a second, nvidia card for PhysX if your primary 3D card is ATI.

Unless both cards are nvidia, no PhysX for you!

That makes sense now, I didn't think about that...

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Qbah
If you want PhysX, buy an nVidia card. It's their standard, they can do whatever they want to with it. And since I don't see PhysX picking up momentum anyway, not really a big loss. If a loss at all - seriously, who was running both cards anyway?

All the ATI users who said PhysX was useless.

And those who aren't shouldn't care about this news in the least.

 

[Sureshot324]

If Nvidia continues with their current business strategy, no developer will ever use physx without receiving a sufficiently large bribe first, which is how it works at the moment.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
All the ATI users who said PhysX was useless.

And those who aren't shouldn't care about this news in the least.

I can't speak for others but I'm fairly certain I never said PhysX was useless. I said it should run on both vendor's cards. Since that didn't happen I still had the option to run it if I felt like since I had both cards (and I'd do it more often if there were more games worth playing)...and now even that has been taken away. :|

 

[dflynchimp]

PhysX is one of those things that is non-mandatory for gaming. For some people the realistic physics add to the emersion, but for others it's just extra frosting.

However nobody argues that one doesn't need a discrete graphics card for current games. That I think has a pretty universal concensus.

Me being on an ATI rig, I have to say I'm dissapointed Nvidia chose to make this move.
From a business perspective they're not going to entice me to get Nvidia hardware anymore than I already am. For me price/performance/power is the big draw.
From a driver standpoint, it can't be that hard to run both ATI and Nvidia hardware at the same time (Win7 assuming). If the Nvidia card is to be used solely for physics processing there shouldn't be alot of potential driver conflicts, and any error shouldn't be hard to isolate and correct.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Are the Ageia PPUs still working? Can you dedicate one card from a SLI setup to PhysX anymore?

I'm looking over some things coming down the pipe for PhysX, seems like it would be a nightmare to have cross chip communication involved.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: thilan29

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
All the ATI users who said PhysX was useless.

And those who aren't shouldn't care about this news in the least.

I can't speak for others but I'm fairly certain I never said PhysX was useless. I said it should run on both vendor's cards. Since that didn't happen I still had the option to run it if I felt like since I had both cards (and I'd do it more often if there were more games worth playing)...and now even that has been taken away. :|

Yeah, Thilan, you probably did not ever say that.
And it surely could have run on both vendors cards, I'm certain. I'm just surprised at how many people actually used a primary ATI card with a NV card for PhysX. I was under the impression that to them, PhysX was this overated, useless, uninteresting, not worth my time to even consider it, and playing only DX10.1 games is where it's at, deal. Hmmm, maybe the "did" feel they were missing something after all. A closet type thing? I kind of knew this was happening though. Enthusiasts are enthusiasts at their core.

 

[evolucion8]

I heard that they're still working fine, comparable performance to a 9600GT in PhysX calculations, but it still expensive, specially that the 9600GT has newer and better driver support. I'm not impressed by PhysX itself, but if it would catch up, I wouldn't mind to buy an nVidia card for PhysX support, but seems that Industry Standard is the way to go with nVidia's current position.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Are the Ageia PPUs still working? Can you dedicate one card from a SLI setup to PhysX anymore?

I'm looking over some things coming down the pipe for PhysX, seems like it would be a nightmare to have cross chip communication involved.

If cards are run in SLI, the option to select one card or the other is removed. You have to disable SLI if you wish to run PhysX on a specific card only.

 

[BenSkywalker]

If cards are run in SLI, the option to select one card or the other is removed. You have to disable SLI if you wish to run PhysX on a specific card only.

Does this work under Win7 using the same drivers that disable ATi+nV GPUs? Actually, I guess the larger issue would be if Ageia PPUs still worked as they don't have a dedicated data path, although I am curious if dual nV cards still allow one being a dedicated PPU- seems like data transfer and latency issues are going to start to get rather heavy.

 

[BFG10K]

One of the points I made in the past against PhysX was the issue of vendor lock-in, and this post proves my point perfectly. It?s bad for the consumer because it limits choices, regardless of my personally feelings about PhysX.

I don?t like multi-GPU setups either, but that didn?t stop me from pointing out that locking SLI to nVidia motherboards was bad for the consumer.

 

[EnzoLT]

they really should make physx an open platform. they are only hurting themselves.

once opencl comes into play and becomes standardized, physx will prob go the way of the dodo similar to how eax died.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: thilan29
That sucks...the most they should have done is say "we won't support it" and just leave it to people to hack n slash physx if they really wanted to.

Because no matter how prominently any company disclaims "not supported", they are besieged by complaints and reports of problems.

"Not supported" = don't friggin contact us if you have a problem, we don't friggin want to hear about it. But people still don't grasp this.

 

[konakona]

I am having trouble reaching the site, maybe they took the article down?

This doesnt concern me much at all, although I would likely get a free 9600gso lying around whenever I get my next upgrade. At the risk of sounding like beating a dead horse, I will say utility of physx to date is quite limited at best, and being future proof is about the only reasonable cliam for its existence at this point. In that case, it is arguable whether it is prudent to worry about longevity of a component that has such a short upgrade cycle as a video card. When I feel I simply can't get by without it, or physx has matured and been adopted to a point where it is a make-it-or-break it feature, than I will just go out and buy a card that supports it.

To me it just looks more like a principle of things. It looks like a message to someone, be it us users or ATi. Only computer enthusiasts with a reasonable amount of insight would actually have an old nvidia card to be used for physx as a second card, and I fail to see what nvidia has to gain from denying them from a marginal feature they could have lived without anyway. On the econtrary, it could have served as a good "demo" of what to come when the times comes around for their next video card purchasing decision. One thing it does though, it is enough to tick people off for them to grow hostile to nvidia and their policies.

Sorry if I am mistaken, but I thought nvidia was still in the process of trying to convince ATi to join physx? Doesn't this undermine their effort in doing so and directly contradict their claim of physx being free from their coercive manipulation?

 

[MarcVenice]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: thilan29

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
All the ATI users who said PhysX was useless.

And those who aren't shouldn't care about this news in the least.

I can't speak for others but I'm fairly certain I never said PhysX was useless. I said it should run on both vendor's cards. Since that didn't happen I still had the option to run it if I felt like since I had both cards (and I'd do it more often if there were more games worth playing)...and now even that has been taken away. :|

Yeah, Thilan, you probably did not ever say that.
And it surely could have run on both vendors cards, I'm certain. I'm just surprised at how many people actually used a primary ATI card with a NV card for PhysX. I was under the impression that to them, PhysX was this overated, useless, uninteresting, not worth my time to even consider it, and playing only DX10.1 games is where it's at, deal. Hmmm, maybe the "did" feel they were missing something after all. A closet type thing? I kind of knew this was happening though. Enthusiasts are enthusiasts at their core.

Minus 5 respect Keys, were you drunk when writing this? How about people went to ATI because ATI offered good bang for buck, but they still had a 8800gt or a 8800gts 320mb and gave physx a shot, to see if they were actually missing out on something?

Or how about enthusiasts at their core simply try stuff because they can? Wouldn't it be lame if AMD decided you can't use some kind of feature if you use your videocard in conjunction with an Intel-cpu? Or if you motherboard has an nvidia-chipset? Because that's exactly what Nvidia is supposedly doing.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: Qbah
If you want PhysX, buy an nVidia card. It's their standard, they can do whatever they want to with it. And since I don't see PhysX picking up momentum anyway, not really a big loss. If a loss at all - seriously, who was running both cards anyway?

All the ATI users who said PhysX was useless.

And those who aren't shouldn't care about this news in the least.

As someone who owns NVIDIA now, and has generally in the past, I think this is load of BS also. We finally got out from under NVIDIA's SLI thumb with X58, and now this... Of course, it's not a relevant to as many people as SLI, but it's the principal of the matter that irks me. I don't like being forced into hardware purchases based on artificial compatibility limitations.

However, the thought just occurred to me that we can't conclusively say it's all nVidia's fault. It's possible that the WDDM 1.1 bites and still doesn't properly play nice with multiple drivers. Thats an investigation for those more knowledgeable about programming and the underlying tech behind Windows than I.

Why can't NVIDIA give you the option to install your PhysX compatible card as just a PhysX card? Does PhysX require Direct3D? The AEGIA PhysX card worked as a standalone product with any GPU, why should a NV standalone PhysX card not. Just because it has DVI connectors on the back doesn't mean it has to be a 'video card'. It's interesting to me that NVIDIA seems hellbent in one way to redefine what a "GPU" is and what it does, and in the other continues to hamstring its customers with driver imposed incompatibilities.

 

[HurleyBird]

Minus 100 respect for keyes. The behavior of Nvidia apologists on this forum is sickening, and very reminiscent of the behaviour apple fanboys. Something is seriously wrong when enthusiasts are defending a vendor who is removing functionality in an anti-competitive fashion.