Physx card with an ATI main card... possible?

[Jumpem]

Would a cheap Nvidia card for Physx work alongside a Radeon 5870?

What about on P55 boards where more than one graphics card brings it from 16x to 8x/8x? Would a PCI Nvidia card for Physx get around that?

 

[Pantlegz]

I'm fairly sure nVidia disabled this a while ago, search there have been quite a few topics on it...

 

[Jumpem]

Originally posted by: Pantlegz1
I'm fairly sure nVidia disabled this a while ago, search there have been quite a few topics on it...

So then the question becomes is it worth passing on an ATI in general for physx?

The physx effects looks good, but it doesn't seem alot of games use it.

 

[dflynchimp]

Look at the list of PhysX supported games, then look at videos/reviews for the games that you plan on playing. If PhysX makes a notable difference in a good number of your games then perhaps it's your cup of tea. This is all up to personal opinion of course.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

You can't get PCI Geforce card that is compatible with PhysX, so that option is gone. I'm not sure, but I do think adding a second card in a P55 system, regardless if you use SLI/Xfire, would split the lanes x8/x8.

And Nvidia does disable PhysX in their newer drivers if you have an ATI card in your system. You'd have to use older drivers, like a few forum members here have done, to get around it, but this solution probably won't last forever. You're best off doing dflynchimp's suggestion: Read reviews on games and see if PhysX makes it that much better.

 

[thilanliyan]

I have ATI+Geforce PhysX working right now but you have to use older (pre nVidia 186 have worked for me) drivers. And according to testing done by Keysplayr, I'd say minimum is a 9800GT addon card to get the most benefit.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: Jumpem
Would a cheap Nvidia card for Physx work alongside a Radeon 5870?

What about on P55 boards where more than one graphics card brings it from 16x to 8x/8x? Would a PCI Nvidia card for Physx get around that?

You may not need an Nvidia card for physics processing. A person who attended the pre-launch event said that he saw a 5870 running GPU physics via OpenCL. As it stands right now, Nvidia has locked out PhysX from everybody who has an ATi card currently installed in their system.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: Jumpem
Would a cheap Nvidia card for Physx work alongside a Radeon 5870?

What about on P55 boards where more than one graphics card brings it from 16x to 8x/8x? Would a PCI Nvidia card for Physx get around that?

You may not need an Nvidia card for physics processing. A person who attended the pre-launch event said that he saw a 5870 running GPU physics via OpenCL. As it stands right now, Nvidia has locked out PhysX from everybody who has an ATi card currently installed in their system.

It may be able to run physics calculations on the gpu via OpenCL, but it won't run PhysX. The capability of the card isn't the important thing here, but compatibility with the API is. I'm not aware of any current games using a gpu physics API other then PhysX. Of course, if OpenCL takes off that would change.

 

[JSt0rm]

OpenCL will take off because its open. Physix will fail because its closed system. This isn't bluray vs hddvd its not like either of these companies can make a market.

 

[Ayah]

PhysX was beyond failure until nVidia decided to pick it up. The adoption rate for PhysX is still pretty terrible, you could say that it's already failed.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
It may be able to run physics calculations on the gpu via OpenCL, but it won't run PhysX. The capability of the card isn't the important thing here, but compatibility with the API is. I'm not aware of any current games using a gpu physics API other then PhysX. Of course, if OpenCL takes off that would change.

Very true. I assumed that the OP was simply looking for physics processing in general, not just PhysX since he said, "The physx effects looks good, but it doesn't seem alot of games use it."

Of course, the person I linked to is only one I've read about reporting the existence of GPU physics processing on the 5870, so he could be mistaken. But given the nature of DX11, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see hardware physics processing listed as a feature in the upcoming 5870/5850 reviews.

 

[Munky]

Some p55 boards such as the Asus p7p55d have the second pci-e slot running off the southbridge using 4 lanes, while the primary pci-e slot runs off the cpu at full bandwidth. That would allow you to use a a second pci-e video card for physx, and maintain full bandwidth to the main video card. Although with that solution you're pretty much stuck at 16x/4x and no option for 8x/8x. If you don't plan on running Crossfire, I'd go with that option.