Should I put my old 8800gts on Physx duty?

[houe]

I just purchased a 6950 2GB card. It is replacing my aging 8800gts 512MB card. Is it worth putting the 8800 on Physx duty? If it matters my system specs are:

Asus p6t, 12gb ram, i7-930, crucial m4 128GB ssd, seasonic x-650, 3 - 24" LCD 1920x1200

Thanks.

 

[dpk33]

If you play many games that utilise nvidia physx, then yes. Otherwise, it's just there most of the time wasting electricity, wasting space in your case and producing heat.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

You will need some modified drivers to get physx to work while you have an AMD/ati card present. Nvidia is just fun like that.

 

[nanaki333]

meh.. seems like it'd be more trouble than it's worth. lots of extra heat and power for a miniscule gaming experience.

 

[Keysplayr]

If you had purchased an Nvidia GPU to replace your aging one (GTX560Ti is comparable to your 6950) then yes, it would work fine. But since your primary graphics card isn't an Nvidia GPU, your 8800GTS will not function as a dedicated PhysX processor. It will only work when the primary GPU is also Nvidia. You can still use your 8800GTS as a graphics card though as long as you're not using Windows Vista.

 

[XLNC]

I asked the same question when I upgraded from my 8800GTS, and the general consensus I got was no. Also, I saw a vid on Youtube's LinusTechTips channel where he tried this. I think it actually hurt performance since the old GPU (used as a dedicated PhysX card) actually acted as a bottleneck of some sort when paired with a high end current gen card. I'd look up the link, but I'd rather not at work.

 

[toyota]

I asked the same question when I upgraded from my 8800GTS, and the general consensus I got was no. Also, I saw a vid on Youtube's LinusTechTips channel where he tried this. I think it actually hurt performance since the old GPU (used as a dedicated PhysX card) actually acted as a bottleneck of some sort when paired with a high end current gen card. I'd look up the link, but I'd rather not at work.

that was an 8600gt that he used as physx card along side a gtx580 for graphics. an 8600gt is weaker at handling physx than letting the gtx580 handle BOTH graphics and physx. basically the faster your main gpu is then the faster your physx card needs to be. in other words that 8600gt would have helped with physx if the main card would have been something like a 8800gtx. everyone's needs are different and that is the reason Nvidia does not make a specific physx card.

 

[m3t4lh34d]

The 8800gts is perfectly suited for physx with a single 6950 2gb considering there is NO physx capabilties with that setup besides the CPU...

I tried using 6970x2 with a 560 Ti with the Special ATI+Nvidia Physx Drivers and it turns out the 560 Ti was too new of a card to work with the older drivers, HOWEVER in your case it would work perfectly since you're using an older 8800 series card. If you do a bit of googling you can find those Nvidia drivers and it should work fairly well for you.
The game I tried to use it with was Gotham Asylum but since I didn't have my 8800gtx around anymore, I couldn't get it to work. The 560Ti wont work with those older cracked drivers. That's basically the only method there is to get it to work.
I would definitely give it a shot considering you have the card right there .

 

[mosox]

Nvidia never hurts their customers. I'm pretty sure it's AMD's fault like bad drivers or something.

 

[nitromullet]

I personally would not bother. There aren't that many interesting games using physx anymore. If it's a deal breaker for you, you probably should have considered that before getting the 6950. Either way the radeon is a good card on its own even without physx.

 

[houe]

thanks for the advice guys. I've actually never used physX before. Looks like it might not be worth the hassle. Probably gonna sell the 8800 for the 30-40 bucks i can get for it.

 

[Skurge]

If you have something like a 2500k/2600k, you could just run physx on the CPU on low/meduim and it would still run reasonably well.

 

[toyota]

If you have something like a 2500k/2600k, you could just run physx on the CPU on low/meduim and it would still run reasonably well.

only in some cases would it run okay. it would also defeat the point of having a 6950 because overall performance would be shot.

 

[Skurge]

only in some cases would it run okay. it would also defeat the point of having a 6950 because overall performance would be shot.

Yeah, you have a point there, but if he really wants to run physx he might be willing to take the performance hit. Besides, there's only like 3 games with hardware physx worth playing.

 

[Will Robinson]

Nvidia never hurts their customers. I'm pretty sure it's AMD's fault like bad drivers or something.

Nice

 

[timma]

AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing also can do it~

 

[toyota]

If you have something like a 2500k/2600k, you could just run physx on the CPU on low/meduim and it would still run reasonably well.

I was bored and decided to see how the 2500k could handle just normal hardware physx setting in Batman Arkham Asylum.

game was ran on very high settings, no AA and with physx on normal.

gtx580 doing everything
min 72 fps
max 212 fps
avg 129 fps


2500k doing physx
min 13 fps
max 72 fps
avg 22 fps

I will do some more games tomorrow and I am pretty sure Metro 2033 wont be that bad on the 2500k.

 

[Keysplayr]

Nvidia never hurts their customers. I'm pretty sure it's AMD's fault like bad drivers or something.

Heh, no. The 8800 will still function like it always has for the OP. Just locked out of PhysX duty because of the AMD card present. It will only work with Nvidia primary GPU. Nothing to do with AMD drivers being bad or anything.
So, the OP still has a perfectly functioning graphics card but he just can't enjoy the extra benefits from the card when used in a way it is not intended by the manufacturer. If he had a primary Nvidia GPU like I mentioned above (GTX560Ti is the equivalent) then the 8800 would function fine as a dedicated PhysX processor. Mosox, you don't have to like it being an AMD user, but that is absolutely how it is. You have every choice in the world to configure your rig to run PhysX on the GPU. Your call.

 

[faseman]

Don't bother. PhysX is junk. You'll pay a big price in electricity and heat for next to no benefit.

 

[Skurge]

I was bored and decided to see how the 2500k could handle just normal hardware physx setting in Batman Arkham Asylum.

game was ran on very high settings, no AA and with physx on normal.

gtx580 doing everything
min 72 fps
max 212 fps
avg 129 fps


2500k doing physx
min 13 fps
max 72 fps
avg 22 fps

I will do some more games tomorrow and I am pretty sure Metro 2033 wont be that bad on the 2500k.

Sheesh, thats massive. If you have mafia2 and alice. Could you try those. The physx in those games should perform better.

 

[Red Storm]

I was bored and decided to see how the 2500k could handle just normal hardware physx setting in Batman Arkham Asylum.

game was ran on very high settings, no AA and with physx on normal.

gtx580 doing everything
min 72 fps
max 212 fps
avg 129 fps


2500k doing physx
min 13 fps
max 72 fps
avg 22 fps

I will do some more games tomorrow and I am pretty sure Metro 2033 wont be that bad on the 2500k.

All that for some aesthetic flying paper and fog, what a waste.

 

[formulav8]

nVidia ruined the great PhysX. It had no problems working with all available video cards then nvidia buys them and suddenly only nvidia cards work with Physx. I'm sure they did this to give us consumers a better experience. :\

Besides it IS possible to get PhysX to work with your AMD card unlike some who posted otherwise(Last I checked anyways). There are hacked drivers that will bypass nvidia's stupid video detection.

 

[timoseewho]

It won't be worth the trouble you'll be going through to get it to work and perform.

 

[railven]

Heh, no. The 8800 will still function like it always has for the OP. Just locked out of PhysX duty because of the AMD card present. It will only work with Nvidia primary GPU. Nothing to do with AMD drivers being bad or anything.
So, the OP still has a perfectly functioning graphics card but he just can't enjoy the extra benefits from the card when used in a way it is not intended by the manufacturer. If he had a primary Nvidia GPU like I mentioned above (GTX560Ti is the equivalent) then the 8800 would function fine as a dedicated PhysX processor. Mosox, you don't have to like it being an AMD user, but that is absolutely how it is. You have every choice in the world to configure your rig to run PhysX on the GPU. Your call.

nVidia ruined the great PhysX. It had no problems working with all available video cards then nvidia buys them and suddenly only nvidia cards work with Physx. I'm sure they did this to give us consumers a better experience. :\

Besides it IS possible to get PhysX to work with your AMD card unlike some who posted otherwise(Last I checked anyways). There are hacked drivers that will bypass nvidia's stupid video detection.

Hacked drivers? Just use the beta drivers. nVidia forgot to turn on the ID check and it should work as originally intended as a dedicated PhysX card.

Least that is how I used my 9800 GTX+ for PhysX with my HD 5870. Glad nVidia doesn't Q/A their betas haha.

 

[Elixer]

nVidia ruined the great PhysX. It had no problems working with all available video cards then nvidia buys them and suddenly only nvidia cards work with Physx. I'm sure they did this to give us consumers a better experience. :\

Besides it IS possible to get PhysX to work with your AMD card unlike some who posted otherwise(Last I checked anyways). There are hacked drivers that will bypass nvidia's stupid video detection.

Yeah, Nvidia did indeed ruin physX, by doing driver tricks to turn off GPU acceleration on non nvidia hardware.

The good news is, that most good companies are dropping physX for havok or custom, unless nvidia forks over some big $$$ to make it 'exclusive'.