Which newer games benefit from a PhysX card?

[thilanliyan]

I thought seeing as how Metro 2033 is pretty demanding graphically that it would benefit from having a dedicated PhysX card (8800GT) at 1920x1200 and advanced PhysX on but with my GTX 460, it made absolutely no difference. In the Cryostasis tech demo it DID make a difference.

Are there any newer games where a dedicated PhysX card makes a noticeable difference?

 

[SHAQ]

Metro only has some cloth physics in the hubs. That is all I saw in the game so I doubt it would make much difference. A game would need multiple moving cloths or a bunch of particles to benefit from a separate physx card. That only leaves a handful of games at most.

 

[thilanliyan]

Ah okay thanks, I didn't know that.

 

[Qbah]

Not PhysX, but Just Cause 2 has two nVidia-only extra features - a more realistic water and an extra DoF filter (Bokeh or something). I'm pretty sure you can't offload those to a different CUDA-capable card though.

I think you will have to wait for Mafia 2.

And that's it.

 

[thilanliyan]

Would this change if you were to up the IQ settings (ie. increased AA and HQ AF)? Would the increased IQ make the primary GPU work harder and so you would see an increased benefit from using the secondary PhysX GPU?

 

[toyota]

Metro 2033 doesn't really use any intense hardware level effects so an additional card for physx would be of no real use. Cryosatsis is probably the only game where a dedicated physx card is needed to run the full effects.

 

[toyota]

Metro 2033 doesn't really use any intense hardware level effects so an additional card for physx would be of no real use. Cryosatsis is probably the only game where a dedicated physx card is needed to run the full effects. in Batman a gtx460, if overclocked, would be enough to handle both graphics and physx for the most part.

 

[happy medium]

Try "Dark Void",

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/02/03/dark_void_physx_gameplay_performance_iq/1

"Darkest of Days" also


http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/darkest_of_days_testing/2.htm

 

[SHAQ]

Dark Void crashes on me when I try to run physx on high. Physx is about the only reason I would buy Darkest of Days when it gets cheap. The demo was pretty bad.

 

[Tempered81]

Dark Void, Darkest of Days, Cryostasis, Mirror's Edge, Batman AA, Metro 2033, Mafia 2, Just Cause 2, Ghost Recon 2, UT3, PT Boats, Nurien, Sacred 2, Crazy Machines 2, UWars, Star Tales

 

[toyota]

Dark Void, Darkest of Days, Cryostasis, Mirror's Edge, Batman AA, Metro 2033, Mafia 2, Just Cause 2, Ghost Recon 2, UT3, PT Boats, Nurien, Sacred 2, Crazy Machines 2, UWars, Star Tales

Just Cause 2 does not use physx at all and again Metro 2033 doesn't really use hardware level physx. some of those other games I have never even heard of. lol

 

[Wreckage]

Dark Void, Darkest of Days, Cryostasis, Mirror's Edge, Batman AA, Metro 2033, Mafia 2, Just Cause 2, Ghost Recon 2, UT3, PT Boats, Nurien, Sacred 2, Crazy Machines 2, UWars, Star Tales

Also Warmonger and a bunch of other stuff that you can download for free.
http://www.nvidia.com/content/graphicsplus/us/download.asp

 

[thilanliyan]

Thanks all for the responses. Only ones I think I would want to play are Metro 2033, Cryostasis (maybe) and Mafia II (when it comes). Already played Batman on PS3 so I don't wanna buy that again. I guess I'll just go through my backlog of other games.

 

[evolucion8]

Cryostasis doesn't worth it, its a very boring game with repetitive atmosphere, and very glitchy physx, sometimes, items would get stuck in between, shaking like an earthquake, or poltergeist effects specially when you used the water pump would ocurr quite often. Cryostasis is one of the worst games with the worst PhysX implementation out there, then Dark Void is the next one. Mirrors Edge is at least reasonable and Batman is the PhysX Killer App.

 

[thilanliyan]

^Yes I have read that Cryostasis is not a very good game (in terms of gameplay)...but then others have said to the contrary. I got it cheap for like $5 anyway so I don't care too much.

 

[netxzero64]

physx programming is hard right?