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Re: physx card.

Sun Dec 02, 2012 12:24 am

south side sammy wrote:
I only stated what I wanted 15 times.

In spite of this, it still isn't at all clear what you're asking for. Different games will make different demands on the hardware, depending on how they use PhysX. So there isn't a single answer to the question "What card do I need to run PhysX effectively?"

Are you looking for detailed benchmarks of all currently available PhysX-capable games across all currently available PhysX-capable cards? I just don't think there is enough interest in PhysX these days for anyone to bother with the time and expense of doing that.
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south side sammy
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Re: physx card.

Mon Dec 03, 2012 7:41 pm

I think there's a lot of interest in physx processing for gaming. I saw a few side by side comparisons videos recently. Borderlands2 and Batman were a couple of them. If you have no interest or have your doubts about physx you should look these up. It brings a lot to the experience.

the question about how much processing..........yes, each game is different. But how does the ram effect ( dare I say it ? ) FPS? How does the memory bus effect performance? How does processor speed/ram speed effect performance? what other architecture effects the output ? what effect does the pci-e bandwidth play ?

video cards have changed a lot since this (physx) was implemented. you can't say take an 8800gt and couple it with a gtx260 and voila!.......... both cards are junk and would hold back anything thrown at it today.

I think it's a valid question to ask. but there's no information other than FPS........... screw FPS. I want to know more. And if you do reviews and have an avid interest in hardware, why wouldn't you want to know ? I read an answer to something ( a question I posted in a thread).......... and the answer was " no, I don't get tired of it".......... inre to working with hardware and how tiresome doing the same thing over and over again...... or something like that. If I could remember where that thread was I would post it.

what do you think ? a valid question/s or not ?
 
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Re: physx card.

Mon Dec 03, 2012 8:05 pm

Well sure it's a valid question (assuming you mean on a per-game basis). I'm just skeptical that you'll find a comprehensive answer, since getting that answer would literally involve doing hundreds of benchmark runs on dozens of different hardware configurations, to cover all of the variables you've listed across multiple PhysX-enabled games. Unless nVidia wants to pay someone to do that study, I just don't see it happening.
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Master Kenobi
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Re: physx card.

Mon Dec 03, 2012 8:07 pm

The point is that the overall gaming community has lost interest in PhysX. Developers aren't wasting money on it unless nVidia pays them.

The answers you want in a review would be anecdotal at best as the actual empirical data for the specific numbers and effects would be sitting in an nVidia R&D lab and/or whitepapers produced by said lab. With that said, perhaps contact nVidia through their forums or support options and see if you can't get them to provide you with a link to one of those whitepapers. More than likely it will be shrouded under the veil of "trade secret". If the numbers for PhysX were something to brag about you can bet nVidia would be doing that, like any other company. The fact that they don't brag about it at all says even nVidia doesn't put a whole lot of stock in PhysX as it is now. Maybe someday down the road they will have a breakthrough to really make it worthwhile, but for the time being you are beating a dead horse.
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Re: physx card.

Mon Dec 03, 2012 8:32 pm

Master Kenobi wrote:
The point is that the overall gaming community has lost interest in PhysX. Developers aren't wasting money on it unless nVidia pays them.

The answers you want in a review would be anecdotal at best as the actual empirical data for the specific numbers and effects would be sitting in an nVidia R&D lab and/or whitepapers produced by said lab. With that said, perhaps contact nVidia through their forums or support options and see if you can't get them to provide you with a link to one of those whitepapers. More than likely it will be shrouded under the veil of "trade secret". If the numbers for PhysX were something to brag about you can bet nVidia would be doing that, like any other company. The fact that they don't brag about it at all says even nVidia doesn't put a whole lot of stock in PhysX as it is now. Maybe someday down the road they will have a breakthrough to really make it worthwhile, but for the time being you are beating a dead horse.


Mostly this; GPU Physics, PhysX possibly included, will have to have wide range adoption and significant market support. Since the consoles don't count (not enough CPU power to be useful) and only PCs with mid-range single-GPUs or more really need apply, that adoption is still pretty paltry in the eyes of developers and the publishers that write their checks. So basically, until the next-gen consoles come and developers happen to implement physics into a game in some way other than for eye-candy, GPU physics is going no further than it has.
 
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Re: physx card.

Mon Dec 03, 2012 8:46 pm

south side sammy wrote:
please don't speak about as if I'm not here. I'm sitting in the same room as you.


I certainly hope you aren't.

south side sammy wrote:
I only stated what I wanted 15 times. I'm sure memory/memory bandwidth is part of it but most certainly NOT all of it. GPU-z won't really give me what I want. A good look at what the architecture of the card puts forth inre to physx... and just how much of a "physx" card would be needed to provide that.

I don't want to know anything about ancient technology ( gtx260, etc. ) I'm talking about now. I can't believe nothing has advanced ( in the past 4-5 years ) to get to the bottom of this. There has to be some kind of calculation to measure this.


Couple of things here.

1. No one mentioned memory. It has very, very, very little to do with memory. We've already mentioned shader clock and gpu/cuda cores. Those are the two factors.
2. Ancient technology? well, here's the thing.... physx is easy to do. Remember, going to back to 8xxx hardware, physx could be run. Sure, it'll be a hit on performance. But, if you simply use another card, like a GT 450, that hit disappears. Or you could add a 9800, or whatever else you want.

There isn't a scaling in physx. You won't have a better experience with a better card. The fact that it only takes 10% off of the performance should tell you something. As a rule of thumb, you'd only need 10% of what your current card is running. So, look at core count and shader clock of your current card, multiply by .1, and see what card fits the bill. But really, just getting an old card (will be power hungry) or a new lower end card (will NOT be power hungry) are the only two options that will result in good results. Anything more and you are wasting money.
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south side sammy
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Re: physx card.

Mon Dec 03, 2012 11:23 pm

how can the memory play no part? Wouldn't it have to store what it's doing in the memory as a graphics card would store textures? If it couldn't store it wouldn't it create stuttering ? I'm not convinced it could calculate on the run.

No, older cards do hold back physx performance. saw that tested already.


Hey, look over your right shoulder............. BOO!
 
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Re: physx card.

Tue Dec 04, 2012 12:38 am

You can infer a lot from the fps numbers if there are comparative numbers using configurations, which the article I linked to did. A GTX 460 + GTX 275 isn't potent enough for you? Do you own Mafia 2? I do and can tell you that the Physx implementation is amongst the most taxing I've seen.

That review (which I doubt you read based on your responses) gives the 460 gpu/275 phys, 460 gpu & phys, 460 gpu/cpu phys, 275 gpu/460 phys, and even throws a radeon into the mix. If that doesn't tell you something about performance, I just really don't see what you want. I think you may be asking for something more comprehensive than most reviews of modern cpus. It's just not going to happen given the small number of titles released with physx support and the even smaller userbase of physx capable systems.

I found some of the articles about physx interesting, and taken as a whole they give you a pretty good picture of how it affects performance, but really that's all you're going to get because each game is different and so the best you're going to do is to read everything you can find and compare notes between the articles. If you were really that interested in it though, I'd think you'd have already done that. Given your responses, I don't think you have because if you had, your questions would be different.
 
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Re: physx card.

Tue Dec 04, 2012 6:47 am

Guess if I was ready to toss money out the window for hardware I don't need i could test to my hearts content.

what way would my questions be different ?
 
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Re: physx card.

Tue Dec 04, 2012 10:05 am

south side sammy wrote:
how can the memory play no part? Wouldn't it have to store what it's doing in the memory as a graphics card would store textures? If it couldn't store it wouldn't it create stuttering ? I'm not convinced it could calculate on the run.

Of course it uses the memory. It's just that most modern cards have more memory than is typically needed for PhysX, so it is generally a non-issue.

south side sammy wrote:
No, older cards do hold back physx performance. saw that tested already.

This is 100% consistent with what several of us have been saying all along -- performance depends on the quantity and speed of shader cores. Newer cards have more/faster shaders.
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Re: physx card.

Tue Dec 04, 2012 11:54 am

just brew it! wrote:
south side sammy wrote:
No, older cards do hold back physx performance. saw that tested already.

This is 100% consistent with what several of us have been saying all along -- performance depends on the quantity and speed of shader cores. Newer cards have more/faster shaders.


Just to clarify, don't think in terms of just older cards. Think in terms of high-end old cards, low-end old cards, mid-range recent cards, etc. Definately avoid low-end card and even, to a degree, mid-range older cards. However, for myself, I would look to something mid-range within the last two generations (4xx, 5xx, 6xx). If you look at the 2xx-cycle, Make sure its a 260 or higher. For the next generation, 45x.

The more recent the generation, the lower class you can look at. But you still want to look at shader count (and the clock speed) as well as the core count.
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