a little warning about gtx 480 and dedicated physx cards

[wheeljack12]

I am using a pair of evga superclocked gtx 480's in sli with a zotac overclocked gt240 for physx. Works ok but with one hitch. Before I go on, I think I know why Nvidia is splitting up there drivers into dx 9 and 10 for one and 11 for the other. Because I installed the 197.75 drivers with a modded inf to get the gt240 to work. It installed fine and I was able to get the gt240 as my physx card. Even tested it Batman:AA. Works fine. Here is where it's gets crappy. So I had just finished BF:BC2 and was installing metro 2033. When the title screens came up, they took 1 minute to come up. Thought it might have been my 3d vision goggles, so I disabled them. Took less time but metro 2033 by nvidia's compatibility is a 3d vision ready game. Then when I got to the menu, I noticed that the direct x 11 options are greyed out. Got me curious since you buy something to make use of it being the gtx 480's. Went to dxdiag and noticed that it showed a DDI of 10.1 and not 11. BTW, I have the windows hotfix that makes the DDI appear properly as 11 as windows 7 doesn't show this right on a fresh install without the hotfix. Then I loaded GPU-Z. I noticed that direct compute was greyed out for the gtx 480's but showed everything else as it should. Double checked this with my brother's pc (he's only using two gtx 480's) and his shows everything as dx 11 with direct compute. So, it seems that when a lesser dx card for physx is mixed with dx 11 cards, the nvidia drivers downshift to the lesser dx version of what's there. Kinda sucks unless you wan't super overkill and get a gtx 470/480 for physx. Mind you with my sli setup, I am not worried about physx slowing me down. Now off to take out the gt 240...

[saturnotaku]

Try the 197.44 drivers. They're available on NVIDIA's developer site ( it). They support all cards from the GeForce 6-Series and up, including Fermi. I've been using them with a GTX 480 and 9800 GT PhysX card, and it's worked well. I've not tried Metro 2033, but Dark Void, Mirror's Edge, and Batman: AA all run flawlessly.

[HYBRID]

Over this weekend I played around a little with a dedicated Physx card I had laying around (9800gt) and my GTX480. Frankly having the dedicated Physx was a real waste IMHO, Ill explain, the additional power, heat that is required is NOT WORTH ADDING IT.
Also I didnt get much if any boost in frames and my Vantage score where lower with the 9800gt so IMHO not worth it I pulled it out of the rig.

[saturnotaku]

Originally Posted by slaWter

Is Dark Void a DX11 game? The others aren't. I guess that's the problem, a DX10 PhysX card in a DX11 game.

If all the second card is doing is PhysX calculations, it shouldn't matter if the game is DX11 or not.

But I agree with HYBRID, I see no point in having a dedicated PhysX card.

Are you running with PhysX enabled in the control panel, or do you have it turned off? Just curious.

[saturnotaku]

I'm concerned about there being a big performance hit by running PhysX on a single card, though (despite having a 480). If I had SLI like you, it wouldn't be a big deal.

I also would think that the release 256 drivers, as well as an updated PhysX runtime might address this issue.

Edit: Looks like NVIDIA is aware of this, and a driver update will arrive next week. Link. I'll probably keep my 9800 GT, as it doesn't require any external power and doesn't generate much heat. I've got my X-Fi right under the 480 so that card's cooling isn't affected.

[HYBRID]

Originally Posted by saturnotaku

If all the second card is doing is PhysX calculations, it shouldn't matter if the game is DX11 or not.



Are you running with PhysX enabled in the control panel, or do you have it turned off? Just curious.

Hehehhe.....Yes sir I did.

[HYBRID]

Originally Posted by slaWter

It shouldn't matter but apparently it does.

Yes I use PhysX and I like it. But there's no need for a dedicated card IMO.

Yes....I have always had it enabled and I use it, but as SlaWter mentioned no need for a dedicated one if using powerful cards like a GTX480 and thats mostly what I meant not negative returns.

I will give you an another example Batman Arkham Asylum using just the GTX480 was more than I needed, With the 9800gt installed I notice zero performance gain then the same for Cryostasis no performance gain with the 9800gt. Again more power usuage and heat etc.

If using lower end cards then that might have better gains.

[CaptNKILL]

I had a good performance increase using my low profile GTS 250 for physx with an overclocked GTX 470 in the Cryostasis benchmark.

If you're testing a game that already runs at 150fps, its not surprising that you aren't seeing an increase.

[CaptNKILL]

I just ran the Cryostasis benchmark and got these results:

Cryostasis Tech Demo - 1920x1200 - DX10 - High Preset

GTX 470 @ 763/1525/1875 (1.062v)

Avg 49.8
Min 31.7
Max 135.2

GTX 470 @ 763/1525/1875 (1.062v)
GTS 250 @ 600/1566/800 (Physx)

Avg 58.1
Min 35.1
Max 133.8

At the beginning portion of the benchmark with the water running over the enemy, I get 50fps minimum with the GTS 250 doing Physx. Without it I get ~33fps minimum.

If you're running dual GTX 480s, then sure, its probably not necessary to have a dedicated Physx card... but I think it'd probably still help anyone running a single GPU. At least in Cryostasis since its such a graphically intensive game. It stresses my system significantly more than Crysis at max settings.

[Slytat]

Originally Posted by slaWter

But I agree with HYBRID, I see no point in having a dedicated PhysX card.

Agreed, not necessary IMHO, at least not where SLI is concerned.

[saturnotaku]

Originally Posted by CaptNKILL

I just ran the Cryostasis benchmark and got these results:

Cryostasis Tech Demo - 1920x1200 - DX10 - High Preset

GTX 470 @ 763/1525/1875 (1.062v)

Avg 49.8
Min 31.7
Max 135.2

GTX 470 @ 763/1525/1875 (1.062v)
GTS 250 @ 600/1566/800 (Physx)

Avg 58.1
Min 35.1
Max 133.8

At the beginning portion of the benchmark with the water running over the enemy, I get 50fps minimum with the GTS 250 doing Physx. Without it I get ~33fps minimum.

If you're running dual GTX 480s, then sure, its probably not necessary to have a dedicated Physx card... but I think it'd probably still help anyone running a single GPU. At least in Cryostasis since its such a graphically intensive game. It stresses my system significantly more than Crysis at max settings.

What drivers are you using, Cap?

[Eltigre88]

Originally Posted by CaptNKILL

I just ran the Cryostasis benchmark and got these results:

Cryostasis Tech Demo - 1920x1200 - DX10 - High Preset

GTX 470 @ 763/1525/1875 (1.062v)

Avg 49.8
Min 31.7
Max 135.2

GTX 470 @ 763/1525/1875 (1.062v)
GTS 250 @ 600/1566/800 (Physx)

Avg 58.1
Min 35.1
Max 133.8

At the beginning portion of the benchmark with the water running over the enemy, I get 50fps minimum with the GTS 250 doing Physx. Without it I get ~33fps minimum.

If you're running dual GTX 480s, then sure, its probably not necessary to have a dedicated Physx card... but I think it'd probably still help anyone running a single GPU. At least in Cryostasis since its such a graphically intensive game. It stresses my system significantly more than Crysis at max settings.

Your results are confusing. If your Avg and Min's are higher using the 250 for Physics then why is your max lower then not using it?????