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Ageia PhysX + UT3

Rangler

Rangler

Rangler

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Ok unfortunately I dont own one of these cards but with the UT3 demo installing some libraries for PhysX and the U3 engine being used by more games, its making me wonder "Should i try one?"

Surely it must take some of the load away from the main CPU and place it on the PPU and hence on lower spec pc's increase frame rate etc.??

I know my pc (in sig) isnt the best but come X-mas ill have 4GB of ram and eith a 640MB GTS or 2900Pro to go with it, so would a PhysX card really help.?

Im curious.. Are there any people out there with PhysX cards that have tried the UT3 demo?, can they comment on wether turning HARDWARE PhysX ON and OFF makes a difference.?

Thoughts and comments please.???
 
with UT3, it uses physx a lot for effects and things like the tornado which cant be done without the card, if you are going to be playing a lot of PhysX games or just a lot of UT and want the extra effects it is worth getting
 
Thanks for the reply, the missus plays UT2k4 and when it comes out UT3 so yes we'll be playing it heaps over X-mas..

Time to start looking around methinks.
 
it was mentioned before that the ppu in ut3 is just there to offload the physics onto the addin card so it will free up more cpu cycles for the rest of the game. they have mentioned that they will add physics only levels in after the launch of the final game.

im sure someone will benchmark the game with and without the ppu some time soon.
 
RaiderX said:
with UT3, it uses physx a lot for effects and things like the tornado which cant be done without the card, if you are going to be playing a lot of PhysX games or just a lot of UT and want the extra effects it is worth getting
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It's not though Ageia are doing that themselves, Epic are only adding the chance to offload Physics to the card, making it worthless because the Physics thus far don't even seem intensive at all.

Physx is still a waste of money.
 
Jihad said:
It's not though Ageia are doing that themselves, Epic are only adding the chance to offload Physics to the card, making it worthless because the Physics thus far don't even seem intensive at all.

Physx is still a waste of money.
Click to expand...

one video shows one map with the tornado, it will be on one map. at first this video was supposed to be what UT3 can do with physx, then it was pretty much that this stuff would rarely if at all be in the game, and only in physx only levels(which means about 0.00001% of the maps you'd find people playing only). now its doubtful if that map will even be available on release.

its now also quite possible that everything can be done on cpu, but supposedly faster on physx.

a decent cpu is fine for the game, and a physx card won't increase framerate, you'll still be gpu limited in almost all situations.

ageia stuff thats installed with demo is done on cpu, it uses software that many games use as a basic physics engine that cpu's use. most games that use ppu software don't use do anything extra with a physx card.
 
drunkenmaster said:
one video shows one map with the tornado, it will be on one map. at first this video was supposed to be what UT3 can do with physx, then it was pretty much that this stuff would rarely if at all be in the game, and only in physx only levels(which means about 0.00001% of the maps you'd find people playing only). now its doubtful if that map will even be available on release.

its now also quite possible that everything can be done on cpu, but supposedly faster on physx.

a decent cpu is fine for the game, and a physx card won't increase framerate, you'll still be gpu limited in almost all situations.

ageia stuff thats installed with demo is done on cpu, it uses software that many games use as a basic physics engine that cpu's use. most games that use ppu software don't use do anything extra with a physx card.
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I think i'm CPU limited in the demo, quite high CPU usage compared to other games. Also loads extremely quickly, very nice job on their part :)
 
Talrinys said:
I think i'm CPU limited in the demo, quite high CPU usage compared to other games. Also loads extremely quickly, very nice job on their part :)
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Indeed it's a very good beta! Can't wait to see the final product bet it performs even better, hopefully Dx10 is gonna give us a boost this time too. :)
 
It comes with DX10 support?
Well my belief is that DX10 only really works wonders if the game is designed from the bottom for it, or has a completely rewritten path for it, it needs to have better cpu utilization etc, as promised by Microsoft, and so far, no games have shown to work like that.
 
Talrinys said:
It comes with DX10 support?
Well my belief is that DX10 only really works wonders if the game is designed from the bottom for it, or has a completely rewritten path for it, it needs to have better cpu utilization etc, as promised by Microsoft, and so far, no games have shown to work like that.
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Yep the only way to get AA working they said is by using Dx10, even though it's possible to use AA in Dx9, perhaps it'll run better on Dx10 or so.

UT3 isn't a patch job with Dx10 at least so it should run great really, no worse than Dx9 at least.
 
Ive tried the beta, it really is well polished, runs smooth as **** on my machine @ 1920*1200 everything maxxed

only using a gts 640 so im guessing my physx card is helping it out a bit
cant really complain for £70

hopefully there will be a lot of games using the ut3 engine
 
it runs fine maxed out on a x1900 at 1920x1200, your physx card is unlikely to be helping out, at all.

i did think it was a really polished beta, but usin ga 2900xt/4gb/vista x64, at first it loaded and ran fine, but for just no reason i can find it crashed to the point of having to reset while loading into a game 2-3 times in a row(after a bunch of games with utterly no issue). so uninstalled, one more game fine, then screwed again. not a clue, apparently it is extremely buggy, lots and lots of posts in their bug thread. but its weird that it would run fine, then become utterly unstable for me. normally one combo of settings/hardware creates a bug rather than said combo/settings working fine then just going weird.
 
well the fact of the matter is the demo is only running with medium textures which was said before the demo came out so thats why its running so well on everyones pcs wait till the full version is out and the high and very high textures are in and see how ure pc dies then !!!!
 
honestly i don't think it will kill performance that much. its quite a heavily toned down outing for the unreal engine. but thats expected for a fast paced online shooter. slower paced fps's for single player will use same engine but with everything turned up.

but the fact of the matter is it looks pretty damn good on medium textures, theres nothing to say high/very high textures will make a massive difference and obviously, just because an option is there doesn't mean you need to use it.

but texture options are gpu limit related, they will have no effect, and gain no increase in speed from a ageia physx card.

i only pointed out that it ran fine on much lower hardware as a reason that a 8800gts running the demo great was not any indication the physx card was helping. for instance, if a x1900 can get 60fps solid, and a 8800gts + physx card is getting 60fps solid, is that any reason to come to the conclusion the physx card is helping? not even close.
 
leon4112 said:
well the fact of the matter is the demo is only running with medium textures which was said before the demo came out so thats why its running so well on everyones pcs wait till the full version is out and the high and very high textures are in and see how ure pc dies then !!!!
Click to expand...

The fact of the matter is that even at medium detail it still looks amazing and plays smoothly on lower-end hardware... so people with lower specs don't NEED to raise the detail to max. It's a stonkingly scaleable engine.
 
Is there a benchmarks option/command? If there is I am happy to post benchmarks.

Its looking like the demo is not max graphics. Like the old demos full graphics and settings only work in the full game.




“but texture options are gpu limit related, they will have no effect, and gain no increase in speed from a ageia physx card”
Not directly no. But lets say you have 30fps you turn on the extra texture options and lose 10fps. Now add a PPU and gain 10fps. The PPU lets you up the settings and keep the FPS smooth. In theory.
 
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