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Radeon HD 6950 - Mafia 2 With Physx on High

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19 Jan 2008
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194
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Anyone here have a single 6950 (or similar) without a physx card and ran Mafia 2 maxed with physx set to high? I just did and overall it runs smooth although on one of the earlier missions in the warehouse, the game crawls to 15fps when physx is into effect. Is there anything I could do to improve physx performance while keeping graphics set to max without buying new hardware?

Thanks
 
Only option you have as far as im aware is buy an nvidia card if you want to use physx.
Oh and try the benchmark test in mafia 2 with physx on,
yeah not so good ;)
 
Iv heard stories where people have used an AMD card and an additional NVIDIA card just for the physx features and it actually worked, anyone know of this?
 
I am not that experienced in overclocking. For the 3.2GHz overclock, I just changed the FSB to 400x8 and ran RAM to 1:1 ratio. Not comfortable going over that.

Would flashing my card to a 6970 help?

It wouldn't help much if at all with the physx, but its definitely worth flashing if you feel comfortable enough to do it.
If your going to attempt flashing your card i highly recommend you read the this thread 1st and follow casters advice.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18278371
 
Iv heard stories where people have used an AMD card and an additional NVIDIA card just for the physx features and it actually worked, anyone know of this?

Yes this can be done not sure how tricky it would be though for the op
and he would also have to aquire an nvidia card and make sure he has an extra pcie slot ect..
 
It wouldn't help much if at all with the physx, but its definitely worth flashing if you feel comfortable enough to do it.
If your going to attempt flashing your card i highly recommend you read the this thread 1st and follow casters advice.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18278371

Thanks, I shall have a read. If I mess it up, I can just reflash using the original BIOS and if the card won't boot, I can just flip the BIOS switch and it would revert back to original right?

Yes this can be done not sure how tricky it would be though for the op
and he would also have to aquire an nvidia card and make sure he has an extra pcie slot ect..

My motherboard only has one PCI-Express slot :p
 
I would advise against flashing to the 6970 bios personally. I did and it borked my card. VRAM related artefacts everywhere, probably caused by the extra voltages used by the 6970. Flash it to a modified 6950 to unlock the 6970 shaders while leaving everything else the same.
 
I would advise against flashing to the 6970 bios personally. I did and it borked my card. VRAM related artefacts everywhere, probably caused by the extra voltages used by the 6970. Flash it to a modified 6950 to unlock the 6970 shaders while leaving everything else the same.

How would I do what you suggested? (flashing to a modified 6950? what do you mean by this?) Can't I just do a little overclock within CCC?
 
Of course, a decent overclock will add more performance than unlocking the shaders. But it is possible to do both.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=335318

This is mine post unlock with a moderate overclock in afterburner (core clock 877/memory clock 1296)
gpuz6950shadersunlocked.gif
 
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How would I do what you suggested? (flashing to a modified 6950? what do you mean by this?) Can't I just do a little overclock within CCC?

He doesn't have the same card as you.
the MSI Twin Frozr 3 oc power edition has a custom made bios made specifically for this card and is perfectly fine once flashed.
I think he has just a reference card and they are totally different to what you have.
You cant just flash your card with any bios.
One thing that strikes me though is that you don't seem all that clued up on the situation and if you do it wrong you will run into all sorts of problems maybe even brick your card.
So have a very long read at the process involved and decide whether your comfortable
and if its in your ability to flash your card correctly and pray you don't lose power in the process of flashing other wise you will effectively have a £200 paper weight.
Don't rush into the decision to flash it.
 
Hey, really sorry. Wasn't paying attention to the model. But don't you have the BIOS switch? Makes the risk of a failed flash significantly less.
 
Of course, a decent overclock will add more performance than unlocking the shaders. But it is possible to do both.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=335318

This is mine post unlock with a moderate overclock in afterburner (core clock 877/memory clock 1296)
gpuz6950shadersunlocked.gif

I am more comfortable doing this than flashing. Would unlocking the shaders require a flash? Also what is afterburner? why not use CCC?

Hey, really sorry. Wasn't paying attention to the model. But don't you have the BIOS switch? Makes the risk of a failed flash significantly less.

The MSI Twin Frozr III has a bios switch on the top of the card. It's currently turned to PERFORMANCE mode. There are two other modes left of this, not sure what they do....
 
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It's just a fan speed switch, should be to options, performance and silent
Picking up a cheap nvidea card to use only for physics would maybe be the best option, a bit fiddly to setup but worth it if physx is what your after
 
How is flashing a 6950 to 6970 going to help with fizzx performance?! :confused:

Just fizzx down a bit until it runs OK, I doubt it will ruin your gaming experience too much.
 
From what I recall theres only a few essentially tacked on "physx" levels in the game, a warehouse, a glass wall, and a shack that gets shot up, thats about it.

Worthless having it, its been purposefully crippled in performance pretending to be "realistic" destruction when you can blatantly see with the glass exploding effect that its a prebaked effect, thats not realistic, shouldn't cost any performance yet does, its Nvidia playing games to get you to pay Nvidia more money.

You can either ignore it, or pay Nvidia money, which will encourage them to continue screwing us over.

Look up the video's of the physx effects in the game, a bullet will hit the glass, physx's whole schtick is that it offers realistic effects, more particles and more realism, you can see that the bullet "hits" the glass, theres a delay, then the same identical exploding bits of glass each time. Thats the kind of crappy, non performance hogging effect thats been used for 10 years, but Physx somehow kills performance and pretends its realistic realtime effects.

Physx is a joke, ignore it.
 
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