Nvidia Disables PhysX Support on Vendor Mixed GPU Setups – Driver Update 340.52 Onwards

[ALXAndy]

Oh and FWIW Nvidia are just hurting themselves. Some people won't want an Nvidia GPU as their main GPU no matter what, but, would be willing to spend £150 on something like a 750ti for Physx. That's £150 they would rather lose by trying to force people to spend £500 on a GPU. What more do Nvidia expect from such a silly technology?

Same goes for SLI, whilst I'm in moany mode. They stop you running SLI on anything less than X8. Thing is, I've hacked my way around it (I wanted my cards spaced miles apart) and I lost pretty much nothing in some benchmarks, 5% in others and in a couple I actually gained points. Very odd, but, again if Nvidia weren't so "All or nothing" with their marketing they would make more sales.

Going back to AMD and physx. I believe they were in cohorts with Intel on Havok. Well, it wasn't AMD then it was ATI. As for smoke etc? can all be done with Havok. Fallout 3 used it and there was plenty of warping gas, smoke and sparks etc.

Just like G-sync Physx could just be a well optimised API. But no, gotta get that bit of hardware there to make it look like it can't be done without it.

 

[Silent_Scone]

Yep.

Really hurting.

http://www.zdnet.com/nvidia-satisfies-q2-revenue-estimates-outlook-strong-7000032307/

Some people won't want an Nvidia GPU as their main GPU no matter what

Says it all... Who are these people? I own 290Xs and Nvidia GPUs. At what point does it become no matter what lol?

Rhetorical question obviously. It's ragingly obvious.

Something similar was found years ago. I used to have a Asus Crosshair III Formula which was Nforce and SLI only. Put in one AMD GPU and it would fire up fine. Add a second and it just looped at post.

That was how they stopped you running Crossfire on an SLI only board. A physical lock out at bios level. Crossfire requires nothing other than two PCIE lanes with X4 or more to run, so Nvidia just locked you out at a bios level.

Well that was daft of you. Why would you buy an Nforce board to run Crossfire? Although your issue at BSOD sounds like PEBKAC, it wouldn't of worked anyway.

 

[ubersonic]

Oh and FWIW Nvidia are just hurting themselves. Some people won't want an Nvidia GPU as their main GPU no matter what, but, would be willing to spend £150 on something like a 750ti for Physx. That's £150 they would rather lose by trying to force people to spend £500 on a GPU. What more do Nvidia expect from such a silly technology?

I don't really see this, a person who favour's Nvidia will just buy a high spec Nvidia card, a person who buys the best price performance option will also buy a high spec Nvidia card if they want PhysX because an high spec AMD card plus PhysX card costs more. That just leaves those who favour AMD who (and I am not trying to have a dig at anyone here) will usually just complain that PhysX is worthless and does nothing but add lame smoke to Batman.

 

[ALXAndy]

Yep.

Really hurting.

http://www.zdnet.com/nvidia-satisfies-q2-revenue-estimates-outlook-strong-7000032307/

Says it all... Who are these people? I own 290Xs and Nvidia GPUs. At what point does it become no matter what lol?

Rhetorical question obviously. It's ragingly obvious.

You'll have to forgive me for sometimes missing obvious sarcasm but I do hope you don't mean me.

I own a Radeon 7990, SLI Titan Black and a GTX 480 Lighthing.

Well that was daft of you. Why would you buy an Nforce board to run Crossfire? Although your issue at BSOD sounds like PEBKAC, it wouldn't of worked anyway.

It was daft of me, yet at the time I had a GTX 280. So that was terribly daft, yes.

Where did I say I got a BSOD? I said it simply kept looping at post, refusing to boot into Windows. Now had the bios let me past POST then I could have run Crossfire, because Crossfire does not require anything more than physical lanes.

I don't really see this, a person who favour's Nvidia will just buy a high spec Nvidia card, a person who buys the best price performance option will also buy a high spec Nvidia card if they want PhysX because an high spec AMD card plus PhysX card costs more. That just leaves those who favour AMD who (and I am not trying to have a dig at anyone here) will usually just complain that PhysX is worthless and does nothing but add lame smoke to Batman.

Titan Black = £699.

Radeon R9 290 = £299.
GTX 750 = £99.

You'd pretty much end up in the same place.

As for Physx? I'm perfectly aware of what it does mate. It's far more than smoke, but, there are certain parts of it I don't like. The flying debris can sometimes look too uniform and a bit plastic.

I've ran numerous Phsyx with an ATI/AMD. I've done 5770CF with a GTX 250, 3770 Quadfire with a GTX 8800 Ultra and etc and etc.

 

[Silent_Scone]

I was quoting you, you think there are some people that just plainly refuse to use Nvidia.

I was wondering if you would point these people out to the jury .



You said looping at post, for it 'loop' at post I'd assume you were getting as far as Windows.

 

[MadMatty]

I don't really see this, a person who favour's Nvidia will just buy a high spec Nvidia card, a person who buys the best price performance option will also buy a high spec Nvidia card if they want PhysX because an high spec AMD card plus PhysX card costs more. That just leaves those who favour AMD who (and I am not trying to have a dig at anyone here) will usually just complain that PhysX is worthless and does nothing but add lame smoke to Batman.

What about the group that upgrades from a nVidia card to an Amd card, but the NVidia card you invested in (and NVidia got your money) is still useful for PhysX but nVidia wont allow you to use your investment the way you want it, entirely down to political reasons and not technical.

In fairness though, regarding batman, the smoke is lame and doesn't react in a believable way to batmans movements through it

 

[ALXAndy]

I was quoting you, you think there are some people that just plainly refuse to use Nvidia.

I was wondering if you would point these people out to the jury .



You said looping at post, for it 'loop' at post I'd assume you were getting as far as Windows.

Press start button.
ROG screen shows.
Reset.
ROG screen shows.
Reset.
ROG screen shows.
Reset.

Got it now? PC would not boot past POST. It only did it with two ATI GPUs in there. Had I got to Windows it would have worked because the ATI drivers don't care about what is placed where. It sees two ATI GPUs, it allows Crossfire.

And that's why Nvidia coded it in at bios. Basically it looked for the DEV ID of the cards, the one you can access in Windows. If it saw two ATI it simply refused to boot.

Point these people out. Do I really need to? look around you a bit. LTMatt for example loves AMD GPUs. Just gone three 290s, not seen him buy an Nvidia (his last was a 7990 IIRC).

If there weren't people like that on both sides one or the other company would not exist any more. Do you really think the Nvidia fanboys would have bought a GTX 480 over a Radeon 5870 if they weren't completely blinded by one company? Nvidia would not exist any more, the 480 was late, hot, uber expensive and hardly any better than the 5870. It was hotter, louder, obnoxious power use.....

What about the group that upgrades from a nVidia card to an Amd card, but the NVidia card you invested in (and NVidia got your money) is still useful for PhysX but nVidia wont allow you to use your investment the way you want it, entirely down to political reasons and not technical.

In fairness though, regarding batman, the smoke is lame and doesn't react in a believable way to batmans movements through it

Of course. Who would have bought Fermi at launch unless they were totally brand loyal? The 5870 laughed at it...

But they did. Then the 7970 comes along and all of a sudden Nvidia take another 6 month hiatus. So if you wanted the next gen you only had two choices, 7970 or 7950.

What would you do with the 480 then?!?! Especially as you are about to lose Physx, but Nvidia do not have a next gen card to give you?

 

[Silent_Scone]

5870 is a terrible card. Did you own more than one?


They were great when they worked. But unfortunately that wasn't very often. AMD never made an official statement regarding PowerPlay functionality being a fault. The only fix was from Sapphiretech in the form of a work-around BIOS.

Fermi was god awful, but the lesser of two evils for me

 

[Martini1991]

The 5870 wasn't a terrible card at all on its own .

Although the 5870 certainly didn't laugh at Fermi.

 

[TheRealDeal]

5870 is a terrible card. Did you own more than one?

Since when was the 5870 a terrible card?

 

[LtMatt]

Point these people out. Do I really need to? look around you a bit. LTMatt for example loves AMD GPUs. Just gone three 290s, not seen him buy an Nvidia (his last was a 7990 IIRC).

My last Nvidia gpu Andy was a GeForce 440MX.

EDIT

5870 was a great card and so was the 5850. Loved my 5850 though i got a really crap clocker.

 

[Silent_Scone]

Since when was the 5870 a terrible card?

Since Crossfire

Or without

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=5..._sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=5870+powerplay&safe=active

 

[ALXAndy]

The 5870 wasn't a terrible card at all on its own .

Although the 5870 certainly didn't laugh at Fermi.

The only part the 5870 didn't laugh at was performance.

GTX 480 was epic late. ATI had been making DX11 hay for months and months.They literally stole the show all to themselves.
GTX 480 cost £400+ At launch the 5870 was £350 IIRC.
GTX 480 used an epic amount of power.
GTX 480 got epic hot.
GTX 480 was obnoxiously loud.

All it had over the 5870 was better performance with lots of FSAA. That was literally it. Yet people (not that many, mind) still bought 480s.

5870 was excellent on its own, yet, people still wanted Physx.

http://www.ngohq.com/graphic-cards/17706-hybrid-physx-mod-v1-03-v1-05ff-194.html

194 pages of people wanting to run a second Nvidia card with an ATI/AMD.

194 pages

 

[TheRealDeal]

Since Crossfire

Crossfire does not make the 5870 a bad card. If crossfire was bad thats down to AMD drivers but i don't remember crossfire being bad back then. The 5970 is remembered for being decent which suggests crossfire had decent driver support. The gtx480 is known as the joke of that generation but it did redeem itself in my eyes.

 

[oldestgregg]

5870 is a terrible card. Did you own more than one?


They were great when they worked. But unfortunately that wasn't very often. AMD never made an official statement regarding PowerPlay functionality being a fault. The only fix was from Sapphiretech in the form of a work-around BIOS.

Fermi was god awful, but the lesser of two evils for me

No it wasnt. Not at all. Nice and cheap for the power it gave and no bother from it at all (or my 5850s) and Yes matt,they were both bad clockers as well

 

[Silent_Scone]

194 pages

You don't have to convince me. There are enough people moaning in here.

I'm glad there were some people happy with their 5870. If you want to compare it to the 4870, then yes it's definitely a good GPU.

This isn't me saying the 480 is a better GPU. Unfortunately it's not always down to the hardware though, is it.

 

[Martini1991]

Since Crossfire

Or without

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=5..._sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=5870+powerplay&safe=active

Anyone can google an issue with any vendor and get a bunch of hits.
The 5870 was far from perfect (As well as the rest of AMD's 40nm debut of the 5XXX variety), with GSOD's etc.

But the 5870 was far from a terrible card.

 

[oldestgregg]

Crossfire does not make the 5870 a bad card. If crossfire was bad thats down to AMD drivers but i don't remember crossfire being bad back then. The 5970 is remembered for being decent which suggests crossfire had decent driver support. The gtx480 is known as the joke of that generation but it did redeem itself in my eyes.

Unless he is talking pre-frame pacing fix? My 5850s were no bother at all

 

[ALXAndy]

Crossfire does not make the 5870 a bad card. If crossfire was bad thats down to AMD drivers but i don't remember crossfire being bad back then. The 5970 is remembered for being decent which suggests crossfire had decent driver support. The gtx480 is known as the joke of that generation but it did redeem itself in my eyes.

Crossfire was bad since the beginning.

Runt/dropped frames were abundant right from day one, AMD remained 'slap happy' about it and figured people would put up with it.

Now that's all well and good if you don't mind a bit of stuttering but if you're of a sensitive disposition like me you can spot it time and again.

I got duped into buying two 5770s because I quote "They're every bit as fast as, or faster than a 5870 and only cost £250 a pair, rather than £300+ for a 5870".

However, that was Tiny Logan who isn't very good at pointing out flaws.

Thus, my time with 5770 Crossfire was full of runt frames, dropped frames, false FPS readings, stutter, all out refusal to work even though I had the profile installed.. Renaming .exes to get them working ETC ETC.

A real whore's breakfast. I vowed never to go Crossfire again and kept my word right up until PCPER caught them out and forced them to do something about it. The 7990 was crap when I got it, but, now that I've ditched it for SLI Titans it seems to be working flawlessly.

Sod's law eh?

 

[Silent_Scone]

Anyone can google an issue with any vendor and get a bunch of hits.
The 5870 was far from perfect (As well as the rest of AMD's 40nm debut of the 5XXX variety), with GSOD's etc.

But the 5870 was far from a terrible card.

Actually I typed 5870 PowerPlay. Not really googling an issue at all.




Sigh


Ivory Tower of Rose Tinted Warriors indeed