My Test of GRAW running with and without physX

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ummmmm, not that happy really ,

Without PPU : Take note of FPS






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With PPU :





10-16 FPS slower with hardware PPU, I guess I need another GPU (SLI) to help render the added debris and effects I get from using the PPU, the price of PC gaming just went up again , I can't believe that I have to disable the hardware physX card I just paid 200 quid for so that I can play GRAW at an acceptable FPS, tbh I just feel like giving up on PC gaming these days.

 

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Yeh... they just tacked on some extra eye candy for those that owned the PPU.

If they had bothered to give you the option of doing everything in software then you would see a boost.

Hopefully developers will begin attempting offloading physics calculations to the PPU rather then inventing things to do when a PPU is available.

Thats pretty much the same thing that I was thinking,

Really need to know what settings your running at to predict the low FPS.

But it is very early days in the PPU world.

16 X AF
No AA (Unhappy chappy about this, really hope this is fixed in the full version)
1280x1024
All settings on Max

Seems a bit strange though to spend £200 on a phsyx card when you dont already have the current top card?

Its not a dig at you btw.

I would have normally went straight out and brought the latested gfx card but I've decided to wait for the next gen this time and also with conroe just around the corner I'm hoping that will give a fair boost when I upgrade.

Lowrider, frame rate aside, does it look much better with the PPU enabled? Screen shots don't ever do these things justice.

tbh it looks exactly same with the PPU as it does without it, the only difference is you get the extra blocks/debris, the strange thing is these extra blocks/debris seem to appear unrealistictly out of no where when you shot things like the wall, floor etc, it really is like they've just been tacked on just to say *this game supports physX*.

 

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Thought this game was gonna be really good aswell

Don't get me wrong, I'm really enjoying the demo and the game in it's own right is really good, but......................., paying £200 smackers for a few extra little blocks is a little disheartening, and I really don't understand how those little extra blocks cain the extra fps, it's not really a lot extra to render ?, oh well, it's UT2007 that will the decide the fate of the physX card tbh.

 

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I can confirm similar results with an SLI 7900 system and a quad SLI system. Both at 2560x1600, fps *is* lower with the PPU enabled, I will run more tests tomorrow at a lower resolution.

dude, when you get time could you post some results mate, with and without ppu + fps etc, cheers

 

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You make a very, very good point.
All clients should be able to see all ragdoll physics and other effects, but again----someone with a physics card should get **HIGHER** FPS than someone without one. If this is not the case in 2k7 multiplayer, then the card was a complete scam.

tbh thats the way I thought it was going to be implemented and i'm hoping thats the way it will be done in future games releases.

 

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Agiea want to ring me



Should I give them my number ?

 

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I can't believe HAVOK have used to my performance test of GRAW to attack AGEIA and tbh i'm not really that happy they've qouted me as I still believe it's early days yet, I have now passed my number on to ageia so they can contact me,

This is the statement that HAVOK released on the 3rd,

 

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AGEIA PhysX 2.4.3 B1 Driver Test


I have just tested the new drivers and can confirm that I am still getting a large performance hit with the PPU enabled I am using forceware 84.56, here are a couple of new with and without shots,

Without PPU 1280x1024 : 36 FPS



With PPU 1280x1024 : 19 FPS



Thats 17 FPS difference

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Without PPU 1024x768 : 50 FPS



With PPU 1024x768 : 27 FPS



Thats 23 FPS difference

 

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Without PPU 800x600 : 63 FPS



With PPU 800x600 : 39 FPS



Thats 24 FPS difference


There is definitely something wrong here, take a good look at the "With PPU" pics, there's no way those simple blocks/debris should lower the performance like this.

 

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Note on my latest test of the new Ageia drivers that the lower the resolution the bigger performance drop is when you have the PPU enabled, surely that would prove that this is definitly not a problem with the GPU but with either the way Ubisoft have implimented the physX code or the PPU it's self,

but then throw [ui]ICEMAN's test of the PPU running poorly with cellfactor into the mix and that makes things even more confusing, i'm not sure whether it's an implimentation problem or a hardware problem

 

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Wow lowrider007, henceforth you shall be known as the man who sealed the fate of discrete physics accelerators by single-handedly killing off Aegia... maybe you are on Havok's payroll now

tbh I was actually thinking about this last night and could'nt help feeling a little guilty over the currunt situation.............Havok if your reading this WHERES MY CHECK

 

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I can't believe a quad SLI setup only gets 35-45 fps

I can't belieive my single 7800gtx system only gets 20-45 fps

I think this proves that the slow down is not because of the gpu having to render extra debris/particles but something else.

 

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I'd imagine the negative press for Physx is not going to help sales, and I wonder when the Asus 256meg comes out this month, will prices of these cards plummet ? I see the BFG is in stock on OcUK and if this was the latest video card you can be sure they would be showing as 1-3 days or Preorder.

Have many people on these forums actually bought any ? I know when the oem cards went on sale they were snapped up quick enough.

Asus 256mb cards ?? Aren't they only releasing 128mb cards now ?

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MTg1NzksLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdCwsLDE=

 

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Too true, not only with computer hardware though, no matter how much people hear a Vauxhall Astra is crap compared to others they still buy a new one.

It is a new toy and people are willing to buy it just to have a fiddle with it which IMO is a good thing, the more they sell the more thay can refine the technology and the bigger the chance is that game developers invest time in optimising their games for use with a PhysX card.


[edit]
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/05/08/bfg_ageia_physx_ppu_review/5.html



[/edit]

I'm not happy with that comment one bit, and thats not the impression that they gave from the start, basicly then they fooled us with stupid marketing spin like the "gaming power triangle"



and comments like like this from Curtis Davis (Ageia)

"The PPU and GPU are developed to run a set of focused specific class of applications, exceling in their respective algorithms with highest possible performance."

Curtis Davis : "PCI Express is by far a more scalable interface and the high end gamers will seek out this interface."

Really? what a fool you look like now then considering that Andy Hess, Director of Content Acquistion for AGEIA has now stated

"When you have a PhysX processor in your system, you've gotta have that SLI. You've gotta have both graphics cards to handle the amount of data that we send out. We keep those guys really busy"

yeh, highend users will really be going for pci-e when it comes out considering they won't be able to fit in there machine b-cos sli is recommended.

Curtis Davis : "The PPU in many ways will make changes in the game industry in similar ways as the GPU did in the late nineties, Similarly GPU’s made many leaps in graphical processing power available to the game developers"

Strange as i rememberd it GPU's improved peformance, oh, and quality.

If you want to have a good laugth then read this quote also,

Curtis Davis : "The advent of PPUs and the anticipated transformation of games mirror the story of 3D Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) in the 1990’s. 3D GPU’s abstracted the rendering and display functions which were until then performed in software, applying purpose-built architectures to speed up and enhance those functions. As a result, the visual quality of games increased dramatically, and soon after their introduction every significant game was compelled to incorporate the new 3D hardware technology, much to the happy benefit of gaming.

The adoption of 3D GPUs reduced the CPU rendering load in most games, but interestingly, as graphics content expanded in scale and scope, the requirements on the CPU for preparation, housekeeping and other tasks increased. A similar phenomenon can be anticipated with the adoption of PPUs"

What a joke, Curtis Davis, you sir, are a fool.

 

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Ageia have taken the Cell Factor download link off their website leaving in place the following message,

"Update: A new beta of CellFactor: Combat Training is arriving soon.

CellFactor: Combat Training will be made available for download again very soon.

We apologize for the inconvenience."

The question is tho, will they be working on improving the ppu performance or tweaking it so that it's impossible to play it without a ppu, if they had archieved this in the first place then just think, we would have all been fooled into thinking that is was the ppu doing all of those fancy physics.