My Test of GRAW running with and without physX

megatron · 8 May 2006 at 16:47

HEADRAT said:
I think the problem is that the PPU might be doing all the physics stuff (e.g. interactions between many differrent objects) but the GFX card still has to render all the stuff flying about on screen hence the FPS drop. The actual "physics" calculation are being done by the PPU but obviously that doesn't help the GPU render them on the screen

HEADRAT

Dutch Guy said:
Yes, I understand that, but the objects are hardly graphically intensive, the thing that might slow it down is physics but that is hadled by the PhysX card.

Im going to agree with Headrat, its logical that with the extra objects, u get extra surfaces (i.e. textures), and extra shadows; along with a lot of physics calculations (which should really be no sweat for a £200 card).

[ui]ICEMAN · 8 May 2006 at 16:56

megatron said:
You have an Aston Martin DB7 (hopefully with working ejector seat) and u still find time to play pc games?

DB9 and sadly no ejector seat

raja · 8 May 2006 at 17:07

Iceman, you don't have a Crossfire system then?

I'd like to see what that would manage with an AFR-FriendlyD3D executable using the Cell Factor demo with Physx.

By the looks of things you're getting the same frame rates between SLI and quad SLI? THAT would point to some kind of driver issue.

Raja

[ui]ICEMAN · 8 May 2006 at 17:10

raja said:
Iceman, you don't have a Crossfire system then?

I'd like to see what that would manage with an AFR-FriendlyD3D executable using the Cell Factor demo with Physx.

By the looks of things you're getting the same frame rates between SLI and quad SLI? THAT would point to some kind of driver issue.

Raja

Welcome to the story of Quad SLI, the drivers are the cause of everything. However, the Quad SLI is a little better but I mean its so little it's not worth mentioning specifics. I forgot initially that I had to create an SLI profile for the game since it was using a single card at first so that gave a significant boost but even so, its far from 60+ fps.

Cyanide · 8 May 2006 at 18:12

[ui]ICEMAN said:
DB9 and sadly no ejector seat

And what looks like an Enzo... with a go faster stripe! :eek:

OzZie · 8 May 2006 at 18:30

If any of you have played Red Faction on the PS2, you will see how awsome a physx enabled new RF game would be.

Dutch Guy · 8 May 2006 at 23:20

Cyanide said:
And what looks like an Enzo... with a go faster stripe!

He wishes, looks like a 'normal' Ferrari to me, possibly a 360CS

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

[ui]ICEMAN · 8 May 2006 at 23:24

Dutch Guy said:
He wishes, looks like a 'normal' Ferrari to me, possibly a 360CS

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

It is a CS yes, did look at the Enzo but it wouldn't survive out on the roads out here.

Back on topic, I think the physics are certainly very intensive on the overall performance, it's apparant that throwing some serious graphics hardware at it does help things to an extent but it's not the solution. Time will certainly tell and without question UT2k7 is going to be the make or break for AGEIA unless something amazing comes out of their driver labs.

Cyanide · 8 May 2006 at 23:36

How do you reckon it'd work with a Quadro FX4400 or 2? :eek:

I could ask my uncle if he could run some benchies on his lunch break at the uni

Things change I've changed · 9 May 2006 at 01:55

Dutch Guy said:
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.

Flanno · 9 May 2006 at 02:12

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.

Things change I've changed · 9 May 2006 at 02:36

Flanno said:
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=

Flanno · 9 May 2006 at 14:55

Didn't realise...thought they were still bringing out 256meg cards. I am so tempted to buy one even after reading this thread...I guess another toy to play with

ihatelag · 9 May 2006 at 16:20

Flanno said:
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.

PPU is a new technology, I wouldn't hold your breath on the prices getting cheaper...otherwise you will end up like David Blaine.

Conscript · 9 May 2006 at 21:04

Not gonna buy into these cards yet. At the moment all it seems to be used for is chucking a load of boxes around in game, and watching debris fly everywhere. Ill come back when theres more interesting uses being devised for the card, like real time destructible environments, bullet ballistics and penetration being calculated on the fly, or extremly detailed damage models for in game assets like players and vehicles. Imagine being able to stop a vehicle in a game with a single well placed shot through the engine block which is actually calculated as doing damage to a specific part of the engine and shows you the results? Instead of just saying "You shot the hitbox assigned to the engine, so the car has stopped", the radiator is destroyed so the engine siezes or a fuel line is hit and the engine blows up.

Hopefully not only will these cards allow for such simulation levels of detail in games but maybe simulations themselves will be transformed. Think of the flight sims that could be created if the developer had an entire card that could be devoted entirely to the flight dynamics part of the engine.

Awesome. Let me know when that happens, I'll reapply

Cyanide · 9 May 2006 at 22:07

It's hopefully getting tested on a dual CPU, Quadro SLI rig tomorrow if my uncle remembers, that should tell us where the bottleneck is

sunlitsix · 9 May 2006 at 22:14

dual core or 2 seperate cpu's?

Cyanide · 9 May 2006 at 22:20

sunlitsix said:
dual core or 2 seperate cpu's?

As far as I'm aware it's both :eek:

My uncle runs the computing department at the uni he works for, they've got some amazing stuff in that place

Flanno · 10 May 2006 at 00:34

Am I imagining things or has the price of the Physx card on OcUK suddenly jumped by 17 quid !!

From looking at the News section it looks like they even had some backorders.

Sharkypal · 10 May 2006 at 07:40

Flanno said:
Am I imagining things or has the price of the Physx card on OcUK suddenly jumped by 17 quid !!

From looking at the News section it looks like they even had some backorders.

You can be fairly sure that some of the people dissing the card publicly have bought one. More money than sense is very true when it comes to PC hardware.

S