My Test of GRAW running with and without physX

Cyber-Mav · 28 Apr 2006 at 18:56

dunno about you guys but if you have seen the dreadnaught demo on the AMD site it shows a comparrison between 32bit and 64bit cpus and the 64bit mode makes a far bigger difference than this physx card can.

AceCard · 28 Apr 2006 at 19:23

InwardSinging said:
your absolutely right, it is a joke, I got Fifa 2006 through the post today, thinking the pc one would be on a par with the videos from the xbox 360, i should have spent the extra tenner, as the pc version looks like a port from the ps2, ill be buying all my games for the 360 in future.

graw had a very poor framerate in multiplayer on the 360, fifa really isnt a good example of why to buy a 360 over a pc..........oh and oblivion(while lovely) on the 360 stuttered like gareth gates at a stammering convention.

FeFiDoh · 28 Apr 2006 at 19:32

i dont think they are worth it, it looks like rabbit poo flying off the wall tbh

HangTime · 28 Apr 2006 at 19:50

LoadsaMoney said:
Id say Konami are some of the worst offenders, look at the PES series, go to the options to configure your controller, and its a pic of a PS2 pad, yes i know you can use the PS2 pad on the PC, but thats just damn right lazy, least have other options, just don't convert the game across and just make the graphics a bit better, the PS2 crowd would'nt stand for it if they started porting games over to em from the PC, and when they went to configure their controls a picture of a Keyboard and mouse appeared, can you imagine it "wtf im sitting here on me PS2 with a joypad, and its saying to move press W,S,A,D etc..., its gona take me a week to configure em to me pad".

Yeah that annoyed me immensely, it's horrendous because it doesn't even tell you what buttons do what. So I've gotta configure my sidewinder pad to what options I want on a PS2 pad, and yet I have no idea what those buttons on the PS2 pad actually do in terms of the game.

An absolutely atrocious port and was so frustrating I couldn't even be bothered trying the game for more than 5mins (which was largely spent trying to figure out what each buttons did).

HangTime · 28 Apr 2006 at 19:53

Oh, and as for the PhysX cards - it was the price that astounded me the most. I was expecting these to cost something in the £50-100 range, as the impact they can have is far less than that of graphics cards.

As far as performance goes, in a way it's a bit like some of the early soundcards I guess - where enabling 3d hardware sound actually gave you worse performance than software.

FrankJH · 28 Apr 2006 at 20:13

GuruJockStrap said:
I'm sorry but those 2 games you've listed as demonstrating what the PC is capable of I don't agree with.

Both bring high end systems to their knees! If developers spent more time on optimising they could get it running suberbly on lower, more main stream hardware with nice eye candy and even more breathtaking on higher end systems.

Its so easy for the developers to not optimise the engine and game safe in the knowledge that there are people out there with ninja PC's able to play it. Never mind us folk who can't afford to spend money on an X1900XT and £200 PPU.

WEll I know I have a very decent spec system but you dont need to spend half of that - I dont have a ppu and both of those run very well indeed so imo the £200 on the ppu would be wasted anyway, but to be honest that wasnt really My point

What I meant was in no way are those two games ever comparable to a PS2, they are just leagues ahead - so its a real pity that what could have been a decent footy game ( for those that like that kind of thing, which I personally dont) is ruined by an obviously lazy developer

Again, I realise I am very lucky but i was meaning the capability of currently available hardware ( remember even a 360 struggles in oblivion - albeit on a lot less cost to the public than a decent pc)

nO}{8 · 28 Apr 2006 at 20:20

FrankJH said:
WEll I know I have a very decent spec system but you dont need to spend half of that - I dont have a ppu and both of those run very well indeed so imo the £200 on the ppu would be wasted anyway, but to be honest that wasnt really My point

What I meant was in no way are those two games ever comparable to a PS2, they are just leagues ahead - so its a real pity that what could have been a decent footy game ( for those that like that kind of thing, which I personally dont) is ruined by an obviously lazy developer

Again, I realise I am very lucky but i was meaning the capability of currently available hardware ( remember even a 360 struggles in oblivion - albeit on a lot less cost to the public than a decent pc)

dont make this thread another pc vs 360 war, I want to know how the ppu is working not hearing about the differences between those two platforms.

-back on topic please.

Cyanide · 28 Apr 2006 at 20:24

I was going to order one of those puppies but after seeing the list of games that support it that are coming out this year and seeing the graphical demos and screenshots I decided against it. The PPU claims to add more realism to games, but to me it takes it away as the only things I've seen are just badly textured blocks flying around all over the place :confused:

Gashman · 28 Apr 2006 at 20:52

the shocking fact is for all who bought PPUs and got all exited about it, same goes with ghost recon 3 (soon to be guilty as charged) you gotta understand its a working progress, whether you like it or not PPUs are hear to stay, they do in theory relieve some pressure from the CPU with physics calculations, freeing up spare CPU power to run more complex AI or whatever, but the thing is GR3 is the first game out at the moment to be running with these new physics engines, the first version of anything is NEVER perfect. look at rainbow six 3, version 1.0 was obserdly bugged, how they managed to get away with half of it is beyond me, but compair it to the later version 1.30 and notice how the game is now virtually bug free. i don't doubt in a few months when patch comes out for advanced warfighter and some more drivers for the PPUs themselves (optamised for better PPU/GPU/CPU communication) it'll proberbly start making a bigger difference

HangTime · 28 Apr 2006 at 22:08

To be fair I suppose you could say that the situation is analogous with what happened 9-10 years ago when 3d cards first hit the market. They gave you some extra features (alpha blending, bilnear filtering etc) and were used to add extra effects like lens flare etc, as well as higher resolution.

However, in performance terms they weren't actually that great. Take GL Quake, if you had a good cpu like a Pentium Pro it would actually run faster in 320x200 software than in 640x480 GL on a Voodoo1 or below.

[ui]ICEMAN · 28 Apr 2006 at 23:35

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.

Cyanide · 28 Apr 2006 at 23:39

[ui]ICEMAN said:
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.

I wouldn't have expected that with SLI... especially quad SLI!

I was expecting the complete opposite in an SLI rig, with that extra graphical processing power and the strain of physics taken off the gpu's and cpu by the ppu you'd expect framerates to go up a fair bit. Even with the extra bits to display SLI should cope well...

It'll be interesting to see if this is just an issue with the game or the PPU in general, only time will tell!

sunlitsix · 28 Apr 2006 at 23:48

bad news for aegia if it is the PPU :/

[ui]ICEMAN · 28 Apr 2006 at 23:52

I don't think it is, its going to be 90% down to implementation IMO, the card *will* be more efficient, as the OP said, it's almost as if they just shoved a few extra bits in the explosions just so they could say it supports PhysX, it seems very tacked on.

Gashman · 28 Apr 2006 at 23:54

when is hardware ever the problem these days, its all bloody lazy game programmers not doing there job, and wasting so much of the PCs potential so they can jump on the 360 licking bandwagon

jrodga2k5 · 29 Apr 2006 at 00:14

early version so im guessin it aint fully operational yet but maybe its just that the things are a rip off

Flanno · 29 Apr 2006 at 15:49

One of my pals emailed me last night to say he just got graw...he is in the us so I assume it was released earlier over there. No AA whatsoever in the game and no way to force it. No hdr either. This is pants - the 360 while reported not to have viewing angles comparable to the pc version, at least had very nice hdr and 2xaa, and I believe it was based around the next unreal engine too. By the sounds of it the physx aren't going to be up to much either on this game.

To the OP - does the fan on the physx card run at a constant rpm do you reckon or does it adjust depending on how much work the card has to do. Like graphics cards. If Physx does take off though, I hope noisy fans is not going to be a problem.

Things change I've changed · 29 Apr 2006 at 17:16

[ui]ICEMAN said:
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

trojan698 · 29 Apr 2006 at 17:33

Exsomnis said:
A 7800GTX isn't top-end? The way I see it, it's not the razor-edge of technology, but it's still top-end and should be just fine for running a PhysX card if these things cost £200.

So, what... It's expected to pay £200 for a PhysX card and £400 for a 7900GTX to play games these days? £800 if one isn't good enough and you need to go SLi? That's £1000 on graphics alone, it's utter rubbish to be honest.

PhysX is a joke, and I hope nobody buys it.

Well said. They are taking the ****.

Foehammer2003 · 29 Apr 2006 at 18:16

locutus12 said:
nope, im afraid your expected to be a little brighter and not buy a willy waving marketing hyped device that costs a fourtune and does very little...

lol willy waving...nice! Bit like adding 512Mb of mem to gpu's then?

Way i see it is you gotta pay a large whack to get the top spec of the moment, then like gpu cards the price of that once great spec item, drops to silly money, thats when i buy lol.

Seriously though, if people didnt buy those items now, they wouldn't develop much further, or at least not as fast as development currently does. I can imagine that it costs a fair amount to research and develop any new avenue in technology. Take Dual Core for example, first produced for corporate servers, not gamers, they paid through the nose to have the tech at first, now its refined and affordable! The only problem is i think is that business demands for a ppu are just not there, so hence its us guys who are the guniea pigs and investors. I would be annoyed like you guys if i had spent all that cash that we can ill afford to waste, to end up with a frankly poor end result, but wanting to have the latest bleeding edge kit will sometimes lead us in that direction, face it peeps thats what we love... having the best and showing it off!

If i had the money i would be in your situation and gutted too! But i would still love the PC arena, buying a console, always having it at stock, maybe have it chipped (woohoo :rolleyes:

) would be all we have!

Waiting for the onslaught now...