Nvidia physX....What the hell?

Citizen

Citizen

Citizen

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I've just dicovered nvidia physx in my add remove programs.....what the heck is nvidia doing on my pc? I have a ATI graphics card :confused:

Should this be unistalled, or is it necessary for one reason or another?
 
If you have installed a game with PhysX in it then it has to install the driver. The driver doesn't ONLY work with NVIDIA GPUs, it is an engine, a bit like DirectX - just to enable hardware PhysX you need an NVIDIA card.
 
Physx doesn't require an Nvidia GPU to work. The way some games (Mirror's edge and Batman:AA) use it means that its to slow to run on the CPU, but other games (Shattered Horizon I beleive) just use it for bog-standard physics adn it runs on the CPU fine.

Games that incorporate it install it whether you will actually be using it or not. I have an ATi system and also have it installed.
 
Were they not pushing seperate PhysX cards for a while too?

I know that Batman AA, uses it but you have to upgrade to the latest patch to be able to enable it. Can't say that I noticed much difference either way mind you.
 
CooK1E said:
Were they not pushing seperate PhysX cards for a while too?

I know that Batman AA, uses it but you have to upgrade to the latest patch to be able to enable it. Can't say that I noticed much difference either way mind you.
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There was a few years back when Physx first came out then Nvidia acquired the company Ageia and incorporated the tech into the Geforce 8 and above cards. Later Nvidia Forceware drivers ruled out the Ageia Physx cards making them useless, hence why you can pick one up for £20 or less. Compared to the original price was about £130.
 
Games such as Need for Speed: SHIFT and X-Men Origins: Wolverine both use software (CPU) PhysX for their physics (what else would it be?) so this is why it is usually installed even on non-NVIDIA systems. Only NVIDIA cards can use hardware accelerated PhysX but the games have to be specifically coded to use it. If a game is coded to use software physics only, as the two games I mentioned do, then PhysX is not hardware accelerated even on systems with NVIDIA cards.
 
Games which mainly use PhysX are Unreal 3 engine games such as Mirror's edge and Batman:AA. These days less PC games seem to be using it.
 
Darren1967 said:
Games such as Need for Speed: SHIFT and X-Men Origins: Wolverine both use software (CPU) PhysX for their physics (what else would it be?) so this is why it is usually installed even on non-NVIDIA systems. Only NVIDIA cards can use hardware accelerated PhysX but the games have to be specifically coded to use it. If a game is coded to use software physics only, as the two games I mentioned do, then PhysX is not hardware accelerated even on systems with NVIDIA cards.
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not compleatly true if its using the PhysX API if there is no hardware it will use software if Nvidia card 8800 or higher is installed or an PhysX card a lot of them will use hardware PhysX, there is no benerfit any way unless the game uses stupid amount of PhysX objects (unreal PhysX map pack), Some games have the option to turn off or on PhysX support i think i only seen 1-2 games that do that and 1 demo to demostrate it,

if the game is using or requires PhysX driver installed its up to the PhysX driver to pick if Nvida card or software used game does not now if its done in Nvidia hardware or CPU software mode driver does that, a lot games use inhouse PhysX thats not related to nvidia or they use intels version that not likey going to be used in hardware at all
 
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