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Patch to enable PhysX with AMD GPUs

I personally have no experience with PhysX, I've had the NV drivers install that rubbish onto the machine with cards that don't support it though... :confused: Do I need this ridiculous proprietry format in my life? Certainly not.
My problem is that they block PhysX support if an ATI card is detected? How can this be allowed? I didn't know that they did this until reading through this thread.
Surely if people are running an ATI card with an Nvidia one alongside for PhysX or even an old PhysX card, then that's their choice? Nvidia still has their cash... How can it be allowed?

NickK said:
They've never actually stated that they work with other graphics cards or support them. They have stated that PPUs should work..
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But the PPUs are also being disabled now if an ATI card is detected? (I may have got the wrong end of the stick here, apologies if so)
Edit: Looks like it's the case though? the only purpose of the PPU is PhysX... How can they be allowed to get away with it? That is disgraceful...
 
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mdjmcnally said:
I am sure that the monthly thread on Physx used to end up as

Physx, what do you want to use that rubbish for. (I do simplify slightly)

Yet here now on the same forum is a thread deriding Nvidia for disabling this feature that most people on the forum dismissed as a waste of time.

If it is such a pointless thing why get upset about it.

I guess possibly more people were using it then were prepared to be vocal about supporting it earlier.

Priceless!
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Because its the principal of the matter that is important more so than how good Physx is.

Some people don't care about principals & some people do.
 
I think that's an over simplification. As an overall thing - six months time and this will not be an issue. The world will continue to rotate. However it will leave a nasty taste in people's mouths.

It's the barrier to using AMD that is the problem and hardware designed for it that they could previously (PPU). Customers never like the rules changed - same with price, you'll never get away with an increase in price when they have had it cheaper before.. the customer is always right (even if they're wrong, then there are ways to address that.. better to bring out a new model of the product or a new product entirely to rearrange the price then).

Not to mention that everyone is just getting their dagger in nVidia's back - et tu Brute.
 
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Emlyn_Dewar said:
But the PPUs are also being disabled now if an ATI card is detected? (I may have got the wrong end of the stick here, apologies if so)
Edit: Looks like it's the case though? the only purpose of the PPU is PhysX... How can they be allowed to get away with it? That is disgraceful...
Click to expand...

From my understanding if an AMD GPU is detected then all hardware acceleration of Physx is disabled.
 
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Lightnix said:
Yeah that really went down well with the 9800 GTX didn't it? :p
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Rebadge anyone? :D

Tom's Hardware:
The way the GeForce 9 series has been introduced is probably not one of the best decisions the marketing department at Nvidia has made recently. This is the first time the manufacturer has launched a new generation of graphic cards that make exclusive use of an existing GPU core from the preceding generation, with absolutely no change to either the instruction set or to the stream processors.
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NickK said:
From my understanding if an AMD GPU is detected then all hardware acceleration of Physx is disabled.
Click to expand...

I'm not even sure why it bothers me... I don't have one of these devices, nor do I have any games making use of the technology... I don't think I ever will either.
It just seems really bad though. What if you DID own a PPU or WERE running an Nvidia GPU for PhysX?
 
Well to answer the nvidia (and ill informed) fanboi about this is the quote that NGOhq got when it was first discovered about Nvidia sneakiness

'Physx is an open software standard any company can freely develop hardware or software that supports it. Nvidia supports GPU accelerated Physx on NVIDIA GPUs while using NVIDIA GPUs for graphics. NVIDIA performs extensive Engineering, Development, and QA work that makes Physx a great experience for customers. For a variety of reasons – some development expense some quality assurance and some business reasons NVIDIA will not support GPU accelerated Physx with NVIDIA GPUs while GPU rendering is happening on non- NVIDIA GPUs. I’m sorry for any inconvenience caused but I hope you can understand.

Best Regards,
Troy
NVIDIA Customer Care”

Note the words in bold OPEN - and to me there's nothing open about software that designed to limit usage. (waiting for Nvidia to try the Cease and desist tactic on this patch)
 
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Interpretations..

If AMD chose to support Physx then in theory then Physx will run on AMD according to that statement, however the development that nVidia have done is nVidia only.

It's open in terms of developer adoption and game use, however what it does do is then limit the return on investment for game developers. It's the only way that nVidia will make a return on their investment. The only other way is to make the game developers pay a licence fee - that means it has to add something more than just cloth and smoke..

It also means that AMD would be at the mercy of nVidia's changes to the Physx licence agreement and standards manipulation - naturally nVidia would work better and they'd engineer the standard to produce as many problems for other vendors as possible to maintain that appearance of "leadership" performance.
Nobody cares about an open standard if the standard compliant market is small. Khronos has a large market (OpenGL, Open-audio-thing), through Apple and Linux/Unix/Sony PS3. MS has a large market (DX) by itself.
 
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Yes, Physx is crap, but some people do use it, they are being effected by Nvidia's idiocy. I'm not personally upset by my lack of ability to use it, I can understand those that PAID MONEY specifically for using PHYSX can be pee'd off.

But most importantly, were PPU's ever sold mentioning the possibility of not working with ATi cards present, of course not, neither were Nvidia cards used for Physx.

I would said its illegal based purely on the fact they well obviously couldn't have warned customers about the PPU, before they owned the PPU, but I'm not sure anyones mentioned a little piece of info hidden deep on the physx page about the possibility in the future. Surely if this was never once writen anywhere, before they did it, they can be done for false advertising?
 
It's underhanded it's ethically wrong but i suspect it is borderline legal hence why they went ahead and did it. End of the day what nvidia has to start understanding is that people do not take kindly to this sort of thing and it has left a very sour taste in many peoples mouths and it's not as if there wasn't enough reasons to dislike nvidia as a business before this episode. I am not stupid i don't see ati as some whiter then white company but right now they are preferable to me personally then giving nvidia the impression i support their business tactics by purchasing one of their cards.
 
RizlaKing said:
It's underhanded it's ethically wrong but i suspect it is borderline legal hence why they went ahead and did it. End of the day what nvidia has to start understanding is that people do not take kindly to this sort of thing and it has left a very sour taste in many peoples mouths and it's not as if there wasn't enough reasons to dislike nvidia as a business before this episode. I am not stupid i don't see ati as some whiter then white company but right now they are preferable to me personally then giving nvidia the impression i support their business tactics by purchasing one of their cards.
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I agree and unless nvidia bring out a card that at the same price as amd but a lot faster,i will get a ati next.
 
does anyone actually know what the best Nvidia card would be for just physx ????
8800GT ? 8800GTS ?

want to get one so that i can set both my 5870s for rendering and one nvidia for physx.
but what one to get to max out physx easy thats the question... do people still sell PPUs ? lol

also on my motherboard my 3rd PCI express port is limited to 4x pci 2.0 would that still be enough bandwith for physx ?
 
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