walk through is pretty straight forward: 0. first, an Ati card and Catalyst is already present 1. insert nVidia card. 2. turn on machine 3. install nVidia driver 257 beta (the one with "bug") 4. set "try to display on VGA" for nVidia card 5. go to nVidia control panel and enable PhysX (actually, can't see that section in my control panel with 257 drivers, not sure why) 6. run Fluid mark to see if it's setup correctly. 7. play PhysX enabled game such as Batman AA
5. go to nVidia control panel and enable PhysX (actually, can't see that section in my control panel with 257 drivers, not sure why) Is this the moment the straight forward walk thru is deemed not so stright forward? Or are you saying PhysX seems enabled anyway?
should be enabled automatically, if not, uninstall nvidia driver and start again using 19x drivers with hybrid physx patch 1.03.
The 257.15 drivers don't let u see enable disable physx when the ati card is set as ur primary display. I set this up last night on windows 7, 5870 xfire with gtx 280 for physx as follows 1- install nvidia graphics card and 257.15 driver (your ati/ crossfire catalyst is already intalled) 2- right click ur desktop and click on resolution 3- your primary display will show up and probably nothing else 4- click detect and a couple more images of not set up displays will show up 5- Select one of these and in the 1st drop down menu select your physx card, and in the bottom drop down menu set to try to display on VGA 6- click apply, you've created a dummy screen and on the main page of resolution you should have two screens set up 7- on your primary ati (real) screen, click on expand this display in the drop down menu 8- apply if you download gpu-z it should now have physx ticked for all gpu's in your system (at the bottom of gpu-z you can alternate the gpu your looking at and ensure physx is ticked for all as they are hybrid). If not, keep fiddling about with the above steps and checking gpu-z a lot of websites are saying the drivers work as hybrid straight away without fiddling or the necessity to create a dummy screen but I found that if I didn't set one up or expand the display, then the cards didn't show up as physx enabled in gpu-z
The gts250 is essential a newer, less power intensive 9800gtx so it would be preferable I think. I've done a bit of research into this and although there is an opinion that you don't need a massively powerful gpu (9600gt is minimum for best physx results), it appears that bigger is better, especially when it comes to shader counts.. A gt 240 has 96 shaders where the gtx 280 has over 200. From what I've read 96 is plenty enough but as/if physx evolves it will become more intensive (eg the new mafia 2 game will be using new physx functionality), so higher physx setting may require more power. I was gonna buy a gts250 for physx but then realised a lot of people are selling off gtx 260's and gtx 280's second hand in this price range so though why not - tho the drawback would be these cards consume more power and create more heat!
True. Now you have got me thinking. I should of kept my gtx280 which I sold off this time last year. I will see if I can get a gtx 260 for sub £100. Cheers, Simon.
I sold 2 9800gt's last year... I was wondering why they were snapped up at the time.. Loads of gtx 260s on fleabay!
I was gonna go with a gt240 for now, if only because while currently more than adequate for the job, it doesn't need a separate power connector. That's right, right?
There are gainward green edition gts250s aswell that I don't think require one (could be wrong) and are about 90 stg... http://www.komplett.ie/Komplett/pro...raphics_adapter_-/426018336-0827/default.aspx The other thing I'd like is to get one that takes up only one pci-e slot cos it's very crowded in there when you have crossfire set up
I still use a BFG Ageia PhysX card in one rig and it works just dandy .. is this card a modern day relic now ?
A bit to pricey for just a stand alone PhysX card. I only wanna spend £100 max on one to test it. But if it is good with a sub £100 card, and Nvidia bring out some tasty fermi at a good price. I may well upgrade to that. Simon.
I still have one of those, but it is in a box on the shelf. Using it is actually slower than using a single GTX 260 or 275 for both graphics and physx - at least it is on my system.
paired with a 5970 i really wonder if a 250 will have enough grunt - i paired my 5870 with a 9800gt and its balanced. it may be worth looking into either getting a 260, or if you just want to test it out get a 240
I know there are only a handful of games that support it, but I replayed batman last night for the 1st time with physx and I was impressed. All the pieces of paper that were lying on the floor static and drawn on are now individual sheets that fly around the place as you move through, halways are in places full if black steam and other background items break when hit with a batarang. Not sure if it increased my enjoyment but it was a hell of a lot of stuff I was previously unaware of, especially as I'd gone out and got a couple of high end cards. It's funny what nvidia are doing, if they left physx open on unsupported beta drivers I think it would be a good thing for them... Short term they'd sell a bucket load of low-mid range graphics cards and long term, because game companies support physx because of increased demand for the hardware, people would switch back to nvidia for convenience, or they could licence it's use to other gpu companies and make money out of it. By blocking it's use they're ensuring that only a minority of games will utilize it, threatening life span. I do hope they keep it enabled in the beta drivers
I ordered this in the end. As it was so cheap I can have a play around with it. + its a nice spare card if I need one, when I sell my 5970 in due course.
