Hardware Mafia 2 PhysX Performance

I put my spare 9800GTX to use for dedicated physx to go with my 5870, in physx games it done the job well, Mafia II was the reason I tried out hybrid physx, but later found some of my other games became unstable, I was on the edge of buying a GTX460 but after finding this out I scrapped the idea & reverted to just using my 5870 & all is good again.

To be honest physx isn't all that great really, debris chunks of wall bounce on the floor without rotating they stay static so isn't realistic at all so for me physx is nothing to get hyped about in the slightest, the coolest physx features in the game is the interactive smoke from the car tyres but to be honest when your focused on just playing the game it's barely noticable & without physx the game stays silky smooth other than the possible memory leak the game has, becomes chuggy after a few chapters, restart the game & runs good again.

 

Added the correct numbers and re-worded the copy. Thanks for the spot!

 

looks like nVidia has found a way to fight the hybrid-PhysX users. could the game be using CUDA instead of PhysX?

in Just Cause 2, the water effects must be on CUDA enabled rendering graphics card. caused a bit of problem with my hybrid setup. could this mean Mafia 2 has some level of CPU CUDA execution when the rendering graphics card isn't nVidia card?

 

Mafia 2 apparently does the cloth simulations on the CPU, and there are NPCs walking everywhere.

By removing some of the cloth files from the APEX>Cloth game directory you can make it so only the main characters use the cloth simulation. Just leave the ClothRemapTable and m2skeleton.ms files, along with any files beginning with Vito and Joe.

Using this you can use medium or high Apex settings on relatively lower end single GPUs or also making it much easier for CPU physX.

 

I was reading an article that tested havock and physx and concluded that nvidia has gimped CPU physx to create the illusion CPU physics isn't possible. Simply if they re-wrote and compiled physx using the x86 instruction set it would actually perform just as well as if not better on CPU than GPU

 

No, mafia II if anything is a PC game, the console versions look and play like crap in comparision. The game looks outstanding on PC, and is very smooth. The Pc version was designed on PC, and it was later made for consoles due to financial concerns. Game is a major dissappointment though, but it surely is a PC game.

 

Interesting read. Any chance of testing the older, cheaper cards mentioned above for PhysX in a group test please?

 

I used an gts250 (was using 50-60% gpu use) so guessing gts240 or 8600 be min card needed with this poorly coded game

why I need an physx card for the detail that's going on

 

Nice article, it will be interesting to see how the whole GPU based Physics scene develops over the next few years.

Although I agree that the source engine is still impressive with its use of Havok based Physics on the CPU - it is still the best engine for multiplayer, with it's balance of visuals/performance.

 

Just to point out that if you are using a gtx 460 + a Physx card, you would need atleast 3 PCIe power connectors. 2 for the 460 and one for the physx card.

 

Nice article w/ my OC'ed 5850+ a gts 250, i got similar results. It's the only game I have w/ physx, so I think I'm gonna take it out now that I've already beaten the game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IodQD5fYZ3U

 

Running physx on a 8400GS would be slower than simply running it on the main GPU.

There have been a few articles done on this. The minimum you can get away with without a performance penalty is a 8600GT (9500GT).

Taken straight from Nvidia:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_faq.html#q5

The 8400GS is also not on the list of supported GPU's

http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_gpus.html

It is technically capable of doing physx (due to its basic architecture) but not without significant drawbacks.

 

Greetings!

Exactly.
PhysX in its current form is a tech waiting to fail.
It uses only one thread in CPU, is "optimized" for x87 (not SSE or above) and is single maunfacturer dependant.
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/19216

The amount of time wasted on PhysX without explaining PhysX shortcomings is just ridiculous.
PhysX either evolves to a more optimized and open architecture or should just disappear. As is, it harms PC Gaming.

 

This article is excellent! I just wish all developers and publishers read this...At least to discourage the use of proprietary APIs.

 

i have an ageia physx card, does anyone now if that makes a difference?

 

they stopped support a long time ago.. and besides from benchmarks I remember way back when- they more than likely gimped performance on the old ppu (which was dedicated hardware) to sell more nvidia cards like they gimped the cpu

cpu physics is where it's at, seen it myself when cell factor first came out.. it played fine on the cpu in the first demo released.. aegia probably wasn't as underhanded as nvidia though and optimized for the cpu and was really trying to come up with something that worked..

think what a lot of people don't understand too- the primary graphics card has to render all the extras also, even with a dedicated ppu or nvidia gimmicks using their gpu, you will always lose frames

look at havoc and source, crysis.. you don't need physx, it's always been a nvidia marketing tool


here's the last physx driver released for the ageia card http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_8.09.04_whql.html

 

Just to change the subject ever so slightly...

What about the heat dissipated by the cards? If they are set up in the way they are in the picture in the article where there is no space between the two cards will the temperature of the uppermost card not be incredibly high?

I've only ever had a single graphics card so I've never known what kind of difference it makes having two cards this close together, although, I can't see it being a good difference. I'm only asking as I currently have a GTX275 and I'm looking to purchase a GTX460 so this could be the very set up I could use. I just don't want to overheat a brand new card!

 

I would just like to say thanks for adding hybrid physx to the results. As it proves that physx really does work with a ATI card installed. and the results speaks for them self's.

Good work, keep it up!!

Simon.

 

Yes it does affect it but there are many cases with side fans pushing air over the card, and other motherboards where you can use other slots. In fact I used the bottom x8 slot when testing because it doesn't affect performance and gives the cards breathing room. They are only put that way for the camera

 

I think nvidia killed physx when they added the detection if the 'main display driver' is an AMD card to disable physX then.
They really shot themselves in the foot with that one, typical nvidia though, but seriously what is wrong with these people?