PhysX for ATI

[AdmiralJanovsky]

HI,

i have a problem with Nvidia PhysX. i have ATI 6770M and problem is whenever there is a game that requires PhysX the lag when particles start flying around is enormous.
i read about moddified drivers but cant seemed to find any newer that will work.
i played mirrors edge and started noticing this problem, but there you can switch off and is fine. but now im playing binary domain and there is no option for this and when big fights start the game lags tremendously.

can anyone help me with this problem?

thanks.

[SaiBork]

PhysX is nVidia only (or PhysX card, but those are old and you wont have one).

You will need to play with PhysX off if the only card you have is the ATI 6770M.

The things you have been reading about, it most likely when people have both an ATI (as main card) and an extra nVidia card with it. That way the ATI is for everything apart from PhysX and the nVidia is used as PhysX only card.

It's sad, but true. Hopefully someday AMD (ATI) will have proper PhysX possibilities and we stop this annoying different parties using different options...

[thatguy91]

Its not quite as simple as that. AMD would have to pay Nvidia for Physx, that's not going to happen!

The real reason why Phsyx runs so slow if you don't have a Nvidia card is because its running on the CPU, and the code is deliberately written to run crap on CPU. Until very recently it was pure x86 code, no SSE or later instruction sets. Not only that, the x86 code wasn't very optimised. Practically all games that use Physx use this poor Physx code. The very latest Physx does have some SSE2 code, but it still is by no means highly optimised - far from it. If Physx was written properly for CPU its suggested on CPU it would outperform GPU. Sure, GPU is potentially better for this, but the GPU is also doing the graphical side of things! So, you either take away performance from the graphics, or you have specialised hardware for it - which goes unutilised most of the time.

[sykozis]

Originally Posted by thatguy91

Its not quite as simple as that. AMD would have to pay Nvidia for Physx, that's not going to happen!

The real reason why Phsyx runs so slow if you don't have a Nvidia card is because its running on the CPU, and the code is deliberately written to run crap on CPU. Until very recently it was pure x86 code, no SSE or later instruction sets. Not only that, the x86 code wasn't very optimised. Practically all games that use Physx use this poor Physx code. The very latest Physx does have some SSE2 code, but it still is by no means highly optimised - far from it. If Physx was written properly for CPU its suggested on CPU it would outperform GPU. Sure, GPU is potentially better for this, but the GPU is also doing the graphical side of things! So, you either take away performance from the graphics, or you have specialised hardware for it - which goes unutilised most of the time.

Until recently, PhysX was written purely in x87 code. Completely different from the x86 instruction set (which isn't capable of floating point operations necessary for PhysX).

[Rich_Guy]

Even Nvidia's own cards take a hit when running PhysX.

[thatguy91]

Originally Posted by sykozis

Until recently, PhysX was written purely in x87 code. Completely different from the x86 instruction set (which isn't capable of floating point operations necessary for PhysX).

Yes my mistake! x86 is integer, x87 is floating point. Still, it does mean poor performance on CPU whichever way you look at it!

[Peezee]

Originally Posted by thatguy91

Its not quite as simple as that. AMD would have to pay Nvidia for Physx, that's not going to happen!

The real reason why Phsyx runs so slow if you don't have a Nvidia card is because its running on the CPU, and the code is deliberately written to run crap on CPU. Until very recently it was pure x86 code, no SSE or later instruction sets. Not only that, the x86 code wasn't very optimised. Practically all games that use Physx use this poor Physx code. The very latest Physx does have some SSE2 code, but it still is by no means highly optimised - far from it. If Physx was written properly for CPU its suggested on CPU it would outperform GPU. Sure, GPU is potentially better for this, but the GPU is also doing the graphical side of things! So, you either take away performance from the graphics, or you have specialised hardware for it - which goes unutilised most of the time.

^ This exactly. Couldn't have put it better myself

[XBEAST]

Yep, it's slow because it's running on CPU and you can't run it on AMD GPU. But some games can be tweaked to give better results. For example, Mafia II and it's cloth crap .

[AdmiralJanovsky]

well i have switchable graphic cards with Intel 3000 HD. but i cant use both for playing. how do you turn it off?
is the performance worse if you uninstall physX and play games or will they crash because of the unknown error? some games have the option to turn it off but this Binary Domain doesn't have it and its annoying when it lags even when 2 object start flying around.

do you have any advice on how maybe manually disable or something?

thanks again.

[bighead147]

you need a physx in games where is physx in use. Without,you will get error

[teleguy]

Are you sure Binary Domain actually uses Physx? I can't find any information that it does on the web.

[XBEAST]

Binary Domain doesn't even use PhysX. Problem is elsewhere. You can try to force Binary Domain use 6770M by disabling Intel GFX via CCC (I think it's in CCC, but not sure, should be called Switchable Graphics or something).

[GhostXL]

You can use Nvidia Physx with AMD/ATI.

Google ATI Physx hack.

[teleguy]

Originally Posted by GhostXL

You can use Nvidia Physx with AMD/ATI.

Google ATI Physx hack.

He's got a laptop so that's probably not an option.

[AdmiralJanovsky]

does it really not use PhysX? i swear it wanted to install PhysX at the end of installation. and the other things is really laggish whenever anything gets destroyed and only then so i ques the PhysX is in order. i dont know thx anyway because the same problem occured when tryinf to play mirrors edge and it lagged ONLY when particles started to fly through the air when i turned it off, all played smoothly.

thx anyway

[GhostXL]

Some games need physx installed no matter if you use it or not.

[Valagard]

Any Unreal 3.0 and up game uses PhysX, its built into the engine code

That said, the amount the unreal engine uses is next to nill, typically it only animates 20-30 objects at a time, which any CPU can do, even old old 1.8ghz dual cores

The problem is when running older games with heavy PhysX use, and its using a version of physx older then version 3.0, which was written in x87 code and only allows one thread. When you have 4000-8000 objects on screen, this causes severe slowdown

Lower PhysX effects in options if this is the case, or buy a Nvidia card if you desperately need it

And Nvidia said they wouldn't charge AMD to use PhysX, its just that Nvidia said they wouldn't give AMD the source code to physx, and "They would write the physX drivers" for AMD. Given Nvidia's track history of absolutely crippling CPU physX over GPU physX just to sell videocards, AMD wisely told them no

[teleguy]

Originally Posted by Valagard

The problem is when running older games with heavy PhysX use, and its using a version of physx older then version 3.0, which was written in x87 code and only allows one thread. When you have 4000-8000 objects on screen, this causes severe slowdown

Even older PhysX versions have multithreading support however it's up to game developers to implement it.

[Valagard]

Originally Posted by teleguy

Even older PhysX versions have multithreading support however it's up to game developers to implement it.

Older PhysX x87 could only be threaded for as many logical cores you had, so a 2600K for example could only run 8 threads, this resulted in low performance

PhysX past 3.0 can be threaded thousands of times across as many logical cores you had as needed because its written in SSE2, as it scales on load, so 8 logical cores of a 2600K could be running 10K threads at the same time

[sykozis]

Originally Posted by thatguy91

Yes my mistake! x86 is integer, x87 is floating point. Still, it does mean poor performance on CPU whichever way you look at it!

Figured it was a typo, but wanted to make sure people have the right info.

Originally Posted by Valagard

Older PhysX x87 could only be threaded for as many logical cores you had, so a 2600K for example could only run 8 threads, this resulted in low performance

PhysX past 3.0 can be threaded thousands of times across as many logical cores you had as needed because its written in SSE2, as it scales on load, so 8 logical cores of a 2600K could be running 10K threads at the same time

Older PhysX is limited to a single CPU core as it's bound by the restrictions placed on the x87 instruction set by Intel....which only allows for a single thread using x87 instructions to run at a time.

x87 was actually moved to "legacy support" prior to Ageia coming into existance. They chose to use x87 for PhysX to give their PPU an advantage due to having the intent of selling PhysX after it was established. nVidia actually had no part in gimping PhysX when run on CPU....that was done by Ageia. nVidia was just in no hurry to correct the situation.

[Valagard]

Originally Posted by sykozis

Figured it was a typo, but wanted to make sure people have the right info.



Older PhysX is limited to a single CPU core as it's bound by the restrictions placed on the x87 instruction set by Intel....which only allows for a single thread using x87 instructions to run at a time.

x87 was actually moved to "legacy support" prior to Ageia coming into existance. They chose to use x87 for PhysX to give their PPU an advantage due to having the intent of selling PhysX after it was established. nVidia actually had no part in gimping PhysX when run on CPU....that was done by Ageia. nVidia was just in no hurry to correct the situation.

I remember running PhysX tests on my Phenom, PHENOM, not Phenom II, using a Phenom and having it max out all 4 cores, and it was physx 1-2

PhysX has always been able to multi-thread, its just older versions were limited by the amount of logical cores, newer versions 3.0 and up can make unlimited threads

And that's lawyer double talk "They were in no hurry to to correct the situation" my ass, they never intended to fix it, they knew this was an issue -YEARS- ago, its only when they were caught fudging the results did they actually give a damn and fix it

[TwL]

Originally Posted by teleguy

Even older PhysX versions have multithreading support however it's up to game developers to implement it.

This is absolutely incorrect information by all means.

Check your facts.

Originally Posted by Valagard

And for those of you saying Nvidia wasn't purposely crippling physx on CPU, try to explain why Batman Arkham City, which uses the newest versions of Unreal 3.5+ engine, got shackled with a older outdated version of Physx? Several developers have already admitted they were forced to use the older PhysX at Nvidia's demand since they were sponsering the game, if they weren't trying to push PhysX GPU to try and sell videocards, why didn't they allow Rocksteady to use the newest versions of PhysX?

and this is heh, so far from truth you have no idea it seems what you are even talking about. As for your information Batman Arkham City was released on a physX platform which as of TODAY haven't yet been implemented on publicly released PhysX which has an physx block reset and has to separately registered as new physx engine(2.8.4.1) to your machine registry to be able to be hacked.

[teleguy]

Originally Posted by TwL

This is absolutely incorrect information by all means.

Check your facts.

Really?

The main feature of this new version is the support of multi-core CPU. Actually multi-core CPU is a trendy way to tell that PhysX FluidMark is now multi-threaded. FluidMark has several threads: the main app thread (GUI), the rendering thread and one or several PhysX threads. PhysX threads are only created when Multi-core PhysX is checked.

This version of FluidMark has been compiled with the latest PhysX SDK v2.8.3.21

http://www.geeks3d.com/20100521/gpu-...e-cpu-support/

Here is the reply of Nadeem Mohammad, NVIDIA’s PhysX director of product management, to AMD’s accusations:

I have been a member of the PhysX team, first with AEGIA, and then with Nvidia, and I can honestly say that since the merger with Nvidia there have been no changes to the SDK code which purposely reduces the software performance of PhysX or its use of CPU multi-cores.

Our PhysX SDK API is designed such that thread control is done explicitly by the application developer, not by the SDK functions themselves. One of the best examples is 3DMarkVantage which can use 12 threads while running in software-only PhysX. This can easily be tested by anyone with a multi-core CPU system and a PhysX-capable GeForce GPU. This level of multi-core support and programming methodology has not changed since day one. And to anticipate another ridiculous claim, it would be nonsense to say we “tuned” PhysX multi-core support for this case.

PhysX is a cross platform solution. Our SDKs and tools are available for the Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, the PC and even the iPhone through one of our partners. We continue to invest substantial resources into improving PhysX support on ALL platforms–not just for those supporting GPU acceleration.

As is par for the course, this is yet another completely unsubstantiated accusation made by an employee of one of our competitors. I am writing here to address it directly and call it for what it is, completely false. Nvidia PhysX fully supports multi-core CPUs and multithreaded applications, period. Our developer tools allow developers to design their use of PhysX in PC games to take full advantage of multi-core CPUs and to fully use the multithreaded capabilities.
http://www.geeks3d.com/20100121/nvid...bled-in-physx/

[Sr7]

Originally Posted by TwL

This is absolutely incorrect information by all means.

Check your facts.

Actually no he's absolutely correct. NVIDIA has stated exactly what he said in multiple interviews. There was no automagic CPU threading with PhysX versions 2.8 and prior but devs could thread it themselves.

Also after all the x87 complaints, aomeone did a test and confirmed it had negligible effects on perf vs x86. Just because of one article a bunch of people jumped to conclusions.

[vejn]

Why doesn't ATI developing similar GPU software like Nvidia ?
Also why there isn't SSAO option for ATI cards which Nvidia has ?