Ati + Physx Problem/Help Needed

[CairnisReed]

Hey there, so,
Im trying to get Physx to run on my AMD/ATI System, specs are:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 (3.2ghz quad)
ATI 5870 1GB DDR5
4GB Of Ram 1333mhz
And my nvidia card is an 8600 GTS 512 mb
Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit

Anyway, I have my 5870 inserted into my mobo with a powercord and the monitor connected to it, the 8600 is inserted in my other pci-e slot with just a power cord.
I uninstalled my ati driver and physx driver, and basically followed this:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=318870
After a ton of different Nvidia driver tests, I came to the conclusion that It went from 9-11 FPS (when no nvidia card was in), to 14-17 FPS (when my 8600 GTS was running physx) in the fluidmark 1.2 test.
Is that a normal increase for such a card, as I did read that the 8600 was really crappy for processing physx, if so, what card for phsyx should I get if I want to run physx (on a 1680x1050 resolution) on games like Mirrors edge and the upcoming Mafia 2?
Im thinking, IF i could need a new graphics card to process physx, it would either be an 8800GTX, or a 9800 GTX+, or a GTS 250, or a GTX 260, what should I go with if I need a newer card? And which one would be the quietest?
And would I have any problems when Running a DX11 main card and having a DX10 card process physx for a DX11 rendered game?
Or, maybe im just not enabling physx correctly?
Thanks

[CairnisReed]

Ok, so, Im not sure what the heck is up...I tried Catalyst 10.4, and Nvidia 257.21 drivers, I applied the physx mod 1.04ff, and going into GPU-Z, physx is checked for both of my cards, but when I ran Fluidmark with the same settings as I did the previous tests, I only got 9-11 FPS again!

Seriously, is the 8600 GTS that bad?

[WhiteLightning]

physx isnt enabled. it says CPU physx on the results.
did the patching say it was ok ?

[CairnisReed]

Yes Im quite sure it said that everything was fine, I will try it again, just to be sure though

[cliffgamerz]

did you extend your monitor.

Follow the guide here
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=322616

Edithysx works great here,not like 9800 or 250,but can be set to low or medium in batman AA

[CairnisReed]

Yes, I extended the desktops, except, I ran the physx mod 1.04 BEFORE the reboot, I will try it the way that guide suggests it.

Also, yes, I made sure that the physx patch was successful/ok, whitelightning

Also uh, I like running my games on max settings, would an 8600 GTS be enough to render all the physx for things on max settings? Or would I need a new card?

[WhiteLightning]

Originally Posted by CairnisReed

Also uh, I like running my games on max settings, would an 8600 GTS be enough to render all the physx for things on max settings? Or would I need a new card?

nope.
batman requires a dedicated 260 to run high very smooth.
remember, you can still OC it a bit, so you will get a bit better performance.

[cliffgamerz]

i dont think 8600gts makes the cut even by overclocking,because physx uses cuda cores,higher the amount more the effects can be rendered smoothly.i tried batman AA as it has 3 settings,at low and medium it is playable on 8600gts,on high settings it crawls down to 19fps,ie about 14~15 fps down from medium settings on my rig which i play at 1440x900.so in case of white it may work very good for him cause he has 8800gtx.so the recommeded card for mafia 2 is 260gtx or 280gtx as given out by developers,buti personally think it is a waste to invest on additional physx card as such.

[Redemption80]

A dedicated GTX260 isn't really needed for Batman:AA, even using a single 260 to do the rendering and PhysX i rarely dropped under 30fps.

For Batman and Mirrors Edge a Nvidia GPU with 96-128SP should be enough to keep it near 60fps, but for Mafia2 then i would look for a cheap GTX260, as with only 32SP a 8600GTS won't give you much, if any benefit over using a good CPU.

[CairnisReed]

:\ Well, I tried the guide cliffgamerz posted, that didnt work either, im still at 9-11 FPS

What am I doing wrong ?!

Also, this is a pretty good GTX, no?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130462
But I dont want to spend $130 unless I know that its going to work

[teleguy]

Please show a sreenshot of your Fluidmark settings.

[CairnisReed]

Both of these yield the same results of 9-11 FPS

[teleguy]

Untick "Force Physx CPU".

[CairnisReed]

unticking that got me to 13-15 FPS on both :\

[teleguy]

My guess would be the number of emitters was changed too.

[CairnisReed]

Nope, still 3

[cliffgamerz]

Originally Posted by CairnisReed

:\ Well, I tried the guide cliffgamerz posted, that didnt work either, im still at 9-11 FPS

What am I doing wrong ?!

Also, this is a pretty good GTX, no?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130462
But I dont want to spend $130 unless I know that its going to work

that 260 is 192SP find one with 216 for less price otherwise its not worth it.Remove the tick mark from unlock emitters and post your screenshot and i will post mine too.

[CairnisReed]

Ok, Yeah, turning the emitters to 1 and ticking A sync helped ALOT.


I got the same result with 1680x1050 fullscreen mode!
However, when I turn Async off, It goes back to 13-15 FPS, what exactly is A-Sync mode?? Does A-sync have anything to do with V-sync?

Also, when I try to run my Mirrors Edge, the small picture of Faith and the words mirrors edge pop up in the middle, that goes away as it normally does, and it a black window goes to fullscreen, after that it normally played the EA intro, but instead it crashes. Im going to try and reinstall it, but I dont know if that will help, I just thought I would bring to attention that it crashes, because I played the game successfully right before I started trying all this Physx mod stuff.

Should I try updating my physx drivers to the latest?

UPDATE: For some reason, Windows doesnt think I have it installed, it says I only have 39 programs installed, when I have more like 100 :\, Anyway, using the control panel + uninstall a program is the only way to uninstall mirrors edge, so scratch that....

UPDATE 2: HA! CCleaner can uninstall programs, im currently downloading the patch for mirrors edge, I hope this works...

[CairnisReed]

Well thats weird, When I installed it, it worked, but after updating it to patch 1.01 which gives 'physx fixes', it gave me the same problem...

[Jonny Manc]

I can recommend a GT240 for Physx.....does all the details in Batman

[CairnisReed]

Alright man, ill have to compare price vs preformance of it to the GTX 260 and the GT250 we'll see, thanks for the input.

On an unrelated note, i uninstalled the game again, didnt patch it, and it works! Im running max settings and getting 40-60 fps!

Thanks Guys.
Any other recommendations on cards I should get?

[Jonny Manc]

I have the DDR5 version of the GT240 btw....slight overclock.

I chose it for the lack of external power requirement (ie takes power from the motherboard) and its decent performance (equiv to a 9600gt ish). Also, its tiny and produces little heat / noise too......and it was only £50

[CairnisReed]

Nice, noise level is important to me

Also, does anyone know why it crashes when I update to patch 1.01 for mirrors edge? without it, most of the levels are bugged and I cant play them...
Without this physx mod ive been able to play it patched...so I thought other people would have ran into this problem.

Lastly, when I try to start up ATI CCC, it gives me an error and says 'Windows cannot find cli, make sure you typed the name correctly and try again' ????

I mean, Im not to concerned about it, I only have ever used CCC when I changed the 3D thing from Middle to Performance graphics, but if it cant find cli or whatever, is that going to effect my performance or computer in general?

[Jonny Manc]

Sounds to me like something has not quite happened right in terms of the install!!

The latest NV drivers work ok (well certainly the 257.21's that I use ) with the latest Physx patch.....tried those?

[CairnisReed]

Im using 258.96 for nvidia, and 10.4 (which I used successfully before this physx mod stuff) for catalyst, im just going to reinstall everything after i wipe the drivers, in terms of updating physx, do I do that before or after i apply the mod and restart???