Mafia 2 PhysX Problem - Page 3

VMax Tuner · 08-12-2010, 09:06 | posts: 60

Well I`ve tried the Demo after the update and the only thing I can say is that I haven`t found a bit that changed with the update. Performance is the same so is the demo.

Cheers!

Steve30x · *Last edited by Steve30x; 08-14-2010 at 00:04.*

Ive tried all suggestions on this thread and I cant get Physx to run on my GPU.

[EDIT] GPUZ reports my GPU doesnt have PHYSX and is running on PCI Express 1.1 instead of PCI Express 2.0

08-14-2010, 07:37 | posts: n/a

i dunno whats been going on...but if i set physx to my GTX470..and run apex on High in game..physx indicator says GPU..then i get hardly any useage on my 470 (15 to 30% max!) and my CPU is maxed out..

but if i run physx set to my 9400GT..i get 70-80% usage on the 470 and about 92% usage on the 9400..and cpu usage drops to about half...

im using 259.31s and the .513 physx...

its weird aswell...sometimes ill run the benchmark and get fps of over 60..and other times ill get constant 20 WITH THE SAME SETTINGS! (im restarting the game every time i make a change)..

i think this demo is really, really buggy and not worth wasting any time with...hopefully they'll get it sorted before the games release

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve30x

Ive tried all suggestions on this thread and I cant get Physx to run on my GPU.

[EDIT] GPUZ reports my GPU doesnt have PHYSX and is running on PCI Express 1.1 instead of PCI Express 2.0

if gpuz cant see physx then it hasnt been installed correctly...

from what ive read.. Apex on Medium requires atleast a GTX470..High requires a dedicated 470 for physx..maybe why you cant get it to run on your 280...and may have somethin to do with my issues!

Steve30x · *Last edited by Steve30x; 08-14-2010 at 07:58.*

Ive uninstalled Physix completely through your uninstaller 2010 and driver sweeper and reinstalled it. Also its just not Apex physix is running on my CPU but all other physix enabled games show that my CPU is being used for physx. Ive enabled the OSD to show wether the GPU or CPU is being used for Physx.

VMax Tuner · 08-14-2010, 09:50 | posts: 60

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve30x

Ive tried all suggestions on this thread and I cant get Physx to run on my GPU.

[EDIT] GPUZ reports my GPU doesnt have PHYSX and is running on PCI Express 1.1 instead of PCI Express 2.0

Hmm weird, but your card is in the right PCI-E slot right?! And I guess drivers for MB, GPU and PhysX Software are up to date as well.

Did it ran already or you never had PhysX running on your GPU?!

Steve30x · *Last edited by Steve30x; 08-14-2010 at 15:23.*

Yes both PCI Express slots are v2.0 and both are 16x. I had it running with Physix won a dedicated 8800GTX for a while but the 8800GTX died a month ago. I also had Physx running on this GTX280 before. But I think my motherboard might be starting to kick the bucket. Its getting slower every day with the past two weeks and its starting to hang on me when its stressed enough. All drivers for motherboard , GPU and Physx are up to date.

I am about to reinstall windows 7 though because thats gone funny on me also which could also be causing the hangups and slowdowns. Ive tested for spyware , viruses and trojans with nothing present.

EDIT I got the PHYSX working on my GPU after a clean windows install.

VMax Tuner · 08-14-2010, 16:26 | posts: 60

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve30x

Yes both PCI Express slots are v2.0 and both are 16x. I had it running with Physix won a dedicated 8800GTX for a while but the 8800GTX died a month ago. I also had Physx running on this GTX280 before. But I think my motherboard might be starting to kick the bucket. Its getting slower every day with the past two weeks and its starting to hang on me when its stressed enough. All drivers for motherboard , GPU and Physx are up to date.

I am about to reinstall windows 7 though because thats gone funny on me also which could also be causing the hangups and slowdowns. Ive tested for spyware , viruses and trojans with nothing present.

EDIT I got the PHYSX working on my GPU after a clean windows install.

Yeah the good old Windows...as always full of surprises!!!

Steve30x · 08-14-2010, 16:27 | posts: 367 | Location: Ireland

This motherboard and CPU is full of surprises also. Its not doing so well lately. I think I am due an upgrade

VMax Tuner · 08-14-2010, 17:42 | posts: 60

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve30x

This motherboard and CPU is full of surprises also. Its not doing so well lately. I think I am due an upgrade

Tried a new BIOS?! But I hope your board doesn`t turn out to be like my old
ASUS Striker Extreme, man that board was the crapiest piece of hardware I ever
had. ASUS are making very good parts most of the time, but sometimes they are building scrap with a high price-tag on. Probably when QA is on vacation...

Steve30x · 08-14-2010, 18:23 | posts: 367 | Location: Ireland

I have the newest bios installed. This motherboard and CPU is three years old at this stage anyway and its been used a lot. I have a good laptop just in case this dies anyway.

Rich_Guy · 08-14-2010, 22:01 | posts: 6,679 | Location: UK

The update just downloads the latest PhysX software, which you have to install yourself, you'll find it in Steam/SteamApps/common/Mafia2/3rd.

If you havn't already uninstalled the previous one, then you have to run the latest one twice, as the first time you run it, it will just uninstall the previous, so you have to run it again, so that it will then install the latest.

VMax Tuner · 08-15-2010, 10:25 | posts: 60

Hey guys, I just did a comparison out of curiosity between my rig and my laptop and thought I might post it. As you can see there isn`t much difference in the settings execpt for a little lower resolution, AF only at 8, no AA and PhysX turned off. I have to say since it`s only a 15.4" Screen you won`t even see that the resolution is lower and that AA is off. The only visual noticable difference is the AF. But keep in mind this is only a single 8800M GTX, so basically a 8800 GT. Not to forget, it`s a first generation AW M15x with drivers from the stone age 18X.XX!

VMax Tuner · **259.32 tried -** 08-16-2010, 10:16 | posts: 60

I just tried the new 259.32 drivers on Mafia 2 and for me there was no difference to the old drivers. But it`s SLI related and since a lot of single-card users found some improvement it`s definately worth a try!

azynkron · **Memory**: DDR3 12Gib 7-7-7-24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Copey

Yeah with the patch/crack it does, i would get a 9600GT instead of the 8800GT mike, less power and heat plus does the job just aswell.

I read somewhere that they recommend no lower than 9800GTX for Physx in Mafia 2 if you have it as a slave card. I have a 9800GT, and it does tend to get hickups every now and then. Could be the drivers though.

Copey · 08-17-2010, 15:53 | posts: 10,646 | Location: U.K

Quote:

Originally Posted by azynkron

I read somewhere that they recommend no lower than 9800GTX for Physx in Mafia 2 if you have it as a slave card. I have a 9800GT, and it does tend to get hickups every now and then. Could be the drivers though.

Yeah they reccomend a 260GTX for high, but i run the game on high fine.

VMax Tuner · 08-17-2010, 16:13 | posts: 60

Quote:

Originally Posted by azynkron

I read somewhere that they recommend no lower than 9800GTX for Physx in Mafia 2 if you have it as a slave card. I have a 9800GT, and it does tend to get hickups every now and then. Could be the drivers though.

Really!? I only have a GT240 as a dedicated card and so far it runs great, at least in the Demo. Maybe in the full game I might push it to the limits. So I tend to think it might be driver related hickups because a 9800GT has more than double the shaders of my GT240!

VMax Tuner · 08-17-2010, 16:18 | posts: 60

Oh I found this one on THG... C`mon seriously a dedicated 285 GTX for APEX high?! A little much isn`t it?!

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/maf...ded,10836.html

cat_fish_1 · 08-17-2010, 20:45 | posts: 3 | Location: Sweden

Quote:

Originally Posted by VMax Tuner

Oh I found this one on THG... C`mon seriously a dedicated 285 GTX for APEX high?! A little much isn`t it?!

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/maf...ded,10836.html

I have a GTX 260 as physx and it loads about 55-60% tops when it runs physx i mafia2 demo, so a GTX 285 sounds overkill.

Radical_53 · 08-17-2010, 21:21 | posts: 2,261 | Location: Germany

I was thinking about a GT 240 max for Physx. Maybe I'll just wait and see if they can clear the situation with optimized drivers and a better working build of the game.

VMax Tuner · 08-18-2010, 08:54 | posts: 60

As far as I know PhysX performance is all based on the number and speed of Shaders since it basically is a CUDA Application so I would look out for that. I would have gotten myself something with more Shaders but you haven`t much options from a GT 240 upwards if you wanna have a single-slot card. I BIOS tweaked it so the card runs at 625/1522 Mhz on the GPU. As said I haven`t found a drawback so far!

Radical_53 · 08-18-2010, 09:36 | posts: 2,261 | Location: Germany

Doesn't sound too bad

I did a search for cards with a good performance-per-watt ratio that were also available with passive cooling.
To make it worth the effort a GT 240 woule need to give a bigger performance boost than for example overclocking the main graphics card and CPU up to the same increase in power consumption as the additional card would "cost".
I guess I'll dig through some more benchmakrs and try it out

VMax Tuner · 08-18-2010, 13:20 | posts: 60

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radical_53

Doesn't sound too bad

I did a search for cards with a good performance-per-watt ratio that were also available with passive cooling.
To make it worth the effort a GT 240 woule need to give a bigger performance boost than for example overclocking the main graphics card and CPU up to the same increase in power consumption as the additional card would "cost".
I guess I'll dig through some more benchmakrs and try it out

Sure thing, but overclocking only works to a certain degree, after that you just turn up the heat on your GPU without any reasonable increase in performance.
Since you seem to be from Germany I got this example:

http://www.hartware.de/news_49770.html

Cheers!

Radical_53 · 08-18-2010, 14:04 | posts: 2,261 | Location: Germany

Thanks

Yes I know there's a limit. The good thing with the 400 series is though that they have these software-controllable voltage regulators

For example I can run my card at 700MHz with 0.900V or 775MHz with 0.975V. The performance scales accordingly in this range but the "higher" setting consumes about 30-40W, depending on the application, more energy. If I can use those 40W and give it to a Physx card to get 30-40% more performance, this of course would be preferrable. It would have to be significantly faster due to the additional cost and limited use.

VMax Tuner · 08-19-2010, 09:47 | posts: 60

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radical_53

Thanks

Yes I know there's a limit. The good thing with the 400 series is though that they have these software-controllable voltage regulators

For example I can run my card at 700MHz with 0.900V or 775MHz with 0.975V. The performance scales accordingly in this range but the "higher" setting consumes about 30-40W, depending on the application, more energy. If I can use those 40W and give it to a Physx card to get 30-40% more performance, this of course would be preferrable. It would have to be significantly faster due to the additional cost and limited use.

Good point! But I had quite a few graphic-cards in my life like the Voodoo 2 and 3 and I used the Voodoo 3 for about 3 years in an overclocked state (200 Mhz with a converted P1 cooler on it....those where the times...) and it never made any problems. So I don`t think you would run into a "limited use" in terms of the lifespan of your GPU. I never have seen a GPU goin`up in smoke because it was used too long. But on the other hand you would always use the i.e. 40 additional Watts in a 3D application even if you play things like the old Half-Life, and that would just be a waste. The GT 240 clocks down in idle and according to the THG review then only uses around 15 Watts...but thats always the case even when its not used. So energy wise in the end its about the same I guess!

Cheers!

Radical_53 · 08-19-2010, 17:02 | posts: 2,261 | Location: Germany

I don't think the card would bust but rather the CPU to limit a further performance increase at a certain point. Just like it makes sense to get a CPU with more cores instead of higher clock speeds at a certain point. I guess I'll just get a card and try it out when the game arrives. If I don't like it it won't be impossible to get rid of it again