PhysX for AMD GPU - fact or myth?!?!

I've seen some YouTube tuts on people using AMD cards running PhysX, spme of the vids were out dated.

So I figured the best place to ask this question would be here, being as this forum is the mecca of all GFX hardware forums.

Your thoughts. PLZ!

P.S. I am pretty syre this question has been asked 1000 times :bang:

Sooo.. srry for the repost.

 

There hasn't been a significant game to come out since Borderlands 2 that uses PhysX anyway. I have never seen PhysX yet that felt "I wish I had an Nvidia card so I could do that" BL2 for example was pretty awful actually and you could run it off your CPU and get almost all the same effects It was mostly HUGE expulsions of particles that piled up like snow on the gorund and just killed yout FPS. The water and the flag effects weer nice but it's just window dressing you run right past and as for the previous example ugly and over top and wrecked your performance

 

It works, but you're limited to older drivers and need a hack tool - one old guide
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=318870

 

AFAIK it did not work on the AMD GPU. Some time ago there were some cracked/modified nVidia drivers that allowed you to have both an AMD GPU set as the primary graphics card and some cheap PhysX capable nVidia card as a dedicated PhysX card.

 

I have Ran R9 290 + 680 Physx.
Windows 8.1 Pro
13.12 AMD Driver
314.22 Nvidia driver.

You can always search google
How To: Fix Hybrid PhysX with latest PhysX and Geforce 285+ [SOLVED!]

Follow directions for each game to have GPU Physx

I uninstalled all drivers in safe mode with DDU.

Run PreHybrd Physx
Installed AMD Driver-reboot
Install Nvidia Driver -reboot
Run Hybridiz

Code:

Most games work fine except any game with SDK 3.x or newer in the future Nvidia Blocking AMD just sucks hard

So, Hybrid Phys'X work with: List may be incomplete
7554
Alice: Madness Returns
Auto Assault
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Batman: Arkham City
Bioshock 1,2, Infinite, Brutal at Sea
Borderlands 2
Bureau: XCOM Declassified
Bet on Soldier: Blood Sport
Bet on Soldier: Blood of Sahara
Bet on Soldier: Black-Out Saigon
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare
Crazy Machines II
Cryostasis
Dark Void
Darkest of Days
Deadfall Adventures
EverQuest Next
Hot Dance Party
Hot Dance Party II
Mafia 2
Mars
Metal Knight Zero
Mercenary Ops
Metal Knight Zero Online
Metro 2033
Metro: Last Light
Medal of Honor: Airborne
Mirror's Edge
Need for Speed: Shift
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Sacred 2: Ice & Blood
Passion Leads Army
PlanetSide 2
Project CARS
QQ Dance 2
Rift
Rise of the Triad
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (GRAW2)
Unreal Tournament 3

3d Mark Vantage
3dMark06
PhysX FluidMark

Doesn't work:
ARMA 3
Assasins Creed IV
Batman: Arkham Origins
Star Citizen
Star Trek
Star Trek: D-A-C
CellFactor: Combat Training
Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt
CellFactor: Revolution
City of Villains
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Hawken
The Great Kulu
Mortal Combat Complite Edition
Warframe
Warmonger - Operation: Downtown Destruction
Velvet Assassin
The Secret World

Demo run Fluid Mark



GPU-Z Screen

 

Interesting details gentlemen

Couple of places I have visited have pointed out that if you have a AMD card, you just need to install the latest version of PhsyX, an have it running while you are playing your game?

 

If you have an AMD card, PhysX defaults to CPU. Nothing special required. "Hardware accelerated" PhysX will NOT run on an AMD GPU though.

 

There used to be a work around where you use a Nvidia card in secondary slot for it. but that work around tool haven't been updated in a while and I doubt it still works now, well it could if you use older Nvidia drivers to do it. But normally physX GPU is for Nvidia cards only so other wise you either have to switch cards if you want it that badly or deal with using the CPU rendering of it.

 

Some games actually need the PhysX software installed, and won't run without it using an AMD card, which uses the CPU in any case unless you hack it for Hybrid like above.

Games like Mass Effect 1. So it's still an important component to have if you encounter those games that black screen without it.

Even if you don't/aren't using an Nvidia card.

 

Just gonna put this out there....

I think Nvidia don't want to open up PhysX and port it over to OpenCL mainly because I believe AMD cards would either match Nvidia cards in the same tier but more of me thinks that AMD cards would pull ahead thanks to better OpenCL support and better DirectCompute.

JUST MY OPINION (MORE GUESSING).

 

I agree with your opinion and to be honest PhysX ain't too impressive anyways which is why they have not pushed it too much as of late.

 

Lord, nv offered physx to amd and they declined it, why does everybody thing nvidia is not allowing it?

 

Why do they block PhysX from working if an AMD GPU is also installed then?

 

Wasn't it at a cost, though? If I remember right, AMD would have been paying Nv a healthy amount. Considering the amount of supported games, it wouldn't have been worth their time. It's a shame in one respect if that is the case (and I'm pretty sure it is), as we might have seen a new industry standard by now. I realise that companies need to make money, but I honestly believe that a lot of developments should be open.

 

Well isn't physx designed to work on CUDA cores just like mantle is designed to run on GCN?

Thing is, Mantle would be alot more useful than Physx but AMD don't like to share either

 

Mantle is open, so I'm not sure where you're getting that from. It's currently still in beta, AMD have stated since the start that it will be open to anyone that wants it.

 

nah... I like my mantle, but mantle is as closed as it gets, with AMD promises to one day be as open as CUDA

I don't think they are actively blocking it, but they will not be supporting it. Something along the lines - "what do we do when we meet a bug and it's due to unsupported GPU"

Anyway I think that's mistake, they should have offered for free compatibility layer for AMD.
Not that that would stop "Nvidia cripples AMD yadayadayada" threads,
(there would be more of those actually ) but in order to spread their GPU acceleration.
CPU PhysX being already the most widespread gaming physics system.

 

No AmD would be required to add support into new cards as their cards didn't support it at a hardware level. This was back in the 8800days. Nvidia did not mention any royalty of the sort, amd declined the offer because they thought it wouldn't last long(my guess, no real reasons.) to put it simply, nv offered the source code, amd said no thanks.

 

PhysX was designed to work on x87 based processors....not NVidia's hardware specifically. NVidia modified it, after purchasing Ageia, to run on CUDA. PhysX could just as easily be modified to run on OpenCL if NVidia cared to do it. Problem is, that would bump up CPU based PhysX performance as well as making it compatible with AMD's hardware.....then PhysX would no longer be a selling point for NVidia graphics cards.

 

I have no idea who would end up faster, but...

if PhysX was truly built implementing low-level CUDA - then true CUDA hw would obviously be better suited to run CUDA code.
Then again I am not sure that is the case, because too often PhysX is performance killer.

Anyway I don't think that is the reason for keeping it closed (or "opened"). Simply put PhysX is just another NV differentiation perk and marketing tool.