ATI + NVIDIA card for PhysX?

Any chance that a GeForce card could be used as a secondary card for PhysX when the main card is an ATI card?

 

Either way seems a win win situation for Nvidia to allow and support, since you would still need to buy a ge-force card to get the physics out even though , you use Ati.
Give it a show and tell us what your results are

 

If I remember correctly, Vista will not allow two different video drivers at the same time and will shut down one of the cards. I don't know about Windows XP.

 

Not true...you can run Nvidia card as physx with ATI in Vista.

 

Hmm.. I tried that configuration ( 4870 as main video card and 8800 GT as PhysX accelerator ). Unfortunately Vista (x64) said there are more than 2 video cards available and shut down 8800 GT ( with yellow exclamation mark in device manager )

On the other hand I didn't test it on Windows XP.. It could be possible to run both cards without problem.

 

is really possible

 

This is a bad news. I have already ordered an used 8500GT ($45). And I use Vista x64 too but I will test it with XP.

 

I figured that two graphics cards will not work. If NVIDIA releases a separate driver (like the current PhysX System Software, but enabled for all GPUs), maybe that's work?

 

what they should do is release a seperate driver to assign it as a PPU instead of a VPU.. solves the vista issue

 

Current Geforce-Physx version works with a CUDA wrapper and CUDA is supported by the forceware GPU driver...
So someone should make a customised forceware which show the device as an undetermined general purpose accelerator card or something (but not a VGA card) which can be utilised by CUDA. It is hard to imagine.
But Microsoft can make a Vista hotfix to enable two VGA cards and fix this issue with windows desktop extending. More hard to believe. :banana:

 

I'm pretty sure Microsoft will not enable using two graphics cards in Vista.

As for using one as a PPU, the question is how Vista is detecting the card. That'd determine if the driver can tell it it's not a graphics card.

 

I truly hope we get driver for this.

I have 8600GT waiting in friends machine ( just have to buy him cheapest PCI-e card in the world =)

 

How did Hilbert test the GTX280 with the 9600?

Did he use Vista? Cause a GTX280 and 9600 are two different series also right?

Or does the GTX280 belomng to the 9-Series? If not they should be 2 different
drivers and a will cause problems with Vista.

Would love to have the EN9600GT MATRIX, love that design and want to have
it as Physx.

But my concern is not only the cards being of differents series, but also my P45 motherboard.

Would it work?

 

You're right. I guess Vista just prevents two graphics drivers from being used, not physically blocking more than one card. There's some hope then that PhysX specific drivers will work.

 

bad move?, idk, but a guy tried with a 8400gs (this 1 with physx)+9800gtx and he got same effect than 9800gtx without phyx

 

Actually I find a solution to make it possble on Radeon X1900 and GeForce 8400GS on Windows XP, although it wasn't that easy to unlock. Take a look:
http://forum.pclab.pl/t390173.html
Hopes the screenshots are self-explanatory, I may write a translated tutorial later today.

 

The GTX 200 series uses the same driver as the 9000 and 8000 series, hence why the 9600 GT worked fine with the GTX 280.

It all boils down to WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) and how it works in Vista. If you could run the card with a driver other than a display driver, it would work flawlessly with ATI cards. But because of how it works as a CUDA wrapper, and how CUDA is a part of the display drivers, it simply won't work in Vista.

 

and i got a 8800GT just sitting next to me.. lol

also here is a question.. will using a GPU as a PPU generate as much heat and power consumtion as if it was used for regular use...

 

Check this topic: Radeon VGA + Geforce Physx works on XP but not on Vista