Is Physx important?

Canis Lupus

So it's GFX upgrade time. My choice is between the AMD 280x or the Nvidia 960. The 280x is marginally faster but uses more power but if I pick the AMD I lose physx. Both cards pretty much cost the same here in Australia as well.

I've had a look and there aren't that many games that truly use physx however I have some of the games that do use it and I like the extra effects ie I think Batman looks a bit crapper once you do away with the physx doohickeys.

So I'm a bit torn... Help me choose. Is physx important to you?

Dcully

Its very noticeable in borderlands 2 say in puddles of lava or toxic liquids that break up into smaller puddles , looks very impressive but it wouldnt be a deal maker or breaker to me.
If they cost the same id go with nvidia, i just prefer their drivers and lower consumption,physx is an added bonus.
If either was was say +5 to +10% performance id jump on that.

Kiith

I remember them making a big deal of it a few years ago, but haven't heard much about it in recent years. I remember Mafia 2 looking a lot better, and i think Assassins Creed 4 had some additional PhysX features. I've owned an nVidia card in years though, so i can't really say.

Canis Lupus

Well I pondered all day and went with the AMD card. I figured whilst purdy, physx isn't present in enough games to edge out the faster card.

EoinHef

280X is the better card,good choice.

ScumLord

Nvidia seem to be making their cards rift ready too. I'll probably be upgrading to a 900 series card if they will run the rift better.

lmimmfn

OSI wrote: »

What ever about PhysX, the amount of games I hear of performing poorly on AMD cards that should be more than capable of them would steer me towards the Nvidia.

Frankly these sort of comments really annoy me, both AMD and Nvidia generally have performance issues with games that need to be sorted in driver updates. Nvidia is just as bad as AMD. I had NVidia FX5200, AMD 850Pro, Nvidia 7800GTX, GTX260,AMD 5850, AMD6970, NVidia 780Ti and from those both NVidia and AMD have had performance issues and driver issues. So singling out one being better than the other is nonsensical. The only current downside to AMD is their driver updates are less frequent than they were.

ScumLord wrote: »

Nvidia seem to be making their cards rift ready too. I'll probably be upgrading to a 900 series card if they will run the rift better.

Both AMD and Nvidia are implementing solutions for SLI/Crossfire for VR, Nvidia just stuck it on a slide for the 970/980 cards and nothing has happened since.( Im sure it will soon enough but adding it as a bullet point for the 970/980 cards was stupid ).

Sierra Oscar

Kiith wrote: »

I remember them making a big deal of it a few years ago, but haven't heard much about it in recent years. I remember Mafia 2 looking a lot better, and i think Assassins Creed 4 had some additional PhysX features. I've owned an nVidia card in years though, so i can't really say.

Yeah a huge song and dance was made about it a few years ago. It evidently hasn't been as revolutionary as some in the industry were making out it would be. All the same there are quite a few games optimized for it - but I wouldn't be too sure that you would miss it.

Canis Lupus

OSI wrote: »

What ever about PhysX, the amount of games I hear of performing poorly on AMD cards that should be more than capable of them would steer me towards the Nvidia.

As a general rule over the years I've always picked the best card for my budget so I've had both AMD and Nvidia cards and I don't recall either brand standing out as troublesome. Maybe over a decade ago AMD drivers were seen as sub par but I don't believe this to be the case anymore.

ScumLord wrote: »

Nvidia seem to be making their cards rift ready too. I'll probably be upgrading to a 900 series card if they will run the rift better.

I've tried the rift, great little thing but I stand by my comments I made in the dedicated thread. Ie I'd never get home after a day at work to put that on to play games so Nvidia being rift ready wouldn't have influenced me.

BeerWolf

Eh, I'm sure PhysX will make a comeback once you can't get any more better the graphics of a game... next move would be the processing of physics, naturally. So I'd imagine within the next 10 years we'll be seeing games, for example, where tiny particles like sand and snow actually accumulates and you can move around at a granular level.

Currently it's all pre-rendered, static, stuff... even in that demo of The Division that showed the snow melting away and such.

eastyy

i find myself switching phsyx off as the performance hit i found to annoying i noticed on a 970 i was getting good frame rates but when something happens where the phsyx is used then the frame rate would halve

ScumLord

Canis Lupus wrote: »

I've tried the rift, great little thing but I stand by my comments I made in the dedicated thread. Ie I'd never get home after a day at work to put that on to play games so Nvidia being rift ready wouldn't have influenced me.

I think that will change with time. As far as I can see the HTC/Valve headset has a camera and it sounds like it will be able to tell how much room you actually have to move around, IE: It will take note of the restrictions in your room and allow you to move within those confines, it should be able to inform you of when other people enter the room as well, the thought of being obilvious to someone standing behind me is a freaky one. It will be able to give you the big PC feeling with minimum tech.

eastyy

saw a oculus rift for sale in cex was soooo tempted to pick it up but then decided nahh i shall wait

Shiminay

Was the idea for PhysX that you'd have a second (or third) card dedicated to it and your main card for just the graphical grunt? I vaguely remember when it was first announced they were talking about being able to use a flagship card like a 295 (at the time, maybe? Can't remember exactly) and a low powered something like a 9800 as backup just to handly PhysX work.

eastyy

mentions something about using second gpu as physx on the nvidia website the less powerful card most people saying it is really not worth it

nesf

Shiminay wrote: »

Was the idea for PhysX that you'd have a second (or third) card dedicated to it and your main card for just the graphical grunt? I vaguely remember when it was first announced they were talking about being able to use a flagship card like a 295 (at the time, maybe? Can't remember exactly) and a low powered something like a 9800 as backup just to handly PhysX work.

Originally it was a separate special purpose card. Didn't sell well as most games didn't go out of their way to support it because not many people had one as it seemed a pointless expense with few games supporting it. Then Nvidia bought the company and changed the focus to GPU based calculations.

eastyy

I remember at the time being such a odd thing to do and was thinking what next a card for AI ?

nesf

eastyy wrote: »

I remember at the time being such a odd thing to do and was thinking what next a card for AI ?

Yeah I remember my first reaction was "Cool! About time!" (I did physics in college, so special interest). Then it was "It costs that much!?" Then reading reviews was depressing, it didn't seem to do that much for games.

eastyy

nesf wrote: »

Yeah I remember my first reaction was "Cool! About time!" (I did physics in college, so special interest). Then it was "It costs that much!?" Then reading reviews was depressing, it didn't seem to do that much for games.

I seem to recall it either came with a game or there was one released designed to make use of it but then after it was discovered that the game with a simple command prompt could be made to run on a system without physx

nesf

eastyy wrote: »

I seem to recall it either came with a game or there was one released designed to make use of it but then after it was discovered that the game with a simple command prompt could be made to run on a system without physx

Yeah I think I remember that too.

gizmo

That was probably the first release of CellFactor which was essentially a tech demo of an arena based shooter with a whole bunch of interactable objects that you could manipulate via either explosions or telekinesis-like powers. There was also a massive flag at the back of the level which could be destroyed in real time to show off the cloth physics.

While the demo could be run without a PhysX PPU at the time, the cloth wasn't loaded in this mode by default. While the object interaction wasn't too heavy on the CPU I seem to remember the cloth being enabled at a later date and it absolutely destroying the frame rate at the time.