PhysX

[=war cloud= 10]

I have tried PhysX in A3 on an ATI and framerate steadily holds its ground :icon_twisted:

If i may ask you?, what ATI Radeon drivers did you test with?, thanks.

[Leon86 13]

Physx has nothing to do with ati drivers.

[twisted 127]

i hope BIS got paid by Nvidia for this decision. I'd do the same for a nice wad of cash.

i personally always choose ATI for being best for price/performance. And i will probably will continue doing that despite this thread.

however, i am going to build a new pc for arma3 and noticed that some motherboards come with integrated nvidia gpu - hopefully that integrated gpu could be used for the Physx and my ATI for the GFX.

edit - i notice some people offering the phrase it is still playable on ati - well i darn hope so - and playable can mean 10fps to some people. but i reckon the performance on nvidia would be better and smoother. and in a big battle that'd make a big difference.

Edited July 13, 2011 by twisted

[5LEvEN 11]

The only (from my observations in the year 2011) reason you can consider AMD cheaper is because of the lower power consumption. Power use cost money, so it is cheaper to run an AMD card. AMD and Nvidia cards are priced about the same. I personally go with Nvidia because of the better driver support, as with better drivers comes better performance, thus a Nvidia card is almost better in performance with the latest drivers for each. Nvidia's new GPU series kepler is supposed to have better watt/performance ratio... Just a heads up...

[sqb-sma 66]

hmmm, what observations are you making :j:

I have an ati card, for an (speed and vram) equivalent card by Nvidia I was going to have to fork out 100-200 dollars more (180 dollars vs 370 dollars, current pricing, it was different when I bought the card).

The difference is that you get more features with nvidia such as: 3d, Cuda support (and hence video card based physx, not to be confused with the physx physics engine) and generally better support.

here are some statistics for now:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

for comparing graphics cards (high end). use ctrl f to find the 6870 and the GeForce GTX 470 (the closest card by nvidia to the 6870)

price:

ati 6870: $189

nvidia gtx270 (geforce): $369

And yes, I have way too much time on my hands at the moment :D

[Leon86 13]

the gtx470 is a discontinued card, if you're going to compare to anything compare to a gtx560 (non ti). Although one with a ti is a better bang/buck.

The decent ati/nvdia cards all have about the same price/performance. idle power consumption is near identical as well.

[=war cloud= 10]

Physx has nothing to do with ati drivers.

Then how is it possible for PhysX to run on a Radeon gpu?, as far as i am aware Radeon gpu's don't have a physX chip built into any of amd's graphic cards. Unless of course it has all changed just recently?. I know my Radeon 5970 can not do physX without using modified radeon drivers in windows 7.

Maybe someone could give me some pointers?, i could probably make use of the spare 5970 just sitting in its box doing nothing (except aging away :).

Cheers

[maddogx 13]

Then how is it possible for PhysX to run on a Radeon gpu?

It's not*. PhysX would be running on the CPU.

(*: Well, currently impossible, and very, very unlikely to happen.)

Edited July 13, 2011 by MadDogX

[=war cloud= 10]

It's not. PhysX would be running on the CPU.

Exactly, and causing slow downs no doubt?, well from my experience cpu's struggle with PhysX. Something has changed then because a bi dev said framerates were ok in arma3 with physX and Radeon gpu's. Maybe i misunderstood what was actually being discussed?.

[dmarkwick 261]

Exactly, and causing slow downs no doubt?, well from my experience cpu's struggle with PhysX. Something has changed then because a bi dev said framerates were ok in arma3 with physX and Radeon gpu's. Maybe i misunderstood what was actually being discussed?.

You misunderstood. PhysX as employed by ArmA3 is the software implementation not the hardware implementation.

[maddogx 13]

Exactly, and causing slow downs no doubt?, well from my experience cpu's struggle with PhysX. Something has changed then because a bi dev said framerates were ok in arma3 with physX and Radeon gpu's. Maybe i misunderstood what was actually being discussed?.

There is no reason why PhysX should automatically cause slowdowns when run on the CPU. It depends on what it is used for, and how it is implemented. Obviously trying to run cloth simulation on the CPU would be stupid, for example, but they're hardly going to try and do that...

[=war cloud= 10]

There is no reason why PhysX should automatically cause slowdowns when run on the CPU.

Most physX games on the PC using just the cpu struggle. PhysX is nvidia's technology, i have read nowhere that AMD have licenced physX from nvidia, so how did bi get physX running on a Radeon gpu?. I'm aware of software physX, the xbox360 games have used physX for many years.

This will be interesting to see what makes use of physX in arma3 and how bi used physX with radeon gpu's.

---------- Post added at 12:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:36 PM ----------

You misunderstood. PhysX as employed by ArmA3 is the software implementation not the hardware implementation.

physX has allways been software based, but nvidia make their own ppu's built onto their GeForce cards. I presume GeForce cards will run better with physX enabled in arma3?.

[dmarkwick 261]

Most physX games on the PC using just the cpu struggle. PhysX is nvidia's technology, i have read nowhere that AMD have licenced physX from nvidia, so how did bi get physX running on a Radeon gpu?. I'm aware of software physX, the xbox360 games have used physX for many years.

This will be interesting to see what makes use of physX in arma3 and how bi used physX with radeon gpu's.

I don't think our explanations are making any impact on you. The current implementation of PhysX in ArmA3 development, is software based. BIS did not get PhysX to run on an AMD GPU. They stated that the demo was filmed on a PC with an AMD card.

[=war cloud= 10]

I don't think our explanations are making any impact on you. The current implementation of PhysX in ArmA3 development, is software based. BIS did not get PhysX to run on an AMD GPU. They stated that the demo was filmed on a PC with an AMD card.

I suppose you never looked at this statement?

I have tried PhysX in A3 on an ATI and framerate steadily holds its ground :icon_twisted:

[Daniel 0]

This will be interesting to see what makes use of physX in arma3 and how bi used physX with radeon gpu's.

Simple. By not running it on the GPU.

I suppose you never looked at this statement?

That just supports the claim many are trying to make, that ATI users will be no worse off than NVIDIA users.

[=war cloud= 10]

Simple. By not running it on the GPU.

See above.

[dmarkwick 261]

I suppose you never looked at this statement?

*sigh* :)

PhysX in ArmA3. On an ATI card. Not PhysX on an ATI card. Just to make the point that ATI users are not disadvantaged.

[Daniel 0]

See above.

Your quote from pettka doesn't imply that the ATI card was used in the physics processing. It just means that the NVIDIA card was absent and it still ran well.

[=war cloud= 10]

*sigh* :)

PhysX in ArmA3. On an ATI card. Not PhysX on an ATI card. Just to make the point that ATI users are not disadvantaged.

Obviously misleading quote from pettka then. Of course radeon gpu's will be at a disadvantage, PhysX runs off GeForce cards and not the cpu's.

[Daniel 0]

I hate to have to do it, but, to quote wikipedia:

"PhysX technology is used by the game engines Unreal Engine 3, Torque, Gamebryo, Vision, Instinct, Diesel, Unity 3D, Hero and BigWorld[21] and is the physics platform of more than 300 video games,[2] such as Bulletstorm, Need for Speed: Shift or Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Most of these games use the CPU to process the physics simulations."

PhysX can be implemented in such a way that it offloads calculations onto the GPU or PPU, but the majority of the time it is used as a software solution by the CPU. If Arma 3 uses the CPU method, and by all accounts it should, there will be no disadvantage for being an ATI/Radeon user.

Edited July 13, 2011 by Daniel

[=war cloud= 10]

I have tried PhysX in A3 on an ATI and framerate steadily holds its ground :icon_twisted:

So it was running in software mode on cpu and not gpu's?.

[dmarkwick 261]

I think we're nearly halfway there guys :D

[Daniel 0]

lol

Someone else take over, I honestly don't know enough about this stuff to finish the job.

[nodunit 397]

Almost, but it seems the track stops 3/4's of the way and is stuck on loop.

[=war cloud= 10]

PhysX software.

Yeah i know that mate. Nvidia use hardware (GeForce) for software based PhysX. The PhysX will probably be a waste of time in arma3 then, it will be too slow on the cpu's for large physX interactions etc. Let's hope bi make use of GeForce PhysX.

---------- Post added at 12:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:57 PM ----------

I think we're nearly halfway there guys :D

Your not even close.