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Nvidia Expands PhysX Support with New Certified Drivers

Posted 09/30/08 at 09:06:56 AM |  by Paul Lilly

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Nvidia has a new videcoard driver available for download, and for you poor saps on dial-up, it will come as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the 86.9MB download checks in at more than the twice the size of previously released drivers. But added bulk brings PhysX acceleration to the table for owners of Nvidia's GeForce 8, 9, and 200 series of videocards outfitted with a minimum of 256MB of video memory.

If you're anxious to see what potential lies in PhysX support, Nvidia offers a free GeForce Power Pack containing several demos, a full game (Warmonger), an Unreal Tournament 3 mod, and more.

The new driver also contains the usual assortment 3D application compatibility fixes, along with purported performance boosts in a handful of games. For example, Nvidia says single-GPU gamers can expect a 15 percent increase in Bioshock (DX10), 11 percent in Assassin's Creed (DX10), and 15 percent in Call of Duty 4, among other titles.

Image Credit: Nvidia

COMMENTS:
4
TAGS: 
graphics, videocard, nvidia, gpu, physx, Drivers
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COMMENTS
avatar.

Submitted by ProtoJMB on Wed, 2008-10-01 08:47

.

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avatarYou need SLI (two cards) or

Submitted by Humpfester on Tue, 2008-09-30 09:34

You need SLI (two cards) or higher for PhysX to work properly. One card for graphics rendering and the other for PhysX, therefore freeing the CPU. The list of games that support PhysX is at Nvidias web site.

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avatarOne card is fine

Submitted by ProtoJMB on Wed, 2008-10-01 08:47

Two cards are ideal, but not required to run. When it's working, the physX works just fine on one card. Warmonger plays real smooth on my 8800GT. I will say this though, this means that old videocards won't become obsolete anymore :)

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avatarGeForce PhysX Still Needs Work!

Submitted by ProtoJMB on Tue, 2008-09-30 08:19

The PhysX does not stay turned on for very long for me. I turn on a couple demos, it runs fine. Then I go to play Warmonger, still running fine. I then go back into one of the tech demo's such as Fluids, and NOW it runs in software mode! When you try to switch it back, you cannot. I went back into Warmonger, and now it runs slow because the CPU is trying to process physics when the GPU is supposed to be doing this via PhysX. The only way to remedy this of course is to do a re-start. This is very annoying though to have to restart the computer every time you want to play warmonger (or any other game that uses PhysX for that matter) = \

This problem has been around since the 177 beta drivers. I was hoping it was just a beta problem, but this is not the case. It is in the final revision as well! I talked to some people on the nVidia forums, and I am not the only one who has had this problem.

My stats are this:

CPU: 3.0GHz Pentium D
GPU: Geforce 8800GT
RAM: 2GB 667DDR2
OS: Windows XP Pro x64

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