Considering a physx card

[jesus]

I've been looking into the physx cards lately, and the games that it's compatible with. It looks really cool, and there's a few games out now that work with it. I've got UT3, so I could download those physx maps, I would download warmonger, and maybe later on buy cellfactor, or that other game (GRAW, I think?)

So I was just wondering if it would be worth it with my current computer. The specs are in my sig. Just so you know, it's a dell inspiron 531, so the motherboard isn't fancy. It's got 1 PCI-E slot, and I think 2 or 3 PCI slots. It also has a 300W power supply. Would that be enough power, or would I have to upgrade?

I only have $90, so if I have to make other upgrades, then there would be no point.

[=98=]

Sorry to disappoint, but if there was an official scale of epic fail, PhysX cards would be up there.

The number of quality games it supports is slim to none, and even in the software it does support, the effects are very small (with Cellfactor being the only noticeable exception)

Save your money and get a nice graphics card!

[jesus]

I was watching videos of warmonger, and the effects look very good. The guy shot a rocket at a house and it looked very life like the way the walls and roof blew up. The UT3 physx maps look good... it's not the quality of the games I'm worried about, it's mainly my system and if it would be compatible without upgrading other things.

I would get a new graphics card, but I'd also need to upgrade my PSU. I only have $90, and that's not getting any higher as I don't have a job.

[Sam1990]

REVIEW BY: Bandit Reviewed Nov 13, 2007
Its true, if you have a 8000 series geforce, dont buy, they have a physics program biult in, itll conflict badly, if not, BUY BUY BUY BUY this is an awesome breakthrough! Many new games are coming out with this enabled, do it if youve got the money.


REVIEW BY: VV Reviewed Aug 25, 2007
Completely useless. all the 8 series GPU's from NVIDIA have Q-physics processors built in. Have one in my old 6800Ultra SLI rig and works good wit that, but for any of the 8600 or 8800 series cards will actually show a drop in FPS. i swapped it in my friends rig wit 8800GTX SLI and showed 20 FPS drop when tested on 3DMark06.

Reviews from TigerDirect.com. Since you have a 8600GT it would be useless to buy it, though I'm not actually sure that's true.

[jesus]

Reviews from TigerDirect.com. Since you have a 8600GT it would be useless to buy it, though I'm not actually sure that's true.

yeah, I saw that too, but then how would that explain the low FPS people are getting on warmonger, even if they have quad core, 8800GTX, 4gb ram compared to the high FPS people are getting with a weaker system + physx card

i think tomorrow what I'm going to do is download warmonger. if I get 25 - 30 FPS then the physx card wouldn't be worth it, and the guy you quoted is right. But if I get 5 - 10 FPS, then I think the physx card would be worth it. And I know the graphics wouldn't lower my FPS because it doesn't look as good at UT3, and I almost max out UT3. so if my fps is low then I know it's because of the physics

[solofowaffles]

Why would you spend money to play a free game?I would buy a nice headset or something else honestly.

[jesus]

Why would you spend money to play a free game?I would buy a nice headset or something else honestly.

i tried buying a headset, but none of them sounded and felt as good as my headphones. so now whenever i need to use a mic, i just use the one on my webcam

and i think the physx card will be good for future games, too

[solofowaffles]

By the time games REALLY use physics it will be in the gpu already.

[jesus]

By the time games REALLY use physics it will be in the gpu already.

WELL, i have this $90 and i don't know what to spend it on ):

[=98=]

Save it... you don't have to spend it

[Flt. Sgt. Powderhound]

Seriously, Physx is the greatest waste of money ever. Multicore processors and more powerful GPUs will soon be doing the same job as well if not better.

[=98=]

In fact, Intel just bought Havok, so expect some cool accelerated physics soon.

ATI and Nvidia talked to Ageia about integrating their physics engine into graphics cards. But Ageia knew that ATI/Nvidia would do it better and thus, render their PhysX card useless.

[jesus]

I read that soon games that take advantage of multiple cores will put physics on an individual core. is that true?

[=98=]

Not unless it's properly multi-threaded.

[KillerStickMan]

Personally, I don't think getting a PhysX card is worth it, mainly because there's not enough games that will start using the technology before something better than that comes out. Although I have to disagree with stephensolofo, by the time that games start using real world physics, I'm almost positive you're going to need a physics card with it's own gpu, and a video card with it's own gpu. But no, I don't think you should get a physx card just because of the lack of game support.

[Stormy{CAN}]

Seriously, Physx is the greatest waste of money ever.

Actually its a toss up between that and this,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833342001

[=98=]

Actually its a toss up between that and this,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833342001

Ah, that's what i thought, but alas, the technology works. It's been proven in magazine tests, just the price lets it down.

What it does is bypass the windows network stack and use it's own Unix based controller. Whilst windows would put game data, bit torrent data and general data in the same packet, the Unix system splits them up and accelerates the data you define.

You will notice that you get lag on games, even if bit torrent is downloading at 4kb/s and you have a 8mb/s line. This is because Windows is taking time to split up the packages, differentiate between game data, bit torrent data and all other.

By not packaging them together, you skip this. The disadvantages are that you need a complex program and relatively power processor with its own memory to run this. The KillerNIC is effectively a mini Unix pc on a card. Also, you will only notice a visible difference when connecting to servers in further away places such as across the pond. Sure, it may reduce pings between UK servers from 50 to 20, but try noticing that, really.But, when your going from 150 to 70, you will do.

So, it's a piece of technology that does what it says (although, it doesn't quite meet the boasts claimed by Bigfoot networks), but it's too expensive and doesn't have enough uses to justify itself.


whew.... now back to coursework.

[Flt. Sgt. Powderhound]

I'd never been able to figure out exactly what that did. I couldn't figure out for the life of me how you could make a high performance network card. ;)

[Death Merchant]

Actually its a toss up between that and this,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833342001

thats not quite an epic fail, you get about 7-15% performance gain online when using one of them

Its just the price that makes it so stupid i mean you can get 100%+ boost when you buy a new graphics card for the same price