PhysX

How big a framerate performance hit will a single 8800GT 512MB card take when physx is enabled in a game that supports it, and how much performance do you gain by doing the physx on the GPU?

Secondly, is a GF 8400 256MB powerful enough for GPU accelerated physx? Nvidia claim any GF8+ card with at least 256MB can be used for physx.

Reason I'm asking is physx seems to be gaining in popularity, with people even dabbling in physx on ATI hardware. But I really see no point upgrading my 8800GT since I only game at 1280x1024 usually with low AA which it handles just fine, yes even Crysis , but I would like hardware physx, just don't know if my card can handle it as is, or if I should buy a separate card for it. And with the 8400 being so cheap I figure it's the cheapest option.

What are people's opinions on this? With 8800GT's being so common I figure someone will have some experience with this.

I actually get a performance decrease when enabling it in all my games.

That's what I've heard too. But you do have a radically faster CPU than me, I only have an Athlon X2 4600+. I know it's already bottlenecking my GPU even at 1024, so I'm thinking offloading the physx might balance it out more. I'll see when I get it back (long story).

Question still remains, could a $30 GF8400 card run physx well?

Bad Maniac said:

Question still remains, could a $30 GF8400 card run physx well?

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If I knew the answer, I would tell you, sorry.

Not sure if it would help or not. I know there is a performance hit running Physics on a single GPU but even on a second GPU it probably will still slow down the system since the CPU still has to feed it information and driver wise its still taking a hit. All of which might be negated due to the fact of the slow CPU currently so only way to tell is run it with and without physics in a benchmark if you can and take that for a starter.

Then determine if the performance difference is worth X amount of money with the possibility of yielding said performance gain.

I had the exact cpu as you do and upgraded to the 5600+ and I almsot see no performance gain and without upgrading my mobno I cant even egt an am2+ in there because gateway sucks.

You'll always get a performance decrease with SLI or single GPU, but to my understanding you can use a lower end card just for PhysX, no? Swear I've seen a few sites do that with benchmarks.

I have an 8800GT and the only game I have that utilizes PhysX is UT3 with the special PhysX maps. The effects offered through the physics engine are impressive, but the play slows down a LOT--in some cases (like the Tornado map) are completely unplayable.

mbigna said:

I have an 8800GT and the only game I have that utilizes PhysX is UT3 with the special PhysX maps. The effects offered through the physics engine are impressive, but the play slows down a LOT--in some cases (like the Tornado map) are completely unplayable.

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Yep I had the same experience. Anything lower than a GTX260 won't be able to handle PhysX with high end visuals, a GTX 260 will even start to struggle with Mirror's Edge if you crank up the resolution to 1680x1050 or above (on high settings obviously).