Geforce Dedicated PhysX card on Windows 7 w/ ATI graphics

[Broken Halo]

Hi, I just picked up Mirror's Edge on Steam and found it unplayable with my dedicated Ageia PhysX card, I don't know if the card is just too weak to handle the game or if the game just isn't detecting it and offloading the PhysX onto the CPU or what. Anyway I was looking around the internet for a solution to my issue and found that people have actually got GeForce cards working as dedicated PhysX cards while using a Radeon as the primary Graphics card in Windows 7.

Any examples I've seen are using GeForce 8800 as the PhysX card, but if I can, I would like to stick with something PCI or posibly PCI-E x1 because I want to keep my spare PCI-E x16 slot free in case I decide to do Crossfire later. The only PCI solutions I see at newegg right now are the 8400, 9400, and 9500, which are all reasonably priced at under $100. Will any of those cards be adequate? Is there a better PCI-E x1 card I should look into? Has anyone here tried this on Windows 7, and how did it work out?

Thanx for any info ^_^

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

I highly doubt such a configuration would work without any issues under Windows Vista or Windows 7. You'd need to install both ATI and NVIDIA drivers. That alone could cause a whole wave of issues. Then, you'd have to somehow set the NVIDIA video card to run PhysX and the ATI video card to render 3D elements. Not only will this create unnecessary issues, it isn't even officially supported by ATI or NVIDIA.

You're better off using two NVIDIA video cards: one for rendering and one for PhysX simulation.

[Broken Halo]

You're better off using two NVIDIA video cards: one for rendering and one for PhysX simulation.

I already have a fairly high end ATI video card though, and no reason to replace it other than wanting PhysX. And considering Mirror's Edge is the only game I own that has a noticeable difference with the PhysX card, it's really not worth spending the much to replace my current video card.

I highly doubt such a configuration would work without any issues under Windows Vista or Windows 7

Actually in Vista it was (mostly) impossible. There was supposedly a work around, but it only worked in 32 bit vista and involved using the XP drivers as they didn't have the WDDM 1.0 limitation of one video driver at a time. However I never saw anyone actually get that working well.

On the other hand I knew it was theoretically possible on Win7 because WDDM 1.1 supports multiple graphics drivers (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Displ...iver_Model#1.1) And then in my research today I found the following: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWvKmrXdwHY http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/262410-3...aphics-possible and http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-ge...indows-7-a.html as well as some other sources now lost in my browser history. That last link there seemed to have some issue with performance but the other sources I found seemed to think it ran well. Just doing research into what hardware I'll need at this phase, I'm going to borrow a friends GeForce 8800 to do some actual hands on testing to see if I can get this set up before I buy anything though. ^_^

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Ah, I see. What I meant was "It's better to use two NVIDIA video cards." I didn't intend for it to sound so personal. I guess it wouldn't hurt to give it a try. I was unaware of the multiple driver feature of WDDM 1.1. Let me know how it goes. And do as much testing as possible. You wouldn't want to waste your money, right? :happy:

[Broken Halo]

Ah, I see. What I meant was "It's better to use two NVIDIA video cards." I didn't intend for it to sound so personal. I guess it wouldn't hurt to give it a try. I was unaware of the multiple driver feature of WDDM 1.1. Let me know how it goes. And do as much testing as possible. You wouldn't want to waste your money, right? :happy:

No prob, didn't take it personal at all, and if I sounded defensive in my reply I didn't mean to. But yeah, I agree two Nvidia cards would be a better setup indeed, but when I grabbed my last video card PhysX wasn't that big yet, and they were just making their way to Nvidia cards so the old addin cards where still a viable solution. Unfortnetly for me though the Nvidia cards were so much more powerful then the old Ageia ones so they were quickly forgotten.

Also another good source, sounds like a bit of a hassle though from this one: http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-ge...indows-7-a.html

Anyway, I have to be at work in 5 hrs, so time for sleep, I'll be back to check on this thread tomorrow looking forward to any hardware or setup info anyone can provide, and will try out my friends card hopefully sometime in the next few days.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

It's all good. :D

Check out this link. It should give you an idea of the performance you'll get with Mirror's Edge. It turns out the Ageia PhysX PPU is as powerful as the GeForce 9600 GT (in terms of PhysX processing). As for the link you provided, it's quite interesting despite not being "official". It's an interesting workaround nonetheless. I'm curious to see how your experiment with your friend's GeForce 8800 goes. It'd be great if you could update us on your progress.

[Broken Halo]

It's all good. :D

Check out this link. It should give you an idea of the performance you'll get with Mirror's Edge. It turns out the Ageia PhysX PPU is as powerful as the GeForce 9600 GT (in terms of PhysX processing). As for the link you provided, it's quite interesting despite not being "official". It's an interesting workaround nonetheless. I'm curious to see how your experiment with your friend's GeForce 8800 goes. It'd be great if you could update us on your progress.

Hmm, interesting link, I think the processing power is similar when you try to use the 9600 as both a GPU and PPU, but the PhysX performance is much greater if you use it as a dedicated unit. I'll have to look up the benchmarks again later, it's been a long time since I looked at those comparisons. I think Tom's Hardware had some good ones with 1GFX w/ PhysX vs 1GFX also doing PhysX vs 2GFX cards (one for video and one for PhysX), I'll look them up after work today.

Reading those comments on that article you just linked, I found this little tidbit of important info I didn't see anywhere else: "If you use a Physx pack newer than v8.09.04 the "Ageia Physx" is not available even if you have a Ageia card in your system." I'm using v9.Something right now, I'll have to downgrade and see if that fixes my framerate crash. I might not need to do this (yet) after all. But, since I now have my friends 8800 in hand, I'll probably play around with trying to get it work anyway. FOR SCIENCE! ^_^

Edit: I just realized I read that article 6 months ago and forgot about it, one of the comments was actually mine, lol.

Edited July 9, 2009 by Broken Halo

[Broken Halo]

Just thought I'd provide a update and bump the post. Unfortunately, Steam version of Mirror's Edge crashes instantly with anything older that PhysX 8.10, so I was unable to test it with the version the internet said worked.

After that I also installed the GeForce 8800, and got both video cards running side-by-side with up to date drivers, unfortunately the PhysX section of the nvidia control panel seems to be gone for some reason, even when I set the GeForce card as primary. I read in a support forum someone said theirs had disappeared but had been there in one of the 185 releases, unfortunately nvidia didn't have the specific driver version they mentioned, so I grabbed the only earlier version they had, 181.71. It was still missing. Going to work on it some more tonight, still got a few more things to try out.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

Interesting read. I look forward to knowing how it pans out.

[Broken Halo]

Woot! I finally got it running! There's a few snags though.

OK, it turns out you need to use GeForce driver 181.71. Apparently they added a check in the newer versions to disable PhysX abilities if you have any video chips from ATI (or possibly any other vendor) also available on the system. In 181.71 though, it only checks if the other card has an active monitor, so if you disable all the monitors connected to the AIT card in the resolutions panel, before starting up the nvidia control panel, the PhysX settings are available. So you have to go to this section and enable it, but before you click apply, re-enable the ATI displays and set the one you want to default then click apply. Start up the PhysX game or benchmark of your choice and hardware PhysX should be a go!

Observations:

- When I have no Nvidia card installed my AGIEA PhysX card is not used by games

-When I do have a Nvidia card installed my games can use the the AGIEA PhysX card

- This implies to me that PhysX drivers now report as unavailable if a Nvidia video card is not present

- On my system in nvidia drivers 181.71 the Nvidia Control Panel will crash on launch if any ATI monitors are enabled

- On newer drivers (185.81 and up) the control panel works fine, but if the ATI card is not disabled in the Device Manager the PhysX option will not show at all.

- Enabling the ATI card while the Nvidia Control Panel is open causes it to refresh, once again removing the PhysX option

This is all a shame, and clearly a ploy by Nvidia to prevent the usage of PhysX with ATI cards. But since it only seems to be blocked on the GUI level with the control panel someone, more experienced in GUI hacking/patching than I, may be able to force the PhysX options to show regardless of what hardware is installed.

Later, I'll do some benchmarks with FRAPS comparing ATI w/ AGIEA PhysX PPU (ASUS P1 on PCIe x1) vs ATI w/ Nvidia GPU PhysX (XFX GeForce 8800GT ADE on PCI x16) and experiment with the limitations of this workaround some.

[Broken Halo]

Was going to wait until I got the Fraps results in Mirror's Edge to post this but these numbers were not hat I expected at all:

The 8800GT has more than doubles the performance of the P1 in this configuration, I've always read that the PhysX performance was comparable between the two. Now I really wonder where the performance of GeForce 9500 PCI falls, I'll probably order one later this week to find out. Meanwhile Fraps results in mirrors edge later tonight.

Edited July 12, 2009 by Broken Halo

[whit3]

Broken Halo, keep me posted on your progress, because I am having a similar problem with my Crossfire HD 3850's and my Asus P1 PhysX Processor under Windows 7.

[GrimReeper]

Interesting read. It was my understanding that when you used a normal gfx card it would down clock to the same speed as the dedicated Ageia ones so they would work properly and thus removing any benefit of having a really high end card doing your physics. Has this changed or something?

[Broken Halo]

Sorry for the long wait between posts. The Mirror's Edge benchmarks in Fraps was inconclusive. Both the 8800GT and the PPU where able to keep ME happily at it's 60fps cap in areas with heavy PhysX such as breaking glass. However the GeForce 9500GT PCI I picked up could not. With the 9500 the framerate would drop a good 10-20 fps in areas with shattering glass. The 9500's Fluidmark results weren't any better either, showing half the FPS as the PPU card shown above. I have a screeny of the result that I'll try and remember to upload when I get out of work.

I'm really not sure what was the bottleneck on the 9500GT is. It's likely either that it only has 32 Stream Processors or the bandwidth of PCI. I'm going to be returning the card and replacing it with a 9600GT that I'm going to plug into a PCI-E x1 slot and see how that works out. I'll take a look at it's performance both in a PCI-E x16 and the final x1 slot.

[Broken Halo]

I ended up picking up a low profile, single slot 9600GT and an adapter to plug it into my spare PCI-E x1 slot, the 9600GT works great for hardware PhysX with my ATI card while pluged into my x16 slot, it had about 6 FPS less then the 8800GT in the same setup, negligible as far as I'm concerned.

But there's a problem. Switching the card to my x1 slot the older drivers lock up Windows 7 on load. The card runs fine with the newest drivers though. Problem is my PhysX workaround only worked with the 181.71 drivers. Anyone know a workaround to turn on PhysX with current Nvidia drivers?