Force Physx on CPU and not GPU (Radeon 7970M)

I know with Nvidia this is possible through CP, but being new to Radeon i am not sure if this is possible or if there is even a third party application that can force this configuration.

Thanks in advance

-Mike

 

I've never seen that, but it would be really awesome if there was such a utility that would work with AMD cards. I have a hard time believing NVIDIA would ever allow PhysX technology to be used on one of their competitor's products. AMD has nothing I am aware of that is similar.

 

Hmm, go figure, i must say that is one awesome feature Nvidia does provide. Pushing the CPU to its limits and freeing up the GPU to allow MAX FPS, understanding that allowing the CPU to process the PhysX can result in deminishing returns, but until it can be benched i like having that option to choose and decide for myself.

 

In 25 years of being a computer enthusiast and system builder, the overwhelming majority of my systems have been powered by ATI/AMD video cards. And up until the 6900 series that's all I would even consider purchasing. I considered ATI the only viable purchasing option. More recently, I have owned 2 NVIDIA SLI-powered systems and they were both the best performing systems I've ever owned. PhysX certainly played a big part in making that experience very good.

 

Well is there at least any known tweaks to help improve FPS during advance physics in game without loss of quality (for a setup similar to mine). Metro 2033 for example really drops FPS around those high physics battles, and viewing my R4 stats in my sig i would think this would not be an issue.

 

I don't think amd support Physx.

 

Exactly, PhysX will run on the CPU with AMD video card, there is no other choice.

 

I'm not sure what's going on here. OP is asking for forcing the physics to be done on the CPU with an AMD GPU? It IS always done on the CPU if the system has an AMD GPU.

In fact, Metro is one of the very few games that performs poorer on the 680m because the GPU is occupied with PhysX. Arkham games have had problems running on AMD GPUs but even that is comparable on the 7970m because the 680m is occupied with PhysX. To be honest, considering how games are GPU intensive, having physics being calculated on the GPU is kind of pointless. Is there some other reason you guys know of that physics needs to run on the GPU? This is, of course, apart from the fact that being massively multi threaded, the GPU makes it faster but that is kind of pointless if the GPU is occupied with rendering.

 

It would also be counterproductive to do that. PhysX works best supporting the CPU, not the other way around, by allowing part of the CPU workload to be handed off to the GPU. This is especially true in a SLI system. To see an example of that, take 3DMark Vantage. With PPU enabled (only possible with an NVIDIA GPU) the CPU score nearly doubles because when CPU intensive workload occurs it can share it with the graphics card(s) if they have untapped capacity. The GPU score remains flat, but the overall score goes up considerably because the CPU score is off the charts.

Example:

 

I mean't Physics on GPU not CPU... Did not even realize that i listed the title wrong until now, lol.

It almost seems that even with todays powerful CPUs, they still can't handle the amount of Physics thrown at them under large capacity (the programmers almost seem years ahead of the hardware at the time, then again it can be a marketing advantage to keep the cash flow coming by releasing a new GPU/CPU every 6-12months) either way i should not see a 18FPS avg during intense physics on a 3 year old title from new hardware (running the Metro 2033 Benchmark tool with advanced physics on ultra 1080p BTW).

 

Thanks for your input Mr. Fox.

 

What, you mean I am not the only one that makes mistakes like that?


Metro 2033 is very demanding game and one of a hand full of recent game releases that thrives on CPU power and GPU power. I think that may be why it actually suffers a bit with PhysX turned on. There's not much overhead left and little available to share between processors.

You're welcome.

 

well since you mention it, i was just testin you all... i guess you are still the only one Fox, sorry.

Then again i am gaming on a notebook so instead of finding a reason why Intel/Nvidia/AMD/ATI has not matched hardware specs to gaming demands (on notebooks) i should thank them for creating such powerful portable machines that can at least run them on near Ultra settings for 99 percent of games without a hitch, yes i like that reasoning best!

 

The only reason for physix being used at all IMO is for SLI / XFire applications. As everyone has already said, it's a ton of additional overhead that most systems can't reasonably handle UNLESS your system has such a surplus of horsepower, e.g. that a dual card setup can provide. Once you hit 60fps anything beyond that is kind of pointless visually so you might as well divert those excess 'frames' to physix (extra bells & whistles) instead, right?