Noob question.

[Trik'Stari]

Ok, so with the latest news about Nvidia disabling the ability to offload PhysX to a secondary graphics card that isn't Nvidia I find myself being curious about a few things.

 

1. Why would someone want to offload PhysX to a secondary graphics card?

2. Could I offload PhysX to my EVGA GT520 graphics card that's just lying around doing nothing on a shelf?

3. Would It be a good idea to do so with my current system? (viewable in my profile, haven't figured out how to put it in my signature)

4. If it would be advantageous (forgive spelling, very drunk) to do so, how do I do this?

 

I just ask because this gt520 is just sitting around covered in dust, but I don't want to throw it away in case I can use it for something, and I like the idea of having 2 things installed to my pcie slots. so basically I want to do this "just cuz"

 

Edit: If you need more info on my 520 just tell me, I've still got the box and manual for it.

[AlwaysFSX]

1. So the primary doesn't have to render the PhysX

2. Yes

3. No, a GT 520 is painfully slow and PhysX will run like arse on it

4. It's not

[funkmetal]

With a GT 520, probably wouldnt be worth it. It could very well lower perfomance. Linus made a video a few years ago about how powerful a PhysX GPU has to be to be worth it, here's that vid.

 

[Enderman]

1) If you have a very weak GPU having a second one dedicated to physx can help improve fps in games that use physx.

2) Yes you could but you would probably lose performance because a 660 is much more powerful and doesn't need any help with physx.

3) No it's not worth it because it will probably reduce your fps since its not a very powerful card, and very few games still use physx. It might be worth it if you are doing particle simulations or stuff like that...

[Trik'Stari]

1. So the primary doesn't have to render the PhysX

2. Yes

3. No, a GT 520 is painfully slow and PhysX will run like arse on it

4. It's not

Is there anything I can do with my current system to offload PhysX from my GPU?

 

Also, and this is unrelated. Should I get a second GTX660 FTW edition to run in SLI, or upgrade to a 760/theoreticalGTX860(when they come out)?

[TheRetiredSlave]

"Back in the day", physx required a decent amount of processing power and GPUs weren't as powerful as they are now. If you were to run a game with physx on a single card, you'd be losing so much performance to the physx that it wasn't really practical.. Slapping a weaker GPU in as a secondary could improve performance by a decent margin without costing too much..

 

 

Is there anything I can do with my current system to offload PhysX from my GPU?

 

Also, and this is unrelated. Should I get a second GTX660 FTW edition to run in SLI, or upgrade to a 760/theoreticalGTX860(when they come out)?

 

 

If you don't mind buying a used card, picking up a second 660 on ebay could be a very affordable upgrade.. If I recall correctly, two 660s is a roughly similar to a 680 (maybe?).

[AlwaysFSX]

Is there anything I can do with my current system to offload PhysX from my GPU?

 

Also, and this is unrelated. Should I get a second GTX660 FTW edition to run in SLI, or upgrade to a 760/theoreticalGTX860(when they come out)?

Don't use PhysX? Offloading it usually causes worse performance in most every case. Either SLI and run it off both cards to run it on one card only.

[Trik'Stari]

"Back in the day", physx required a decent amount of processing power and GPUs weren't as powerful as they are now. If you were to run a game with physx on a single card, you'd be losing so much performance to the physx that it wasn't really practical.. Slapping a weaker GPU in as a secondary could improve performance by a decent margin without costing too much..

 

 

 

 

If you don't mind buying a used card, picking up a second 660 on ebay could be a very affordable upgrade.. If I recall correctly, two 660s is a roughly similar to a 680 (maybe?).

Don't use PhysX? Offloading it usually causes worse performance in most every case. Either SLI and run it off both cards to run it on one card only.

So, 520 = in the trash then?

 

And for things like modding the crap out of skyrim (graphics wise), second 660 or upgrade to new gpu totally?

[AlwaysFSX]

So, 520 = in the trash then?

 

And for things like modding the crap out of skyrim (graphics wise), second 660 or upgrade to new gpu totally?

The trash doesn't deserve something like a 520 in it. A new, stronger gpu would be better.