PhysX questions

[WhatComesAround]

So recently I sold a 750ti and then I watched a video explaining the benefits of physX, so now I have some questions. 1. What does it take to setup a PhysX card + Gaming card config. 2. If we can dedicate such a task as PhysX to one card while the other renders everything else, can we do the same thing for other things like I don't know other things that come into play when a game is being run not only physX. In short could we split up small tasks among multiple cards not just physX in the future?

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, WhatComesAround said:

1. What does it take to setup a PhysX card + Gaming card config.

Both cards need to be NVIDIA, officially. NVIDIA disables PhysX acceleration if you're using an AMD card. There might be a way around this, but I haven't really looked into it.

 

1 minute ago, WhatComesAround said:

2. If we can dedicate such a task as PhysX to one card while the other renders everything else, can we do the same thing for other things like I don't know other things that come into play when a game is being run not only physX. In short could we split up small tasks among multiple cards not just physX in the future?

Yes. In fact, GPUs can be thought of like many-core processors and the work they're normally given is trivial to split up and give to each of these "cores".

[Bananasplit_00]

1: not much just some mucking about in the NVIDIA controll panel IIRC

2: maybe, could probably be done to some part thatnks to DX12 but not much probably

[Oshino Shinobu]

It's just a matter of selecting a card from a drop down list in Nvidia control panel.

 

 

It's really not worth it, though. Very few games actually utilise PhysX much and for those that do, a dedicated PhysX card rarely gives any performance increase and can often result in a performance decrease depending on the cards being used. 

 

As for splitting tasks, it's definitely possible and is already done to an extent. We may see more of it with DX12 adoption. Things like having a weaker card to render scenes in the distance and a more powerful card to render details and the main screenspace could happen. 

[roylapoutre]

1. It takes almost nothing : you hook up both cards to your motherboard, select the one you want dedicated to physx in the Nvidia control panel and you're good to go.

2. Splitting up task in another story. For gaming, they can't work together through SLI if they're different. DX12 can do it with multi-adapter technology but it needs to be implemented in the game, and you'll need two similar cards in terms of peformance to see benefits from this

[manikyath]

2 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Both cards need to be NVIDIA, officially. NVIDIA disables PhysX acceleration if you're using an AMD card. There might be a way around this, but I haven't really looked into it.

i may actually slot my HD5770 into my main rig while doing the rebuild to test if this is a thing, but that'd require me to DDU drivers after the fact and i'm not sure if i wanna bother

(mostly because a physx card is not worth it by a long shot...)

[Drak3]

13 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Both cards need to be NVIDIA, officially. NVIDIA disables PhysX acceleration if you're using an AMD card. There might be a way around this, but I haven't really looked into it

From my tinkering, so long as you have an NVidia card that is powering a screen, you can use GPU accelerated PhysX when gaming on an AMD GPU. It doesn't make much, if any difference if you've got a half way decent CPU though.

[othertomperson]

19 minutes ago, WhatComesAround said:

So recently I sold a 750ti and then I watched a video explaining the benefits of physX, so now I have some questions. 1. What does it take to setup a PhysX card + Gaming card config. 2. If we can dedicate such a task as PhysX to one card while the other renders everything else, can we do the same thing for other things like I don't know other things that come into play when a game is being run not only physX. In short could we split up small tasks among multiple cards not just physX in the future?

Don't bother with a PhysX card. Just get a card decent enough to handle the graphics and the PhysX together (ie a 1060 or above)

[WhatComesAround]

11 hours ago, othertomperson said:

Don't bother with a PhysX card. Just get a card decent enough to handle the graphics and the PhysX together (ie a 1060 or above)

I have a 980 XD, it's just that I trade cards a lot e.g (750ti, 970, rx 470) so I thought I could find a use for them other than mining while trying to find a buyer.

[DragonTamer1]

You just set the second card in the Nvidia control panel as a PhysX card. I was wondering a while ago if I could leverage Shadowplay from a second GPU to squeeze out that little bit of extra performance from this old 760 but it's just not worth it to try and find a way IMO.

 

With DX12 you can use two dissimilar GPUs in multi GPU configuration, even using one AMD and one NVidia (or at least you used to be able to). NVidia cards used to have a work around for PhysX comparability with AMD cards but once NVidia discovered it was a thing the corrected the issue.

[WhatComesAround]

5 hours ago, DragonTamer1 said:

You just set the second card in the Nvidia control panel as a PhysX card. I was wondering a while ago if I could leverage Shadowplay from a second GPU to squeeze out that little bit of extra performance from this old 760 but it's just not worth it to try and find a way IMO.

 

With DX12 you can use two dissimilar GPUs in multi GPU configuration, even using one AMD and one NVidia (or at least you used to be able to). NVidia cards used to have a work around for PhysX comparability with AMD cards but once NVidia discovered it was a thing the corrected the issue.

By " With DX12 you can use two dissimilar GPUs in multi GPU configuration " you meant you could use two different cards, having one render physX and the other render everything else right? (Not sli)

[DragonTamer1]

7 hours ago, WhatComesAround said:

By " With DX12 you can use two dissimilar GPUs in multi GPU configuration " you meant you could use two different cards, having one render physX and the other render everything else right? (Not sli)

No. Ashes of the Singularity made a big splashth this  because a NVidia GPU would render one frame (GTX 970) and an AMD GPU would render next (R9 390). It eas kind of like Crossfire with the exception that both GPUs were working on different frames rather than the same frame.

[DXMember]

2 minutes ago, DragonTamer1 said:

No. Ashes of the Singularity made a big splashth this  because a NVidia GPU would render one frame (GTX 970) and an AMD GPU would render next (R9 390). It eas kind of like Crossfire with the exception that both GPUs were working on different frames rather than the same frame.

both crossfire and sli also work on different frames

 

Oxide games has showed off a demo where two cards were working on the same frame

 

[othertomperson]

18 hours ago, WhatComesAround said:

I have a 980 XD, it's just that I trade cards a lot e.g (750ti, 970, rx 470) so I thought I could find a use for them other than mining while trying to find a buyer.

You can absolutely give one card a non-gaming function, yes. And if you happen to already have one for PhysX then sure why not use it? I just wouldn't recommend you going out of your way to obtain a PhysX card.

12 hours ago, WhatComesAround said:

By " With DX12 you can use two dissimilar GPUs in multi GPU configuration " you meant you could use two different cards, having one render physX and the other render everything else right? (Not sli)

No. Directx 12 supports multi GPU with entirely different cards, ragardless of brand or card. (It uses Split Frame Rendering as opposed to Alternate Frame Rendering). It's not recommended though. From what I've seen if one card is substantially weaker than the other, the weaker card causes a severe bottleneck on the stronger card. It's still best to have at least very similar cards, even if this is a 1060 and a 480 instead of a 980 and a 750 Ti