Why the Physx Hate?

[Dayaks]

I just snagged a 750ti to go along with my 980. People are so strange to me... All the reviews I've read (which are hard to come by) having a dedicated Physx processor seemed to help.

I liked this one the most, it had good presentation. Only shows average FPS, where having a dedicated Physx card seems especially helpful for minimums... but a 780ti + 750ti was 39% faster than a 780ti doing it all for Batman, which is a game I'd like to play. I also play AC4 which definitely could use a dedicated card. BL2 is another one I'd love to try.

http://i0.wp.com/alienbabeltech.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/mainchart-fnl.jpg

Overall I can't see why anyone would hate on Physx. I definitely haven't read about any negatives, unless you use a card that's too slow, which the 750ti certainly isn't. I can only relate it to someone's jealousy on quad titans, ect.

From a value perspective, I spent 40% ($200) more (970 vs. 980) for a 15-20% increase in performance. A 750ti I'm spending $150 for a 6-40% increase in performance. Actually a better value for the games I care about (towards the 40% side).

Am I missing something?

 

[DejaWiz]

I'm a fan of PhysX, because I actually like to have that feature usable in the games I play with it. I'm not a fan of having a dedicated card just for PhysX, as I'd recommend getting two identical cards for SLI so that all games, PhysX or not, can benefit from having an extra GPU installed.

For example, you spent the same money for a single 980 plus a 750ti for dedicated PhysX that two 970's would have cost. I would always recommend to get the faster SLI setup, but there are drawbacks. You can't go anywhere else with a 970 SLI setup unless your system can support tri or quad SLI. You have a 980 with an upgrade path to SLI which would be faster than a 970 SLI setup. Catch 22, in a sense.

 

[Araxie]

people tend to forget that all Unreal Engine games Use physX but run with CPU.. its funny when people get confused when discover that Mass effect games install physX in their machines.. anyway I like PhysX.. and love in it Batman Series... im playing arkham Origin right now and im missing my 780 just to fully enable it..

 

[Saturn_V]

I wouldn't call it hate. I used to run a dedicated PhysX card (GeForce 9600) on a former Core2Quad rig for Arkham Asylum.

It just wasn't worth the extra trouble (and power) to run the extra card.

 

[Cr4ckm0nk3y]

Most people don't even know what PhysX is or has evolved into. Most critics blindly think PhysX requires an NV GPU and completely forget there is a CPU accelerated version of the engine.

I will say the GPU accelerated version adds a ton to a game when implemented properly.

To answer simply why all the hate:

"We mock what we don't understand." - Austin Millbarge

 

[DejaWiz]

Most people don't even know what PhysX is or has evolved into. Most critics blindly think PhysX requires an NV GPU and completely forget there is a CPU accelerated version of the engine.

I will say the GPU accelerated version adds a ton to a game when implemented properly.

To answer simply why all the hate:

"We mock what we don't understand." - Austin Millbarge

Agreed.

"What's a dickfer?" - Emmett Fitz-Hume

 

[Araxie]

Most people don't even know what PhysX is or has evolved into. Most critics blindly think PhysX requires an NV GPU and completely forget there is a CPU accelerated version of the engine.

I will say the GPU accelerated version adds a ton to a game when implemented properly.

To answer simply why all the hate:

"We mock what we don't understand." - Austin Millbarge

agreed...!!

 

[NoOther]

The hate for PhysX typically revolves around 2 areas. The first being that its proprietary and not open to everyone. The second is that many games are locked to only being able to use it with Nvidia hardware which basically is looped in with the first complaint. While it can and will run some PhysX on CPUs, most of the fancy features are only run on Nvidia hardware.

Apart from that, there isn't much hate on how PhysX actually works. There are those that think it doesn't really add enough for the hype and its used in a low percentage of games.

 

[Dayaks]

I'm a fan of PhysX, because I actually like to have that feature usable in the games I play with it. I'm not a fan of having a dedicated card just for PhysX, as I'd recommend getting two identical cards for SLI so that all games, PhysX or not, can benefit from having an extra GPU installed.

For example, you spent the same money for a single 980 plus a 750ti for dedicated PhysX that two 970's would have cost. I would always recommend to get the faster SLI setup, but there are drawbacks. You can't go anywhere else with a 970 SLI setup unless your system can support tri or quad SLI. You have a 980 with an upgrade path to SLI which would be faster than a 970 SLI setup. Catch 22, in a sense.

The SLI suggestion is a good one, except I am staying away from the crossfire/sli setup for now. Frame pacing had gotten better but not good enough for me to bother with.

 

[doubletake]

I very much enjoy having a dedicated Physx card. I use a 750Ti to handle Physx to keep my minimum fps up in games like Batman when in 3D surround.

 

[DPI]

Overall I can't see why anyone would hate on Physx.

Because AMD sour grapes. That's it. Because its a blast in the games that support it -- Borderlands 2 for example makes great use of it. Nvidia spent a ton of money acquiring and then continuing to improve it, and team red bros feel NV's intellectual property should just be given away free.

Believe me if PhysX became supported on AMD GPU's tomorrow it would suddenly be the best thing since sliced bread, excepting a minority that would insist "No it sux I'm still mad".

 

[Dayaks]

Because AMD sour grapes. That's it. Because its a blast in the games that support it -- Borderlands 2 for example makes great use of it. Nvidia spent a ton of money acquiring and then continuing to improve it, and team red bros feel NV's intellectual property should just be given away free.

Believe me if PhysX became supported on AMD GPU's tomorrow it would suddenly be the best thing since sliced bread, excepting a minority that would insist "No it sux I'm still mad".

That's the gist I get. I bet it's the same people that have no issues with Mantle and think Mantle is god's gift to Earth.

Anyways my main goal was to make sure there were no technical reasons not to do it. Looks like there aren't!

 

[bigdogchris]

I don't like PhysX due to the proprietary design, if your dedicated card is too old it actually hurts FPS not help, and that Nvidia has been proved that they purposefully slow down physics computations by using an outdated compiling method but won't change so that you buy additional hardware that better handles the old code.

 

[Araxie]

I don't like PhysX due to the proprietary design, if your dedicated card is too old it actually hurts FPS not help, and that Nvidia has been proved that they purposefully slow down physics computations by using an outdated compiling method but won't change so that you buy additional hardware that better handles the old code.

of course if you are trying to use a 9500GT (just for example) with a GTX 980 then of course you will hurt the performance of the card badly... probably you are the kind of people that don't know how widely spread are physX tittles in the market since very very long time ago.. and guess what Unreal Engine 4 still use PhysX.. but not the kind of dedicated advanced PhysX found in games like borderlands, batman and few others who need to run physX from a card.. the rest of the games as posted above run it with the CPU..

 

[Ur_Mom]

AMD card owner here - it's not hate. It's jealousy.

I love Physx, and I want to run it. Just waiting for my next build, which I will probably go green.

 

[Activate: AMD]

Current AMD card owner, former nvidia card owner here. Having run PhysX, I'll say I don't "hate on it" and its not just "sour grapes", but I don't see PhysX as anything other than a gimmick at this time. If its being done on the CPU then it doesn't offer much that any other physics engine/middleware can't do, maybe one or two features, but never anything revolutionary. If its being accelerated on the GPU, then the fact that it is proprietary relegates it to meaningless eye candy. Is the eye candy nice? yes, I loved playing BL2 and seeing the flags waving in the breeze and the destructible cloth (the water effects were stupid mostly).... but at the end of the day, its proprietary nature means that making PhysX an element of core gameplay would lock out half of the intended market for the game. I think this is seriously holding physics based gameplay back, which certainly doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy about nvidia. As for the comparison with Mantle, I don't think the two are comparable. Mantle does not impact core gameplay the way GPU accelerated physics potentially could.

 

[Tsumi]

Some of the hate comes from the fact that if you have an AMD card primary and an nVidia card secondary, you can't use the nVidia card for PhysX acceleration. Even though everyone knows it's possible to do so due to the hacked (and occasional beta) drivers that allow it. nVidia forces you to have an nVidia primary card to use GPU-accelerated PhysX.

 

[cageymaru]

Had a 570 and a 670. Wasn't impressed with PhysX. I liked my improved OpenCL performance at the time on the HD7950. Old CPU PhysX like in Borderlands 2 ran like shit on the higher settings as it wasn't multithreaded. New CPU PhysX 3.2+ runs great on the CPU in games like Project Cars as it is now multithreaded. I've been playing that game for over 2 years and never once complained about the PhysX implementation.

 

[cybereality]

I think PhysX is great. A few years ago I added a second 470 to my rig so I could turn on PhysX effects in Alice Madness Returns. It really turned into a much richer experience, even though it was nothing that affected gameplay. I can't wait to try Batman and Borderlands cranked up on PhysX.

I do wish Nvidia allowed AMD users to buy a secondary Nvidia card just for PhysX. Seems like a win for them (they sell more GPUs) and more developers would be willing to add advanced physics effects in the game if mostly everyone could see them.

 

[tangoseal]

Havok... thats why

 

[Simmonz]

I do wish Nvidia allowed AMD users to buy a secondary Nvidia card just for PhysX. Seems like a win for them (they sell more GPUs) and more developers would be willing to add advanced physics effects in the game if mostly everyone could see them.

This is my main problem. I don't mind buying a secondary card to get the features (I owned one of the original Agiea cards) but I refuse to let Nvidia pigeon hole me into going all green just for Physx. I also am sad because PhysX hasn't really added much to actual gameplay. It could have revolutionized games but is limited to Batman's cape and crap like that.

Also I will note that I was able to get an Nvidia card working alongside my AMD card for Physx but required hours of work with registry hacks and made any non PhysX game crash after launch.

 

[Corvette]

It could have revolutionized games but is limited to Batman's cape and crap like that.

This. Yay, now Gotham has more confetti. Give me walls I can shoot through or explode with a grenade.

 

[NoOther]

I think PhysX is great. A few years ago I added a second 470 to my rig so I could turn on PhysX effects in Alice Madness Returns. It really turned into a much richer experience, even though it was nothing that affected gameplay. I can't wait to try Batman and Borderlands cranked up on PhysX.

I do wish Nvidia allowed AMD users to buy a secondary Nvidia card just for PhysX. Seems like a win for them (they sell more GPUs) and more developers would be willing to add advanced physics effects in the game if mostly everyone could see them.

I understand the frustration with that, I once had an AMD setup with an nvidia dedicated PhysX card. I also understand some of their reasons for putting an end to that. I don't necessarily agree with them, but I do understand.

The problem mainly resides around today's society that wants to blame everything on anyone and doesn't care about the actual root of a problem. Nvidia was fielding far too many support cards due to problems with AMD equipment and not their own. Believe it or not, support actually cost quite a bit of money for companies. The amount they were spending to support a smaller segment of their operations was too much and so they decided to lock that option out. Sucks, but that is business.

 

[Ur_Mom]

This. Yay, now Gotham has more confetti. Give me walls I can shoot through or explode with a grenade.

Start with the cape. Keep moving forward until every object is modeled with real time physics.

 

[Simmonz]

Start with the cape. Keep moving forward until every object is modeled with real time physics.

More like start with the cape and move forward to the dog from COD. I guess I am just too jaded to believe that Nvidia can get developers to really push the possibilities of their tech. They make billions in profit they should be making more of a effort to make PhysX a big thing on the games that support it.

 

[DejaWiz]

More like start with the cape and move forward to the dog from COD. I guess I am just too jaded to believe that Nvidia can get developers to really push the possibilities of their tech. They make billions in profit they should be making more of a effort to make PhysX a big thing on the games that support it.

I agree...game devs could do so much more when implementing PhysX. Unfortunately, people typically misplace that blame towards nVidia.

 

[PornoSatan]

PhysX is

1. A gimmick. Check out this flowing cloth effect, oh and these extra particles, it'll only cost you 100W of power!
2. Proprietary. It's not open, it's closed to anyone that doesn't use an Nvidia card. This isn't the way you go about things.

 

[Araxie]

PhysX is

1. A gimmick. Check out this flowing cloth effect, oh and these extra particles, it'll only cost you 100W of power!
2. Proprietary. It's not open, it's closed to anyone that doesn't use an Nvidia card. This isn't the way you go about things.

another wrong user who think PhysX have to run always in GPU.. PhysX its one of the largest and most used physics engine in the market.. and it run in the vast majority of the games without even notice you are using it because it run their instruction by the CPU, damn even it run in TONS of XBX360/PS3 games and also PS4/XBX1.. all of the unreal engine have PhysX integrated as physics engine and you may know how widespread used are Unreal Engine..

if you mean Advanced PhysX features for certain APEX effects then yes.. it require nvidia hardware to run it.. whats the problem?..

 

[Simmonz]

I agree...game devs could do so much more when implementing PhysX. Unfortunately, people typically misplace that blame towards nVidia.

I agree that not all the blame should go to Nvidia but I also think they could be doing more to ensure that their tech is pushed to it's limits. Even if it means coding that part of the game themselves or throwing money at the dev. They've got the cash to do it.

 

[DejaWiz]

I agree that not all the blame should go to Nvidia but I also think they could be doing more to ensure that their tech is pushed to it's limits. Even if it means coding that part of the game themselves or throwing money at the dev. They've got the cash to do it.

Too much risk. There's no way to predict which upcoming games are going to strike gold and which are going to bomb. If NVidia did invest time and money into assisting game developers, then they are going to want a big return on that investment.

 

[Nightbird]

I remember hearing that the CPU code with Physx was locked to x85 instructions and didn't use x86 or SSE instructions or threading. The result is that on CPU, the code runs at less than half the speed that it can run at, and also being proprietary Nvidia would sue anyone that tried to improve CPU Physx, This is all to market that "Physx sucks on CPU buy an Nvidia GPU" of course. This was the cause of the hate. If Nvidia didn't gimp their CPU code (their source code apparently revealed that they supported x86 and SSE, but it was forced off supposedly because it ran too well) we would see a lot more games with Physx.

 

[Araxie]

I remember hearing that the CPU code with Physx was locked to x85 instructions and didn't use x86 or SSE instructions or threading. The result is that on CPU, the code runs at less than half the speed that it can run at, and also being proprietary Nvidia would sue anyone that tried to improve CPU Physx, This is all to market that "Physx sucks on CPU buy an Nvidia GPU" of course. This was the cause of the hate. If Nvidia didn't gimp their CPU code (their source code apparently revealed that they supported x86 and SSE, but it was forced off supposedly because it ran too well) we would see a lot more games with Physx.

oh yes?.. its that even that possible?? x85 instruction set?..

 

[Tsumi]

I think he means x87.

From Wikipedia:

On July 5, 2010, Real World Technologies published an analysis of the PhysX architecture. According to this analysis, most of the code used in PhysX applications at the time was based on x87 instructions without any multi-threading optimization. This could cause significant performance drops when running PhysX code on the CPU. The article suggested that a PhysX rewrite using SSE instructions may substantially lessen the performance discrepancy between CPU PhysX and GPU PhysX.

In response to the Real World Technologies analysis, Mike Skolones, product manager of PhysX, said that SSE support had been left behind because most games are developed for consoles first and then ported to the PC. As a result, modern computers run these games faster and better than the consoles even with little or no optimization. Senior PR manager of Nvidia, Bryan Del Rizzo, explained that multi-threading had already been available with CPU PhysX 2.x and that it had been up to the developer to make use of it. He also stated that automatic multithreading and SSE would be introduced with version 3 of the PhysX SDK.

PhysX SDK 3.0 was released in May 2011 and represented a significant rewrite of the SDK, bringing improvements such as more efficient multithreading and a unified code base for all supported platforms.

 

[Araxie]

I think he means x87.

From Wikipedia:

that what I was expecting really ... and already knew... just wanted to be confirmed and learn a bit about x85..

 

[Nightbird]

haha thanks for the corrections guys

 

[MangoSeed]

The x87 issue was a simple business decision. Nvidia inherited the Novodex SDK when they bought Ageia and had no incentive to improve the CPU code. Neither NVidia or Ageia are in the business of selling CPUs.

I like the idea behind GPU PhysX but the results have been pretty mediocre. I got a cheap 750 to run PhysX in Borderlands 2 and it was cool to see 40-60% utilization at times but once I saw the terrible fluid simulation it killed all the good vibes. Proper fluid simulation requires far more performance but they should stick to flags and particle effects for now.

 

[Activate: AMD]

another wrong user who think PhysX have to run always in GPU.. PhysX its one of the largest and most used physics engine in the market.. and it run in the vast majority of the games without even notice you are using it because it run their instruction by the CPU, damn even it run in TONS of XBX360/PS3 games and also PS4/XBX1.. all of the unreal engine have PhysX integrated as physics engine and you may know how widespread used are Unreal Engine..

if you mean Advanced PhysX features for certain APEX effects then yes.. it require nvidia hardware to run it.. whats the problem?..

Whats your point? If its just another middleware, we're not having this discussion because nobody would give a crap. I thought it went without saying that when anyone talks about PhysX, they're talking about what it can do above and beyond just the normal rag dolls and bouncing tires that have been around since HL2.
And just to reiterate, my personal problem with their approach is that they haven't done enough with it. They bought it and turned it into a stupid checkbox marketing feature that doesn't do anything to push the gaming envelope because nobody wants to bet the farm making a game that only half the gaming market can run