Monday, October 5th 2009
Hack Released to Enable PhysX on Windows 7 with ATI GPU Present
For NVIDIA's PhysX technology, it has been a roller-coaster ride since NVIDIA's acquisition of the technology, and its makers. As much as PhysX quickly became one of the important selling-points of NVIDIA's consumer graphics line GeForce, it also had its small share of controversy, linked to market dynamics more than anything. With the technology's port to the GeForce GPU, enthusiasts fancied having the freedom of choice with a primary GPU that is dedicated to rendering 3D graphics, and a second GPU that is just about powerful to assign as a dedicated PhysX GPU.
Although having a powerful ATI Radeon GPU aided by a less-powerful NVIDIA GeForce GPU for PhysX was possible on Windows XP, the succeeding Windows Vista restricted this, by making sure two active display drivers couldn't coexist. Windows 7 removed this restriction, but before you could rejoice, NVIDIA quickly released a driver-level code with its 186 series drivers, that disables NVIDIA PhysX altogether when a GPU from another vendor is coexisting and enabled, even an IGP for that matter. If that wasn't bizarre enough, with the latest drivers, you can't even pair an Ageia PhysX PPU card with an ATI Radeon GPU going about its business. To the rescue comes a soft-modder's nifty bit of software that overrides this restriction from NVIDIA's drivers, so you can use dedicated GeForce PhysX cards on machines with ATI Radeon primary GPUs again. The corrective driver patch comes from tech portal NGOHQ.com community member GenL.
The patch, which you can download here, has been successful so far going by community members' feedback. It lays to rest any argument NVIDIA would like to make about how using dedicated PhysX cards with primary GPUs of your choice (which happen to be an ATI Radeon) would be the end of the world, other than of course, market-dynamics.
Speaking of which, here's NVIDIA's statement on why dedicated PhysX accelerators ought not to work with GPUs from other vendors: "PhysX is an open software standard any company can freely develop hardware or software that supports it. NVIDIA supports GPU accelerated PhysX on NVIDIA GPUs while using NVIDIA GPUs for graphics. NVIDIA performs extensive Engineering, Development, and QA work that makes PhysX a great experience for customers. For a variety of reasons - some development expense some quality assurance and some business reasons NVIDIA will not support GPU accelerated Physx with NVIDIA GPUs while GPU rendering is happening on non- NVIDIA GPUs."
Source:
NGOHQ
Although having a powerful ATI Radeon GPU aided by a less-powerful NVIDIA GeForce GPU for PhysX was possible on Windows XP, the succeeding Windows Vista restricted this, by making sure two active display drivers couldn't coexist. Windows 7 removed this restriction, but before you could rejoice, NVIDIA quickly released a driver-level code with its 186 series drivers, that disables NVIDIA PhysX altogether when a GPU from another vendor is coexisting and enabled, even an IGP for that matter. If that wasn't bizarre enough, with the latest drivers, you can't even pair an Ageia PhysX PPU card with an ATI Radeon GPU going about its business. To the rescue comes a soft-modder's nifty bit of software that overrides this restriction from NVIDIA's drivers, so you can use dedicated GeForce PhysX cards on machines with ATI Radeon primary GPUs again. The corrective driver patch comes from tech portal NGOHQ.com community member GenL.
The patch, which you can download here, has been successful so far going by community members' feedback. It lays to rest any argument NVIDIA would like to make about how using dedicated PhysX cards with primary GPUs of your choice (which happen to be an ATI Radeon) would be the end of the world, other than of course, market-dynamics.
Speaking of which, here's NVIDIA's statement on why dedicated PhysX accelerators ought not to work with GPUs from other vendors: "PhysX is an open software standard any company can freely develop hardware or software that supports it. NVIDIA supports GPU accelerated PhysX on NVIDIA GPUs while using NVIDIA GPUs for graphics. NVIDIA performs extensive Engineering, Development, and QA work that makes PhysX a great experience for customers. For a variety of reasons - some development expense some quality assurance and some business reasons NVIDIA will not support GPU accelerated Physx with NVIDIA GPUs while GPU rendering is happening on non- NVIDIA GPUs."
111 Comments on Hack Released to Enable PhysX on Windows 7 with ATI GPU Present
Not only could you not pair an Nvidia Card with ATI, but they also restricted use of a dedicated PhysX PPU-Card in combination with an ATI-GPU?!
That's seriously wrong if you ask me, makes me pissed just thinking about it, even though it doesn't concern me as a Laptop user. :slap:
Shouldn't this be illegal altogehter? I mean, who told me I will not be able to use my PhysX Card on my ATI because some sinister corporation thinks it's smart to get more money out this way.
What if physx will be available in most future games and Ati's can't do the effects ? it could be a problem for the people who bought one or two 5870's.
Why do you think only about people who buy core i7 and expensive stuff ? some people like me wich have only a E5200 and 4850 bitch about Nvidia's dirty strategy too , Batman looks better on a 8800GTS than on a 4870x2 or 5870 wich are wayyy faster , i guess we can leave hardcore hardware out but the 4850/4870 user wants some AA in batman , and physx if they can ( not really physx but the extra effects that come bundled with "physx" ).
Some people say only Ati users bitch about this ( true ) , and some say only Nvidia users come to defend the evil company like this.
You have to know Nvidia is doing this only because they don't have a DX11 card , everybody knows this , if they wanted to be so bad with the competition they could've done this anytime , also , that super monster that some fans applauded ( GT 300 FERMI or something ) doesn't really exists in a working state for a presentation.
I wouldn't pick on this if not for the deceveing manner in wich they presented Fermi , look some numbers about a super card we are gonna launch , look it's in my hand now , take some pictures , now really you thought this was the real thing , no , it's just a mock up , what ???
So in the end we look at the show " Nvidia will do anything to stop people from buying a 5850/5870 ".
That is, if Nvidia is not smart enough to share (e.g. sell) this license to other manufacturers; effectivly making it usable by everyone (consumer).
As for what your saying, i agree that what they are doing is wrong with PhysX but my (and quite a few others) point still stands. If PhysX is not such a big deal and its gonna go down the toilet then why are so many ATI users complaining about it?
Just because a third party controls the standard doesn't make it an "open" standard.
Anyway Physx is proprietary to Nvidia. If the tables were turned Nvidiots would be doing the same thing. Also as I said before Physx currently does nothing for the game that Havok cannot do but because of TWIMTBP program some developers take money over product quality.
There lies the hate for Physx.
Personally I would like Physx to be open to both ATI and Intel. Why? Because Nvidia would still hold the advantage of being the owner of the intellectual property thus developing its hardware/software to run it best PLUS it wouldn't alienate the rest of the world. It really is a "win, win" for everyone.
IMO, what would be best is for Nvidia to opensource the PhysX code -- that way, ATI could contribute to it as well, and it wouldn't work any better on either Nvidia OR ATI hardware. It would just work great for all. :D
It's that kind of transparency that makes opensource so great.
All they would have to do is port it to OpenCL instead of only CUDA. There, problem solved.
now i wait to see what will ati bring out whit pixelux partnership