Wednesday, February 19th 2025
NVIDIA's 32-Bit PhysX Waves Goodbye with GeForce RTX 50 Series Ending 32-Bit CUDA Software Support
The days of 32-bit software support in NVIDIA's drivers are coming to an end, and with that, so does the support for the once iconic PhysX real-time physics engine. According to NVIDIA's engineers on GeForce forums, the lack of PhysX support has been quietly acknowledged, as NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 50 series of GPUs are phasing out support for 32-bit CUDA software, slowly transitioning the gaming world to the 64-bit software entirely. While older NVIDIA GPUs from the Maxwell through Ada generations will maintain 32-bit CUDA support, this update breaks backward compatibility for physics acceleration in legacy PC games on new GPUs. Users running these titles on RTX 50 series cards may need to rely on CPU-based PhysX processing, which could result in suboptimal performance compared to previous GPU generations.
A Reddit user reported frame rates dropping below 60 FPS in Borderlands 2 while using basic game mechanics with a 9800X3D CPU and RTX 5090 GPU, all because 32-bit CUDA application support on Blackwell architecture is depreciated. When another user booted up a 64-bit PhysX application, Batman Arkham Knight, PhysX worked perfectly, as expected. It is just that a massive list of older games, which gamers would sometimes prefer to play, is now running a lot slower on the most powerful consumer GPU due to the phase-out of 32-bit CUDA app support.
Here is a comprehensive list of games that use 32-bit PhysX, which will be runnin slower if the latest GeForce RTX 50 series is used, nicely compiled by a Resetera forum user: Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, Crazy Machines 2, Unreal Tournament 3, Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction, Hot Dance Party, QQ Dance, Hot Dance Party II, Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason, Mirror's Edge, Armageddon Riders, Darkest of Days, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Sacred 2: Ice & Blood, Shattered Horizon, Star Trek DAC, Metro 2033, Dark Void, Blur, Mafia II, Hydrophobia: Prophecy, Jianxia 3, Alice: Madness Returns, MStar, Batman: Arkham City, 7554, Depth Hunter, Deep Black, Gas Guzzlers: Combat Carnage, The Secret World, Continent of the Ninth (C9), Borderlands 2, Passion Leads Army, QQ Dance 2, Star Trek, Mars: War Logs, Metro: Last Light, Rise of the Triad, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, Batman: Arkham Origins, and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.
Sources:
Reddit, Resetera Forums
A Reddit user reported frame rates dropping below 60 FPS in Borderlands 2 while using basic game mechanics with a 9800X3D CPU and RTX 5090 GPU, all because 32-bit CUDA application support on Blackwell architecture is depreciated. When another user booted up a 64-bit PhysX application, Batman Arkham Knight, PhysX worked perfectly, as expected. It is just that a massive list of older games, which gamers would sometimes prefer to play, is now running a lot slower on the most powerful consumer GPU due to the phase-out of 32-bit CUDA app support.
74 Comments on NVIDIA's 32-Bit PhysX Waves Goodbye with GeForce RTX 50 Series Ending 32-Bit CUDA Software Support
Other people claimed: you want hardware physx support get a 4000 nvidia gpu fast.
It seems it was a game from 2013 and not from the dosage. rott.exe from around year 1996. I highly doubt it had phsyx. The 2013 seems to be broken. I gave up looking.
Rise of the Triad
steamcommunity.com/app/217140/discussions/6/1353742967812968863/
steamcommunity.com/app/217140/discussions/0/3047230768359771648/
Interesting statement thereI assuem you most likely need a retro computer box with a nvidia 600 gpu or older. Good luck finding parts, the software, the games.
It is Open Source though, so I am sure we can just mod it in. That being said, to me it's a very stupid move on nVidias part, as many gamers still play those older titles and buy their GPUs for PhysX, me being one of them.
Anyways, curious to see what really happens, perhaps this is what is causing all the drive issues and they just temporarily removed it, but they really need to find a way to re-enable it, when there is a will, there is a way, people aren't happy about this at all,
And that's assuming no architecture-dependant code was used (which is a stretch for AA/AAA games).
I guess this could be circumvented by having multiple CUDA drivers? Dunno if it could be pulled on Windows tho.
Old PhysX games did go through some issues. Nvidia does have a seperate, "legacy" version of the driver for these cases. I guess someone could figure a way to keep old CUDA drivers around as well.
Or the simplest of all solutions (although not necessarily the wisest): Stick to old drivers.
120 FPS on 4090 in a 16 years old game to get mid looking smoke, wow what a loss.
You just have to rename the exe. From game.exe to game64.exe. Bam! Now it's compatible.
Y'all welcome.
The fluid sim is mid (game's age notwithstanding), but interactive smoke? That's neat (and costly)!If this was AMD, I wouldn't have ruled out this as a valid workaround. :D
7554
Alice: Madness Returns
Armageddon Riders
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Batman: Arkham City
Batman: Arkham Origins
Blur
Borderlands 2
Continent of the Ninth (C9)
Crazy Machines 2
Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason
Dark Void
Darkest of Days
Deep Black
Depth Hunter
Gas Guzzlers: Combat Carnage
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2
Hot Dance Party
Hot Dance Party II
Hydrophobia: Prophecy
Jianxia 3
Mafia II
Mars: War Logs
Metro 2033
Metro: Last Light
Mirror's Edge
Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia
MStar
Passion Leads Army
QQ Dance
QQ Dance 2
Rise of the Triad
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Sacred 2: Ice & Blood
The Secret World
Shattered Horizon
Star Trek
Star Trek DAC
Unreal Tournament 3
Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
Arkham Asylum
Arkham City
Arkham Origins
Alice: Madness Returns
Unreal Tournament 3
Not that much.
www.techpowerup.com/review/bfg-ageia-physx-card/