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.
64 Comments on NVIDIA's 32-Bit PhysX Waves Goodbye with GeForce RTX 50 Series Ending 32-Bit CUDA Software Support
Physx CPU was open sourced, not the GPU implementation. The CPU implementation is very performance heavy and limits the effects, the heavier physx effects are only available to GPUs, which is still proprietary. "physx is totally open source" is an nvidia lie to make them look better.
Besides which, even if you wanted to, taking the 32 bit GPU physX libraries and modding them to run on the CPU would be a massive endeavor, who knows what you would break in the process. Without the source code and some serious dedication I dont see this happening.What will happen, if the other thread is any indication, is that you will have waves of people either arguing that 32 bit is obsolete (not understanding the difference between a 64 bit OS and a 64 bit library) or saying it doesnt affect you, just buy a 4000 and be happy, because apparently we all have secondary PCs just to maintain oldersoftware, and we havent spent the last decade+ trying to maintain compatibility moving forward because these are not MACs, we are not OK with leaving everything behind and purchasing new stuff because some software dev decided so.
I could understand it if Blackwell were a new architecture, but let's not kid ourselves, it's not.
I’m sure some modder will figure out a way to put out a 64-bit PhysX patch for these games. Especially since DLSS on older games can be forced into newer versions using DLL swaps.
Now Physx system software is phasing out that means newer generation of graphic card won't be able to run retro/old games.
However it has already started with certain generation of gpu.
Which is why I still have a old Win 7 Intel i7 3770k GTX 770 for old games but since steam has block/stop working.
So the only way is update to Win 10 which I don't really like to install Win 10 on older PCs especially mainly to run retro/old games.
I wish Steam can release a legacy/retro version for older Windows, remove the ability to purchase games/add-on on unsupported Windows.
Rather than completely cease Steam which in fact most of the old game support older Windows and older hardware.
it == 32 bit PysX
It’s not a driver thing, it’s an architectural thing. Anything pre-Blackwell will keep the support. It’s not like drivers even matter there - the functionality is provided by the PhysX distributable which is separate and hasn’t been updated for ages as is.
The OP is also worded poorly - it says that games will “run slower” which isn’t really the case. They will only run slower when PhysX effects are enabled since the CPU will handle them. If they are not enabled the game will run just fine. And I reiterate - it’s an OPTIONAL effect lack of which does in no way compromise the game itself since they were PC exclusive and the games weren’t really made with these effects as a baseline.
As for the effects, i guess you've never ever played a game with PhysX, and how much more alive it becomes with it enabled.
Seriously tho, CS2's implementation was interesting, but it's very limited compared to PhysX's. And it's also most likely GPU-accelerated (though I need to research this further), which returns us to the reall issue with PhysX: platform locks.
PhysX in general had some extremely advanced and impressive tech, but it was kept back by Nvidia being Nvidia. RTRT would've fared the same if it wasn't for Microsoft and Khronos standardizing it.Companies don't simply ship binaries with components they are not going to maintain (or outsource said maintenance).
And yeah, CS2 smoke is GPU accelerated from my knowledge. It’s obviously limited, but I think the limitations have more to do with what is actually necessary for the application and a need to conserve the performance budget, since it’s CS and people want a bajillion FPS. I would be very interested to see what Valve can do in a less restrictive application with this tech, as well as whatever else they are cooking, including fluid physics and material interactions judging by the SteamDB dev leaks. We’ll have to wait for HLX… whenever that comes in 25 years.
Shame NV wouldn't release something to open up old GPU PhysX on existing titles for game preservation sake.
Oh well, publishers have to pitch those "if you've never played it, its new to you" $50 remasters on 10 year old games somehow...
Edit: IMO PhysX is where NV really learned the power of FOMO on selling GPUs on niche/edge case features. Funny how it's come back full circle at a time when people won't even consider AMD cards because they lack whatever IQ mangling performance tanking feature NV is marginally ahead on at the time.
Unfornuately Steam is no longer able to run on Win 7/8.1, my old rig has this error which says.
"Steam is no longer supported on your operating system."
Very irony some of the games come from that era, no workaround for this.
Unless Steam release a legacy/retro client version for older Windows so people can play retro games on older hardware.