Screenshot comparison PhysX - No PhysX

[Chris_TC]

On my really, really, really old Athlon X2 4200 (@ 2.5 Ghz) with a GTX 260 (that one's not so old), turning on the effects dropped the average frame rate by 15 fps.

http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/6301/physx1.jpg
http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/7387/physx2.jpg
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/291/physx3.jpg
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/5018/physx4.jpg
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/8288/physx5.jpg
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/3125/physx6.jpg

[SmilerAl]

So that thread where people were boycotting the game for PhysX was for THAT?
Jesus, people are petty.

[Doctor_Hades]

Interesting... so the addition of PhysX seems to amount to some particles of debris and little else for your 50% framerate loss?

Nice to know I'll not be missing much then... ;)

[james_2k]

its all about the immersion.

and while particles etc add it. lower framerate reduces it.

so it a tradeoff. personally, i prefer high framerate to debris, but would prefer both of course

[Doctor_Hades]

To be honest, I had an NVIDIA GTX 280 previously and enjoyed PhysX depsite the heavy framerate loss. When I switched to ATI and the HD 5870 though, my one worry was that I'd miss PhysX but the reality is that I don't. Batman: Arkham Asylum had some neat steam effects using PhysX and little else bar horrid performance during the Scarecrow scenes and the honest truth is that I enjoyed the game far more at 60 fps on ATI hardware then I did at 20-40 fps on my old GTX 280.

PhysX is undoubtedly a fine thing to have but it's poorly optimised and incurs a heavy framerate penalty unless you're running SLI so I personally don't think it is worth it for the few extra effects you get. At the end of the day the gameplay is identical whether you have PhysX on or not.

[Chris_TC]

Batman: Arkham Asylum had some neat steam effects using PhysX and little else
Little else?

Watch this 10 minute video. The comparison starts at 1:15
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GyKCM-Bpuw

[juggalopimp11]

To be honest, I had an NVIDIA GTX 280 previously and enjoyed PhysX depsite the heavy framerate loss. When I switched to ATI and the HD 5870 though, my one worry was that I'd miss PhysX but the reality is that I don't. Batman: Arkham Asylum had some neat steam effects using PhysX and little else bar horrid performance during the Scarecrow scenes and the honest truth is that I enjoyed the game far more at 60 fps on ATI hardware then I did at 20-40 fps on my old GTX 280.

PhysX is undoubtedly a fine thing to have but it's poorly optimised and incurs a heavy framerate penalty unless you're running SLI so I personally don't think it is worth it for the few extra effects you get. At the end of the day the gameplay is identical whether you have PhysX on or not.

The physx effects in batman are pretty sweet. You don't have to miss out on physx just because you run an AMD card. I run a HD5970 with a GTX285 for dedicated physx :) just throw the old nvidia card in a spare slot.

[Darkness62]

I am loving it, APEX/PhysX on medium is great, with very little frame rate loss. In a firefight with the Police in a diner then ran to a gas station. Glass and debris raining down on me was amazing. The cloth PhysX are quite breathtaking as well. The biggest problem with the demo seems to be AA. either on or off, on kills performance hope that is fixed in final release.

http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Darkness_62/Mafia2Demo/mafia22010-08-1007-07-41-36.jpg
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Darkness_62/Mafia2Demo/mafia22010-08-1007-09-49-24.jpg
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Darkness_62/Mafia2Demo/mafia22010-08-1007-11-34-92.jpg
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Darkness_62/Mafia2Demo/mafia22010-08-1007-11-36-37.jpg
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Darkness_62/Mafia2Demo/mafia22010-08-1007-11-44-72.jpg
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Darkness_62/Mafia2Demo/mafia22010-08-1007-11-48-57.jpg
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Darkness_62/Mafia2Demo/mafia22010-08-1007-11-54-99.jpg

[Doctor_Hades]

Little else?

Watch this 10 minute video. The comparison starts at 1:15
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GyKCM-Bpuw

Believe me, I've played the game with High PhysX on a GTX 280 and without PhysX on an HD 5870 and the differences IMO are minimal unless you go looking for them. Sheets of paper floating around and mist/steam are superfluous IMO (although the latter is initially impressive to see) as are the banners in certain places. Also damage is inconsistent with Batman able to knock out chunks of masonry in the first room where you fight escaped prisoners but nowhere else!!!

Yes, those effects are nice to have in a kind of higher-spec graphical setting kind of way but I didn't miss them at all when I replayed Batman on an ATI card but I certainly welcomed the silky-smooth 60 fps framerate I had instead!

I still have my GTX 280 and a third PCI-E slot on my motherboard but I'm really not that bothered about PhysX anymore to be honest; I'd much rather have the extra performance, particularly as so few games use GPU PhysX anyway.

[reactioN]

I am loving it, APEX/PhysX on medium is great, with very little frame rate loss. In a firefight with the Police in a diner then ran to a gas station. Glass and debris raining down on me was amazing. The cloth PhysX are quite breathtaking as well. The biggest problem with the demo seems to be AA. either on or off, on kills performance hope that is fixed in final release.

http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Darkness_62/Mafia2Demo/mafia22010-08-1007-07-41-36.jpg
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Darkness_62/Mafia2Demo/mafia22010-08-1007-09-49-24.jpg
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Darkness_62/Mafia2Demo/mafia22010-08-1007-11-34-92.jpg
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Darkness_62/Mafia2Demo/mafia22010-08-1007-11-36-37.jpg
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Darkness_62/Mafia2Demo/mafia22010-08-1007-11-44-72.jpg
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Darkness_62/Mafia2Demo/mafia22010-08-1007-11-48-57.jpg
http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy288/Darkness_62/Mafia2Demo/mafia22010-08-1007-11-54-99.jpg

little framerate drop?

cool story bro, 70% less fps with physx enabled (in firefights)


also the clothing moving with physx is unrealistic as ♥♥♥♥, without physx they are still moving, only not so heavy

[juggalopimp11]

I didn't get the framerate hit from the physx until i hit the warehouse, i died once and after the death it worked fine. Try a quick suicide (ingame only!) for those having issues, worked for me!

[dreed]

Physx runs good with any nvidia card right?

so getting cheap 200 series second hand from ebay and putting it as a secondary card would still allow games to run physx without problems?
(sitting on 4850 atm)

[Darkness62]

little framerate drop?

cool story bro, 70% less fps with physx enabled (in firefights)


also the clothing moving with physx is unrealistic as ♥♥♥♥, without physx they are still moving, only not so heavy

Damn, guess you are right, who could argue with a percentage you pulled straight from your ♥♥♥. :confused:

[reactioN]

Damn, guess you are right, who could argue with a percentage you pulled straight from your ♥♥♥. :confused:

without physx my average fps was ~80

with physx its ~27

thats ~70% drop.

[Oublieux]

without physx my average fps was ~80

with physx its ~27

thats ~70% drop.

I can believe this. It's possible for PhysX to be run with ATI cards, except it's the CPU doing the task rather than the GPU. I did this with Arkham Asylum which my 5870, which is MORE than enough to handle the game, but with PhysX my framerates dropped like crazy.

And, no, it's not because CPU's can't handle PhysX. With dual cores, triple cores, and quad cores out nowadays, they can demolish PhysX calculations. The only reason CPU's run PhysX so terribly is because Nvidia purposely gimped them on the CPU end by using an old coding scheme, all so they could attempt to maintain their stronghold on GPUs (ATI has been giving some fierce competition).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not biased toward any one company; I'm just about value for money and ATI just happened to offer that this time around. I can live without the PhysX because not many games use them and it's just extra eyecandy :)

Source for Nvidia gimping PhysX on CPU: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/phyx-ageia-x87-sse-physics,news-33839.html

[reactioN]

I can believe this. It's possible for PhysX to be run with ATI cards, except it's the CPU doing the task rather than the GPU. I did this with Arkham Asylum which my 5870, which is MORE than enough to handle the game, but with PhysX my framerates dropped like crazy.

And, no, it's not because CPU's can't handle PhysX. With dual cores, triple cores, and quad cores out nowadays, they can demolish PhysX calculations. The only reason CPU's run PhysX so terribly is because Nvidia purposely gimped them on the CPU end by using an old coding scheme, all so they could attempt to maintain their stronghold on GPUs (ATI has been giving some fierce competition).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not biased toward any one company; I'm just about value for money and ATI just happened to offer that this time around. I can live without the PhysX because not many games use them and it's just extra eyecandy :)

Source for Nvidia gimping PhysX on CPU: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/phyx-ageia-x87-sse-physics,news-33839.html

You sir, are right.


i have also an 5870, but i have to set up a seperate nvidia when the game is released for physx because the cpu code is so poorly made :mad:

[DeadlyDragon]

I have a GTX 260 and with Physics on at medium i get around 30 fps, if i turn it off i get about 35 fps, so not much difference.

[DSHNX]

Only 5fps less?
I have a gt260 too, for me it drops from ~50fps to unplayable 14fps in the benchmark. :(

[reactioN]

I have a GTX 260 and with Physics on at medium i get around 30 fps, if i turn it off i get about 35 fps, so not much difference.

Make a benchmark

and restart the game if u change physx settings


When im in town my settings with physx are 60 aswell

but in benchmark its .... not cool

[DeadlyDragon]

yeah i restarted it to make sure, and i was also shocked so i went back to the options and it was off. Ill try it again.

EDIT: This is from my pc, restart between each test.
http://a.imageshack.us/img837/2640/mafia22010081023374612c.jpg