Graphic Cards Nvidia Disables PhysX in Presence of ATI GPU

LOL.... Green camp is green with envy, but you can't tell by the color. :p

Although it's a very rare issue for very rare configs, but it just shows another dirty tricks GPU makers use in their drivers.
 
its obvious they wont let ati users use physx , why would they let ATI cards take advantage of physx ? then many people will just buy cheap nvidia cards along with high end ati :lol: many people choose nvidia over ati just because of physx advantage .
 
I think there would a cross platform physics framework soon enough. Maybe Havok itself should be ported for GPU acceleration (Although unlikely because of Intel). In any case Red Faction : Guerrilla is in itself enough proof that you don't even need GPU acceleration for physics.

Of course I am with nvidia in that it should do everything it can to protect its IP. But making Physx so nVidia GPU exclusive is like shooting itself in the foot. It would have been fine if it had been a feature that did not require any work from game developers, but why would game developers spend so much effort on something that doesn't even have the chance to run on half the PC configurations.
 
^^whateva Nvidia is playing cheapo tricks, disabling AA on ATI gpu's even though ATI cards are capable of running the game with AA in Batman Arkham Asylum, the game detects the gpu device ID if its nvidia AA option in game is enabled if Ati then its disabled:p

Ati cards wer run by changing device ID and ran the game with AA enabled.

For now ATi card users have to force AA from ccc or 3rd party softwares.
 
@RoBoGhosT: What nVidia is doing is essentially wrong. I paid for the card, doesn't matter which... weather it's cheap 9600GSO or GTS260, nVidia got their freakin' money. nVidia has no business how I use that card, primary or secondary, they are ripping me off the feature for which I have paid.

It's not like I'm running ATi GPU and hacking nVidia's physx software to get GPU acceleration on it without any nVidia card to support physx in my system. I got nVidia card, it supports physx and I want to run it for physx. Why should nVidia tell me what my primary GPU should be?

Check discussion here : http://www.ngohq.com/graphic-cards/16223-nvidia-disables-physx-when-ati-card-is-present.html
 
iGo said:
@RoBoGhosT: What nVidia is doing is essentially wrong. I paid for the card, doesn't matter which... weather it's cheap 9600GSO or GTS260, nVidia got their freakin' money. nVidia has no business how I use that card, primary or secondary, they are ripping me off the feature for which I have paid.
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I do not agree with you. nVidia intended its GPU's to be used for Graphics Acceleration. Physx acceleration is just an added bonus nvidia is giving you when you use their products for Graphics Acceleration. They never advertised it as a dedicated Physx Accelerator. So if you buy a 9600GSO or GTS250 and it does not work for GPU Acceleration then by all means you have a reason to complain. As for Physx, it was never intended or advertised as a dedicated Physx accelerator, so nVidia is doing nothing wrong here.

For instance take the example of how AMD is in the process of disabling cores on a quad and selling them off as Dual or Tri Core. People are in the habit of unlocking those cores using various means, If AMD starts using a more rigorous process for locking down the cores, will you blame AMD for doing that? you are still getting a Dual core Tri core which is what AMD promised. Its the same for nVidia. They promised you a chip that accelerates graphics, blame them if it doesn't do that, not otherwise.
 
^^ its not added bonus. They marketed their cards with Physx. They even advertised how you can use your older cards as dedicated physx card. So its their responsibility that end user should be able to use it for what it is advertised regardless of anything else he might be using in their system.
 
makes complete sense for them to disable physx with ati gpus. along with this announcement though, they should have released discrete physx cards like the old aegeia ppu.
 
Shripad said:
^^ its not added bonus. They marketed their cards with Physx. They even advertised how you can use your older cards as dedicated physx card. So its their responsibility that end user should be able to use it for what it is advertised regardless of anything else he might be using in their system.
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They marketed their GPUs primarily as Graphics Accelerators with additional support for Physics acceleration, however if they indeed marketed them as dedicated Physx accelerators, then do have an obligation to make them work. Still I am not sure if they ever advertised their GPU's as dedicated Physx solutions in non SLI configurations.

Can you link me to any such marketing where they targeted their chips as dedicated Physx solutions in multi gpu configs outside of SLI.
 
Here you go, right from Nvidia FAQ.

3304ac35c105d611.jpg
 
@Lord Nemesis: You're right about Graphic Accelerator part... but, the AMD tri-core and dual-core analogy is little hard to digest. AMD is providing you tri-core and it's advertising as tri-core, it doesn't promise you the fourth-core neither it advertises it such ("unlock fourth core and reward yourself").

Take this for example... Hyundai sold me Santro (product) with AC and Radio (features). While the primary function of Santro is driving it doesn't stop me from not driving it and just use AC for sitting in car and listening to radio. Hyundai can't tell me that if I'm not driving they will disable my AC. Similarly, nVidia is promising me certain features on my graphic card, regardless how I use it as long as it's installed in system and working. I should be able to use those feature, they have no right to disable those feature deliberately unless there is a genuine technical limitation preventing it to function.
 
iGo said:
@Lord Nemesis: You're right about Graphic Accelerator part... but, the AMD tri-core and dual-core analogy is little hard to digest. AMD is providing you tri-core and it's advertising as tri-core, it doesn't promise you the fourth-core neither it advertises it such ("unlock fourth core and reward yourself").

Take this for example... Hyundai sold me Santro (product) with AC and Radio (features). While the primary function of Santro is driving it doesn't stop me from not driving it and just use AC for sitting in car and listening to radio. Hyundai can't tell me that if I'm not driving they will disable my AC. Similarly, nVidia is promising me certain features on my graphic card, regardless how I use it as long as it's installed in system and working. I should be able to use those feature, they have no right to disable those feature deliberately unless there is a genuine technical limitation preventing it to function.
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very true......and if earlier this was working it should have improved more with time but they have disabled it for sheer incompetence, to reduce the market gain of ATI
 
Shripad said:
Here you go, right from Nvidia FAQ.
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that doesn't say that it has to work with another vendor's gpu. afaik, you can still use 2 nvidia cards and run one as dedicated for physx. in fact, this is what i am planning to do when i play batman... i'm going to disable sli and force one card for physx. from what i've been reading, this improves performance a lot.

iGo said:
Similarly, nVidia is promising me certain features on my graphic card, regardless how I use it as long as it's installed in system and working. I should be able to use those feature, they have no right to disable those feature deliberately unless there is a genuine technical limitation preventing it to function.
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i don't see why there has to be a technical limitation preventing it. nvidia has no obligation to support the feature in a multi vendor gpu configuration. there is no technical limitation stopping you from clocking an i7 to 4.0ghz, but you will not get support from intel after doing so either.

the way i see it is, win7 has thrown a spanner into the works by allowing multiple vendor gpus to run. nvidia reportedly spent 150 million dollars to buy out aegia, and since then have agressively promoted physx... branding it, spending money to get it working on top games and what not. from a business perspective, it doesn't make sense for them to turn around and offer the advantage of using physx to their competitor with a 60$ second hand card.

let's not forget, supporting physx in a config like this would be an ongoing process. of course, i don't have any knowledge of this, but i would assume that running 2 different vendor cards on the same os would mean that the both gpu drivers would have to interact in some particular way. if something goes wrong with the physx, nvidia has to fix it or users would just get a negative impression of the company/brand. and otherwise, they would have to continue spending money and time supporting physx in this particular configuration, where they are hardly earning any money in the first place. this is just lose-lose for nvidia, and this is why they actively removed support for this feature, instead of just saying that it's not supported and leaving it like that.

and i really do believe that they would have maintained this support if they thought it would affect a large enough market. the one advantage that they get is that physx gains mindshare like this and possibly more devs would start using it. but they must have estimated that the people who this would affect was not worth the investment.

the users who really want physx have some options... either buy an nv gpu, or use the secondary nv gpu alone, or use the older drivers where it still works. it does screw over the people who specifically bought an nv gpu for physx, and that sucks. having an old gpu and expecting that to run doesn't count as being screwed over though. it's definitely not the best outcome for ati users but anyone who understands how business works will understand why nvidia is doing this.
 
spindoctor said:
that doesn't say that it has to work with another vendor's gpu. afaik, you can still use 2 nvidia cards and run one as dedicated for physx. in fact, this is what i am planning to do when i play batman... i'm going to disable sli and force one card for physx. from what i've been reading, this improves performance a lot.

i don't see why there has to be a technical limitation preventing it. nvidia has no obligation to support the feature in a multi vendor gpu configuration. there is no technical limitation stopping you from clocking an i7 to 4.0ghz, but you will not get support from intel after doing so either.

the way i see it is, win7 has thrown a spanner into the works by allowing multiple vendor gpus to run. nvidia reportedly spent 150 million dollars to buy out aegia, and since then have agressively promoted physx... branding it, spending money to get it working on top games and what not. from a business perspective, it doesn't make sense for them to turn around and offer the advantage of using physx to their competitor with a 60$ second hand card.

let's not forget, supporting physx in a config like this would be an ongoing process. of course, i don't have any knowledge of this, but i would assume that running 2 different vendor cards on the same os would mean that the both gpu drivers would have to interact in some particular way. if something goes wrong with the physx, nvidia has to fix it or users would just get a negative impression of the company/brand. and otherwise, they would have to continue spending money and time supporting physx in this particular configuration, where they are hardly earning any money in the first place. this is just lose-lose for nvidia, and this is why they actively removed support for this feature, instead of just saying that it's not supported and leaving it like that.

and i really do believe that they would have maintained this support if they thought it would affect a large enough market. the one advantage that they get is that physx gains mindshare like this and possibly more devs would start using it. but they must have estimated that the people who this would affect was not worth the investment.

the users who really want physx have some options... either buy an nv gpu, or use the secondary nv gpu alone, or use the older drivers where it still works. it does screw over the people who specifically bought an nv gpu for physx, and that sucks. having an old gpu and expecting that to run doesn't count as being screwed over though. it's definitely not the best outcome for ati users but anyone who understands how business works will understand why nvidia is doing this.
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There is no technical limitation, and the FAQ does not say no to ATI hardware as well. It used to work, now it does not. As simple as that.

If there is any limitation , company is supposed to inform its buyers before hand. and not after 2 years from the launch of the hardware.

its not the other way around. If they say it works in heterogeneous configuration (specifically not stating NVidia GFX cards only), it means they can work with any two dissimilar cards as long as one used for physx is NV one. Heterogeneous does not mean NVIDIA only.
 
Shripad said:
There is no technical limitation, and the FAQ does not say no to ATI hardware as well. It used to work, now it does not. As simple as that.

If there is any limitation , company is supposed to inform its buyers before hand. and not after 2 years from the launch of the hardware.

its not the other way around. If they say it works in heterogeneous configuration (specifically not stating NVidia GFX cards only), it means they can work with any two dissimilar cards as long as one used for physx is NV one. Heterogeneous does not mean NVIDIA only.
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so what you're saying is, you expect it to work because the faq doesn't say that it won't? the faq also doesn't say that the nvidia gpu would bake cakes for you. but since it's not mentioned, it should, right?

to be honest, would you suddenly be satisfied and not pissed off anymore if they added a few words to the faq?

also, the problem is not related to the hardware. so it's not like they've been misleading users for 2 years like you stated. it only arises with windows 7, and that hasn't even officially released yet.

to repeat, the only people who really get screwed here are those who went out and bought nvidia cards specifically for physx. that's a real shame though, and although it can't have been too many, this does suck for them.
 
@Shripad: Thanks, saved me few words. :)

@spindoctor: Probably you didn't get what I wrote before. nVidia has no obligation to support multi-vendor GPU config... fine, but nVidia HAS obligation to keep the previously working feature in working state. Not disable it via drivers just because someone doesn't wanna use nVidia card as primary graphic accelerator.

I'll say it again, I paid for it, there is nothing preventing it from working technically, so it should work. If you're disabling it deliberately then you're cheating me and robbing my money. :no:
 
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