Guide; Use old GPU to solve physX problems.

[PolyHertz]

So I wanted to use physX, but found that on my Geforce 1060 6GB the framerate using physx was unacceptable. In order to fix this I installed an old cheap Geforce 650 2GB as a dedicated physX card along side my main GPU, and now particle heavy scenes (like the reactor) run at 2-3 times the framerate they did before. Here's how you can do the same:

1. Plug the old GPU into your PC, including any needed power cables. Do NOT disconnect your main GPU, this is just meant to aid it not replace it.
2. After booting to windows, right click on your desktop and open "NVIDIA Control Panel".
3. On the left hand side on the menu go to 3D settings > Configure surround, PhysX , then on the right side go to "PhysX settings" and under it select your old GPU before pressing the check box under it that says "Dedicate to PhysX".

That's it! Now the game should run perfectly smooth with PhysX enabled! No need to install any extra drivers/software or anything. :)

NOTE: The 700 series GPUs, with 2GB of VRAM or more, are probably the best cards for this purpose in terms of compatibility (while also having overall better performance then the 600 series). I only used a 650 2GB because I had a spare one that wasn't otherwise being used.

[Ricardo]

sure thing buddy but this doesn't work wit all software. not to mention the software than uses physx is almost not existent not to mention terrible optimized (e.g borderlands 2)

[PolyHertz]

I know, I'm just posting this to help anyone who wants better performance using physx in this game.

[OffstageWeevil]

does the turbulence effect actually work if you do that? Or is it still frozen like when you use the .dll workaround?

[PolyHertz]

Yep, turbulence works. It's kind of neat running through a wall of particles and seeing them react.

[Ohio's_Last_Rockstar]

I haz Guide..you might wanna try.?..

[IndianaJones]

Originally posted by PolyHertz:

Yep, turbulence works. It's kind of neat running through a wall of particles and seeing them react.

How many FPS do you actually get in reactor scene and at what resolution?

I got like 2-3 FPS, so having from 6 to 9 FPS won't really help me? :D

[PolyHertz]

Originally posted by Deadlock:

How many FPS do you actually get in reactor scene and at what resolution?

I got like 2-3 FPS, so having from 6 to 9 FPS won't really help me? :D

I was running at either 1080p or 1200p when I tested it, and ran perfectly smooth. It was definitely at least 30fps.

[IndianaJones]

Thanks for sharing, I found this short video on well know Linus Tech Tips youtube channel.

Bottom line:
Using a much slower dedicated GPU for Physx will hurt (bottleneck) performance for entire system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=99&v=cbww3dhzK0M


I will just skip it. Shame that Physx goes down like this.
Nvidia recently open-sourced Physx, so there is a slight chance things will get better in the future.
But judging from the history of Physx it won't change anything for old games.

There was a major overhaul done for Physx API between version 2.x and 3.x. So all older games would need to be updated to work with it and to work on current hardware, and we know that is not gonna happen.

Nvidia is preparing to release 4.x version soon.
We'll see how it goes. For now the only game that works for me with hardware Physx is Mafia 2.

And I have not seen any game for a while now that would advertise their enhanced physics by using hardware Physx API.

Oh wait, I've just remember one unreleased yet game now.

Metro Exodus

[PolyHertz]

Yea a dedicated PhysX card is mostly pointless these days. It's useful for this game, but you'd probably want to remove the card once you were finished with xcom (I did). If you have a spare card sitting around and want to play this game with all the effects enabled then go for it, otherwise I wouldn't bother.