NVIDIA offers PhysX and CUDA support to GeForce 8 and higher

by Ross Miller { Aug 13th 2008 at 3:00AM }

Assuming your NVIDIA GeForce graphics card isn't broken, the company has added PhysX and CUDA support to its GeForce 8, 9 and 200-series via the free Power Pack download, found on its Force Within page (via press release). The company is also offering a few Unreal Tournament 3 PhysX-enabled maps, the full Warmonger game, Folding@Home, demos of Metal Knight Zero and Nurien and various tech demos. Each game has to support PhysX before you'll notice a difference (here's a list of supported titles). Once we download the update, we'll let you know just how much more awesome our copies of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakening are. (Answer: so much more awesome.)

Tags: cuda, geforce, nvidia, physx

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Eh @ Aug 13th 2008 3:20AM

I hope this ends up being a big step in gaming advancement instead of a gimmick. It has the potential to be a great thing for games.

Cal @ Aug 13th 2008 3:33AM

It's been around for about 2 years now. I'm sure if it was the next big thing in gaming it would have received more attention prior to the implementation of it in the NVIDIA cards.

BananaBoat @ Aug 13th 2008 4:11AM

There is an interesting interview with John Carmack on the internets where he talks about why it won't be a big thing. Basically (according to him, I'd hope he'd know) when designing a game, you have to design the game for the lowest common denominator (the person with the least powerful system). If your engine is built with PhysX, and, say, the game calls for you to destroy a building that is built using PhysX, and most of your market doesn't have PhysX, it's going to be a lag fest. Because of this, the only implementation for PhysX right now is for eye candy such as special UT3 maps with destructable walls, and tech demo's with water flowing realistically.

I somewhat agree with him that next gen (or even next-next gen) physics will start to play a big roll in games, especially on consoles where the hardware is set across the entire platform (and thus you don't have to build for the lowest denominator).

For my money, PhysX is something that isn't really going anywhere any time soon. That is why I went for the 4870 this time around, instead of the similarly priced (yet slightly under performing) GTX 260 with PhysX support. On the up side, Cuda is supposedly amazing for Folding@Home, and there can be no down side to that.

Ihavepants @ Aug 13th 2008 4:46AM

Seeing as PhysX support is now a feature in all forthcoming Nvidia cards and they are allowing AMD to support it as well, I can see it being implemented more. But for a while it will all be gimmickey features that don't effect gameplay at all and come with a toggle.

Eh @ Aug 13th 2008 5:42AM

I know physx has been around for a long time now, but it was only available as an expensive add-on. Nobody bought it so of course it hasnt had any success yet. The video card implementation brings physx to the mass market for free, which is why I hope its not just a gimmick that doesnt work well enough to be of any use. It will be interesting to see if this takes off and has a big effect on game performance now that almost everyone will be able to use physx.

the Brayn @ Aug 13th 2008 8:31AM

BananaBoat,

While that is certainly true for the mass market games, there are some games that come out for the higher end that could greatly benefit from this. Crysis, for example, was certainly not designed for the "lowest common denominator" group and it has already surpassed 1.5 million copies sold (according to its page on wikipedia). Going forward if all cards that are being sold are capable of using PhysX then I can see many more games being developed to take advantage of it.

TWIMTBP @ Aug 13th 2008 9:24AM

John Carmack's assertion held good in a world where PhysX processing was done by a seperate card. Now when you're getting PhysX acceleration "for free" with your existing hardware, why won't PhysX be relevant?

LaughingTarget @ Aug 13th 2008 1:34PM

I recall some years ago a company called 3dfx said that Nvidia's GPU concept was a gimmick and no developer would bother writing code for one.

DarkNessBear @ Aug 13th 2008 3:37PM

Yea, Physics is such a gimmick. Even in real life... /sarcasm

BananaBoat @ Aug 13th 2008 11:53PM

The numbers (specifically, the ones Valve released, as taken from steam info gathering) show that most people are playing on hardware that you and I would probably consider dated. So to reach that player base, you've got to design a game that scales down extremely well. That doesn't mean it can't scale up to have extremely beautiful graphics etc, but it does mean that the foundations of the map need to be scaled down (and then they build on top of it). The building example I mentioned is the best one I can think of, where you'd need to build a completely different level for people that don't have PhysX (because their non-PhysX enabled card can't possibly run the physics calculations) and for people that do.

I don't doubt that it will eventually be just another standard in game design, but until that large share of people with terrible systems have upgraded, it just doesn't seem that profitable. While Crysis will run on low at a low res on alot of computers, any game with PhsyX built into the engine would require for a person to have PhysX for it to run. You'd be chopping your sales in the leg. It's kind of like how Hardware Transform and Lighting was back in the day...I remember being forced to buy a 3D card because games suddenly started requiring HW T&L before they'd run. Boy was I pissed...and requiring PhysX would be exactly like that.

Ihavepants @ Aug 14th 2008 5:01AM

Actually Banana Boat it showed that the most common card was the 8800GT, which supports PhysX...

Tiptup300 @ Aug 13th 2008 3:24AM

Tomorrow I should get to test this all out with my precious.

Paul @ Aug 13th 2008 3:37AM

UGH.

Now I can stare at this and just wait until HP updates their notebook drivers which is like, never.

SeriousKriss @ Aug 13th 2008 3:46AM

Try this : http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

Robotic Earthling @ Aug 13th 2008 5:04AM

Yeah, it's pathetic how seldom laptop vendors release updated graphics drivers. Using the drivers from laptopvideo2go.com increased my friend's 3DMark score by about 500 points.

Evan @ Aug 13th 2008 3:47AM

That's odd. I seem to remember CUDA being available for at least a year now, and for the 6/7 series as well.

Evan @ Aug 13th 2008 4:06AM

Oops, I was thinking of GPGPU.

CUDA has still been out for a good while though.

sqwarlock @ Aug 13th 2008 5:53AM

So...let me understand this. I have a GeForce 8800 GTS. This driver enables said card to act as a PhysX processor too?

Tom18230 @ Aug 13th 2008 10:21AM

I also have this card (640mb version, I might add) and don't really get this either.

If people report back good things about it, I'll download and see.

aurorous @ Aug 13th 2008 12:04PM

short answer... yes

But it will take away from the overall graphics power of the card. like turning on anti-aliasing it makes things look prettier but you'll take a hit in frame rate.

At the very least it's worth it to download and see what it looks like. Some of the older games aren't really pushing the modern geforce cards anyway. city of heroes/villains comes to mind.

Evan @ Aug 13th 2008 3:27PM

Ok. There's this thing called an FPGA. GPUs and PPUs are both essentially FPGAs, so a PPU is essentially a GPU in that it handles floating point math easily and is massively parallel. Porting PhysX to the GPU with CUDA is exactly what NVIDIA did.

sam @ Aug 13th 2008 8:31AM

Has anyone given this a shot yet? I'm wondering if it's worth my time to download and install this... My 8600GT is working great with it's current driver - i can't see this being a real benefit to me....

http://www.samalamadingdong.com

Chris @ Aug 13th 2008 9:14AM

This is hilarious. When PhysX cards first came out and were being hyped by Aegia, BFG, and Asus, everyone thought it was the next big thing. I did not. I kept telling everyone that PhysX would never amount to much as a stand alone card and that it would probably be absorbed into a motherboard chip or something.

Of course, I got flamed within an inch of my life for saying stuff like that. And now it turns out that with a software update, my 8800 will have PhysX. I don't even have to go out and buy new hardware. Sweet vindication for me, even though the PC Gamer Magazine forums are now basically defunct.

zuburi @ Aug 13th 2008 10:42AM

Evidently sir, you and I have different definitions of the word "hilarious."

zero3computers @ Aug 13th 2008 10:22AM

Great advancement in gaming technology. Hopefully this advancement begins to move like wildfire and the rest step up..but I prefer Nvidia anyways...so I'm good I guess.

http://www.zero3computers.com

Tom18230 @ Aug 13th 2008 10:58AM

Downloaded and install the drivers. The fluid tech demo looks pretty cool. Just waiting for the rest of the demos to download.

I guess this is alright for a freebie.

5th hot meal @ Aug 13th 2008 12:15PM

Does anyone know if this will work with the quadro fx cards? I have a couple of 4600's but i was looking on the nvidia website and there was no updated drivers for my card, i know this seems to indicate that it won't work or isn't available but the card is based on the g80 chipset.

probably should hassle nvidia direct...