I am pleased to announce that GamePhys will soon have a dedicated test and benchmarking system for the site. This was a project I have been meaning to do since I started the site back in 2009 but never got around to it. The first phase of this project really got started this past Black Friday when I picked up several good deals on hardware and decided it would be a good time to move ahead with the project. I have now finished purchasing all of the hardware and plan to put it all together sometime this week.
I plan to start by doing basic guides and tutorials on how to setup dedicated PhysX cards and Hyrbid PhysX systems using the HD6950 with dedicated NVIDIA PhysX cards. As you can see, some of the hardware especially the motherboard is not exactly top of the line but will be perfect for doing basic Hyrbid PhysX setup tutorials and testing. I eventually plan to replace the motherboard and purchase another HD6950 for CrossFire setups with a dedicated PhysX card and then eventually do some real performance benchmarking with everything from different hardware configurations to overclocking! I also hope that the rumors are true that the upcoming NVIDIA Kepler/GK104 Will Have Dedicated PhysX Hardware so I can use this new system to test it out!
Below are the current specs of the systems inculding the two dedicated PhysX cards I will be using, the XFX GF GT430 and the MSI GeForce GTS 250.
BIOSTAR A870U3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
1 x AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Thuban 2.8GHz Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor
Cooler Master RR-910-HTX3-G1 130-Watt 92mm Hyper TX3 CPU Cooler
1 x XFX Double D HD-695X-ZDFC Radeon HD 6950 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 Video Card
1 x OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-60G 2.5″ 60GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
1 x G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
1 x Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W Power Supply
MYOPENPC DOMA Pro PCI Black Transparent Acrylic Open Computer Case
XFX GF GT430 700M 1 GB DDR3 PCI-E Video Card
MSI GeForce GTS 250 Video Card 512MB
Overall the GT 430 matches up well and does allow you to enable Physx in Physx titles when playing with an AMD graphics card. There is a pretty big performance hit compared to having Physx disabled but in all cases frame rates were still playable. There is a pretty substantial upgrade when comparing Physx On with the GT 430 added, it made the difference of being playable or not. The GTX 460 does show it’s extra power compared to the GT 430, you will get a few extra FPS using the GTX 460, I noticed between 2-5 FPS increase in most games tested after “upgrading” to the GTX 460. It is also worth noting that the EVGA GTX 460 1GB FTW edition is heavily overclocked out of the box, I ran this card at the factory defaults of 850/1000 which may account for the additional FPS scored, as well as some of the additional power usage. I can only guess, but I would think using a stock clock speed GTX 460 would result in slightly low FPS and slightly lower power draw. There is potential that the FPS performance of a stock clocked GTX 460 could be identical to the GT 430, however the power usage will always be lower on the GT 430. Remember the stock speeds for a GTX 460 is 675/900 and the GT 430 I used is 700/800 which the GTX 460 I used is 850/1000.
With all things considering I think the GT 430 is a very good solution if you must have Physx support with a AMD card. The results are playable frame rates with Physx enabled, something AMD can’t do on its own. If you decide to go with a higher GPU like the GTX 460 you may get some extra performance, it is a very small 2-5fps but there is some performance increase. It is difficult to say if this is due to the extra clock speeds, 256-bit memory bus (compared to 128-bit GT 430), or the extra CUDA cores (336 vs 96). The bottom line is that I cannot justify the cost of a GTX 460 when you consider the minimal increase in performance compared to the GT 430, especially if you value power consumption and case temperatures. The GTX 460 will most certainly require extra power and generate extra heat, this costs you extra money on your electrical bill. The GT 430 is also available in a large variety of single card solutions, the GTX 460 does have some single slot designs but they are expensive and add extra heat due to a poorer cooling solution.
LinusTechTips has done a nice video showing the GTX 580 being benchmarked with a dedicated PhysX card to see exactly how powerful it should be and whether or not a low end graphics card being used a a dedicated PhysX with a more powerful card like the GTX 580 has any value by improving PhysX performance these days. The cards being tested with the GTX 580 was a 8600GTS, GTX 580, GTX 550Ti, and a GTX 560Ti. The benchmarks were done using the Mafia II benchmark. Check it out below.
Now this is a pretty cool PhysX video. YouTube user tinyzoo has recorded the physics demo level that comes with the Torque 3D editor and uploaded it to YouTube. We have seen and posted about some cool PhysX videos made with Torque 3D but this video shows everything the Torque 3D engine currently has along with some nice destruction. Check it out below.
I am pleased to announce that GamePhys will soon have a dedicated test and benchmarking system for the site. This was a project I have been meaning to do since I started the site back in 2009 but never got around to it. The first phase of this project really got started this past BlackRead More
On Friday at GDC 2012, Aron Zoellner and Kevin Newkirk of NVIDIA presented a really nice hour long session titled Enhancing Games with APEX PhysX (Clothing, Destruction, Turbulence). In this presentation they went over the features of APEX PhysX Cloth, Destruction, and Turbulence which we have seen implemented in recent games like Mafia II andRead More
We have been hearing rumors for the past year now that AMD GPU’s will be used in the next generation consoles however, aside from reports that the Xbox would use a Fusion variant of Bulldozer, we have not been hearing to much about the actual CPU that may be used. Now SemiAccurate claims that theRead More
Zombiethatatehimself creator of the Awesome Apex PhysX Impact Damage Demonstration and Apex PhysX Impact Damage Demonstration With Stucco/plaster, and the Apex PhysX Voronoi Fracture and Destruction Demonstration has made another cool Apex PhysX demonstration with the Unreal Development Kit. This time a similar to the Voronoi Fracture and destruction demonstration but with some cool plasterRead More
Some nice news from Havok as they have announced that they have entered into a “worldwide license agreement with Nintendo Co., Ltd., to make Havok Physics and Havok Animation available to studios around the world developing on Nintendo’s Wii U™ platform” Hopefully we will see some cool games implement Havok Physics and destruction. The WiiRead More
F1nalspace has made a pretty cool PhysX SPH fluids sandbox you can download and play with showing off some awesome PhysX based SPH(smoothed particle hydrodynamics). Check it out below. I made a fluid simulation in C++ with several customizable scenarios using PhysX SDK 3.0.2 rendered with OpenGL. Fluid rendering is done using a technique calledRead More
I just wanted to post these cool UDK PhysX videos I came across on YouTube. UDK wood fracture from 19minimin91 UDK/Apex Destructible Level Test from lankeytom UDK Physics Fun by GrinchPa
Now this is exciting news, Epic Games has announced in their GDC 2012 press release that they will be showcasing Unreal Engine 4 behind closed doors at GDC 2012. Last year at GDC 2011 we saw the Samaritan demo which was jaw dropping graphics wise but did not showcase much physics, at least destruction wise.Read More
NVIDIA has released new GeForce 295.73 WHQL Drivers which include PhysX 9.12.0209 System Software for improved compatibility and performance in Alice: Madness Returns and Batman: Arkham City. NVIDIA has posted an in-depth article about the improvements you can see in various games on the official Geforce website. There was also a PhysX System Software 9.12.0213Read More
This is old now but I never got around to posting about it back during CES 2012. During the CES 2012 Intel press conference, they showed a lot of information about the upcoming Ivy Bridge Ultrabook processor including a DX11 graphics demo showing off different games that the DX11 capable Ivy Bridge processor will beRead More
The NvidiaApexDeveloper YouTube page has uploaded a new video from the Art Gallery demo showing off some awesome Apex physics and destruction. Check it out below. For more footage of this demo in action check out the original Art Gallery Destruction Demo in UE3 using APEX Destruction with GRB’s video. Hopefully this demo becomes availableRead More
Charlie over at SemiAccurate has posted an interesting rumor that the upcoming NVIDIA Kepler, GK104 GPU will have optimizations for physics calculations in the form of dedicated PhysX hardware described as a “PhysX block.” It is unclear whether these optimizations will be actual dedicated PhysX hardware or just more shaders and other PhysX optimizations butRead More
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