Nvidia steps in it again...

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Sujet : Nvidia steps in it again...
De : spallshurgenson (at) *nospam* gmail.com (Spalls Hurgenson)
Groupes : comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Date : 19. Feb 2025, 18:05:02
Autres entêtes
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User-Agent : Forte Agent 2.0/32.652

So, Nvidia's not had good luck with their new 5xxx GPUs, have they?
They seem to have done everything they can to make them something
people DON'T want to buy.

From the unimpressive performance boost... to the incredibly high
prices... to the cards being released in such low numbers that the
number of cards sold in an entire country can be counted in
single-digits... to the tremendous power requirements... to the
fucking 12V power connector melting...

I mean, I'm not fan of AMD cards (arguably unfairly) but even I gotta
look askance at an Nvidia card now.

But look... all the above I could forgive, but this latest bit of news
hurts me where it counts: in my old video games. Because the new 5xxx
chips no longer support 32-bit PhysX in hardware, and now a lot of old
classics just won't run that well anymore.*

So, PhysX (for those who don't remember such tech arcana) was Nvidia's
own** hardware-based physics engine middleware. Originally designed to
work with a separate add-on card, Nvidia added PhysX support to its
GPUs in 2008. It wasn't the only such middleware on the market
(Euphoria, Havok, DMM, Rubikon and Chaos were some others) but it was
one of the earliest to market, and for a while it was widely used by a
number of games. Developers built their games around PhysX, giving
them a plug-in solution, giving gamers smoothly-rendered physics
effects and  giving Nvidia a boost in GPU sales. It was win-win-win
all around!

    [Well, except for AMD/ATI video card owners, because for
     the longest time PhysX didn't work on those cards. Its one
     of the reasons competitor Havok eventually won out over PhysX]

But there were a number of top-tier games that utilized the library,
including "Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag", "Mafia II", "Batman: Arkam
Asylum", and "Metro 2033". PhysX was an integral part of a lot of
classic games.***

Now, not so much... at least if you want to play those games on
Nvidia's newest GPU. Sure, the games will still run, but they either
won't run as well or will run with reduced Physics effects.

Intellectually, I understand the reasoning: why support this old
32-bit code on the newest processors? But given how a lot of these
games are so beloved (and many are still being sold), and the other
problems the 5xxxx GPUs are suffering, this seems like incredibly bad
timing. Like I said, it's just another reason to avoid buying these
cards.







   ========  
* read here:
https://www.pcgamesn.com/nvidia/geforce-rtx-50-series-cards-physx-support
** well, Nvidia bought out the company that developed it
*** there's a list of affected games here:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/rtx-50-series-gpus-have-dropped-support-for-32-bit-physx-many-older-pc-games-are-impacted-mirrors-edge-borderlands-etc.1111698/

Date Sujet#  Auteur
19 Feb 25 * Nvidia steps in it again...5Spalls Hurgenson
20 Feb 25 +- Re: Nvidia steps in it again...1Zaghadka
7 Apr 25 `* Re: Nvidia steps in it again...3Spalls Hurgenson
7 Apr 25  `* Re: Nvidia steps in it again...2vallor
8 Apr 25   `- Re: Nvidia steps in it again...1Spalls Hurgenson

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