GUIDE: How to Enable Physx on an Nvidia Card With an ATI Primary Card In Windows 7 - Page 2 - Overclock.net

huntman21014 · 01-31-09

All I did was use Mirrors Edge as I don't have any other physx games or Vantage, sorry I cannot test it again but my friend no longer has the 3850

XFreeRollerX · 01-31-09

Windows 7 is for the win

huntman21014 · 02-01-09

bump

Ravynmagi · 02-07-09

I'm not able to get this to work.

I'm using a 4870X2 and a 8600GTS. When the 4870X2 is the main display device the option to enable Physix on the 8600GTS is greyed out. When I make the 8600GTS the main display device, I can select it as a PhysX device, however I'm no longer running games on my 4870X2.

Seems I can't use both together.

crashnburn_819 · 02-07-09

We are talking about Windows 7 right?

Also, is there a difference between 32 and 64-bit for getting this to work?

Ravynmagi · 02-07-09

Yeah, we are talking about Windows 7. I'm using the 64 bit version.

I started with the WDDM 1.1 drivers that come with Windows 7 for both ATI and Nvidia. Using these drivers was the only situtation I could enable Physx on my 8600GTS (however it had to be the main display so the 4870X2 wasn't being used for 3D rendering in the games).

I then tried the Catalyst 9.1 and Nvidia 181.22 drivers. Neither of these are WDDM 1.1. The CCC worked, however the Nvidia control panel kept crashing the moment I tried to open it. Same with the PhysX control panel.

I then remove the Nvidia drivers, cleaned, and tried to install older 180.48 drivers. However it told me a compatible OS was not found. I tried using Vista compatibility mode, but it didn't fool the drivers. So next I tried 185.20 beta drivers. These would install, but again the control panels immediately crashes when i try to launch them.

So only the WDDM 1.1 drivers from Windows Update would actually let both drivers work together. Though I still wasn't able to use the ATI as the main with the Nvidia as a phsyx processor.

I also tried installing the Nvidia PhysX drivers separately, 8.x and 9.x. Didn't help.

stargate125645 · 02-07-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ravynmagi

Yeah, we are talking about Windows 7. I'm using the 64 bit version.

I started with the WDDM 1.1 drivers that come with Windows 7 for both ATI and Nvidia. Using these drivers was the only situtation I could enable Physx on my 8600GTS (however it had to be the main display so the 4870X2 wasn't being used for 3D rendering in the games).

I then tried the Catalyst 9.1 and Nvidia 181.22 drivers. Neither of these are WDDM 1.1. The CCC worked, however the Nvidia control panel kept crashing the moment I tried to open it. Same with the PhysX control panel.

I then remove the Nvidia drivers, cleaned, and tried to install older 180.48 drivers. However it told me a compatible OS was not found. I tried using Vista compatibility mode, but it didn't fool the drivers. So next I tried 185.20 beta drivers. These would install, but again the control panels immediately crashes when i try to launch them.

So only the WDDM 1.1 drivers from Windows Update would actually let both drivers work together. Though I still wasn't able to use the ATI as the main with the Nvidia as a phsyx processor.

I also tried installing the Nvidia PhysX drivers separately, 8.x and 9.x. Didn't help.

As consumers we shouldn't have to fudge things to make them work the way they should. If Nvidia ever wants me to use PhysX then they had better stop being greedy bastards and make drivers that allow an Nvidia card to be used solely as a PPU regardless of what graphics card is being used as the main GPU.

huntman21014 · 02-07-09

I don't know if the fact you have an X2 card has anything to do with it. I am sorry you are having problems with it but I don't have an X2 card to test with. Try making the 4870X2 your main adapter, enable graphics on the second card by expanding your desktop to it and restart. Then go into the physx control panel and try that

rajkosto · 02-09-09

Windows 7 Build 7000 instructions :

Connect both cards (obviously) so they both show up with their WDDM 1.1 drivers in the device manager
If you want OpenGL support for the Radeon, install Vista drivers from the ati site, if not, you can leave the wddm 1.1 driver there

Use windows update to update the gforce wddm 1.1 driver to its latest version
Enable extended desktop for the nvidia card

Install physx 9.09 runtime from the latest nvidia package (dont install the drivers, just the physx runtime)
EARLIER VERSIONS OF PHYSX WILL NOT WORK
Go to control panel, nvidia physx, in the device tab you will see that hw accell is DISABLED, ignore it and click ok

open REGEDIT as administrator
go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/AGEIA Technologies
(if youre on x64 system, then it will be in the wow64node)

in that key you will find a REG_SZ called HwSelection
set it to "GPU" (without the quotes), then physx will use geforce (do not open the physx control panel again, or you will have to do the regedit step again)

run physx fluidmark from o3zone, it should say HARDWARE on the top, if not, then you either dont have extended desktop enabled,or the reg key isnt set to GPU

Because most games (including mirrors edge) come with an EARLIER physx runtime (ealier than 9.09), they wont work with this kind of setup out of the box (they will force SOFTWARE mode), so you will have to force them to use the new version

To do this, you delete all the PhysX*.dll from their binaries folder, except PhysXExtensions.dll and what not (back them all up, if the game doesnt start, restore them,PhysXCore.dll should always be deleted), replace PhysXLoader.dll (might be in a separate folder, but its there for sure) with the one from FluidMark, and optionally, for better loading times, replace NxCooking.dll (or PhysXCooking.dll) with PhysXCooking.dll from Program Files/AGEIA Technologies/v2.8.1/ (or whatever the biggest number is)

Glass in mirrors edge should break smoothly now, and not grind your fps to a halt

Enjoy

I only registered to this site so i could post this tutorial, because i had a hell of a time figuring it out in the first place, so please spread this around (as i dont visit a lot of hardware forums, i got this thread by google search)

shaithis · 03-10-09

Having now done this on Windows 7 with a 4870x2 and an 8600GTS, I can confirm it works but there is a caveat!

The primary adapter for some reason takes a performance hit on certain operations.....take a look at the 2 3d mark scores:

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=865216 - Physx disabled

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=866629 - Physx enabled

You can see that enabling the 8600 for physx actually reduces the overall performance.

This was with the 9.2 ATI drivers and the latest WDM 1.1 nvidia drivers. I rolled back to the supplied-with-Windows-7 ATI drivers last night but haven't re-run tests yet.....maybe the WDM 1.1 ATI drivers will give better results.

02-07-09	#14 (permalink)
Ravynmagi New to Overclock.net Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 2 Rep: 0 Unique Rep: 0 Trader Rating: 0	I'm not able to get this to work. I'm using a 4870X2 and a 8600GTS. When the 4870X2 is the main display device the option to enable Physix on the 8600GTS is greyed out. When I make the 8600GTS the main display device, I can select it as a PhysX device, however I'm no longer running games on my 4870X2. Seems I can't use both together. __________________ Intel Q9550 @ 3.9GHz Gigabyte EP45-UD3P Patriot Viper PC8000 8GB ATI Radeon 4870X2 Seasonic M12 700 Velociraptor x2 RAID-0

02-07-09	#16 (permalink)
Ravynmagi New to Overclock.net Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 2 Rep: 0 Unique Rep: 0 Trader Rating: 0	Yeah, we are talking about Windows 7. I'm using the 64 bit version. I started with the WDDM 1.1 drivers that come with Windows 7 for both ATI and Nvidia. Using these drivers was the only situtation I could enable Physx on my 8600GTS (however it had to be the main display so the 4870X2 wasn't being used for 3D rendering in the games). I then tried the Catalyst 9.1 and Nvidia 181.22 drivers. Neither of these are WDDM 1.1. The CCC worked, however the Nvidia control panel kept crashing the moment I tried to open it. Same with the PhysX control panel. I then remove the Nvidia drivers, cleaned, and tried to install older 180.48 drivers. However it told me a compatible OS was not found. I tried using Vista compatibility mode, but it didn't fool the drivers. So next I tried 185.20 beta drivers. These would install, but again the control panels immediately crashes when i try to launch them. So only the WDDM 1.1 drivers from Windows Update would actually let both drivers work together. Though I still wasn't able to use the ATI as the main with the Nvidia as a phsyx processor. I also tried installing the Nvidia PhysX drivers separately, 8.x and 9.x. Didn't help. __________________ Intel Q9550 @ 3.9GHz Gigabyte EP45-UD3P Patriot Viper PC8000 8GB ATI Radeon 4870X2 Seasonic M12 700 Velociraptor x2 RAID-0

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GUIDE: How to Enable Physx on an Nvidia Card With an ATI Primary Card In Windows 7

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