Nvidia has quietly eliminated help for 32-bit PhysX {hardware} acceleration in its newest RTX 50 gaming GPUs, such because the Nvidia Geforce RTX 5090. This implies video games akin to Mirror’s Edge, Borderlands 2, and Batman: Arkham Asylum not have GPU-accelerated help for the impressively advanced physics simulations PhysX can present.
With the Nvidia RTX 5090 now the very best graphics card you should purchase, you’d be forgiven for pondering that in addition to supporting model new options akin to DLSS 4, it might additionally nonetheless convey full characteristic help for outdated however nonetheless common recreation options. Nevertheless, this newest improvement means any players firing up older PhysX-supporting titles will discover PhysX calculations being run on the CPU, generally leading to big efficiency drops.
For a sure era of gamer, PhysX was the massive new characteristic in PC gaming. Neglect ray tracing or body era, a PhysX card might present performance-boosted practical physics simulations to make for amazing-looking fog, particle results, material animation, destructible buildings, and extra. With Nvidia shopping for up PhysX and integrating these physics options into its GPUs, numerous players have since had hardware-accelerated entry to PhysX results. That’s why there’s nonetheless a separate PhysX part whenever you set up Nvidia drivers. You’ll be able to see what PhysX can do within the video beneath.
Nevertheless, with its newest RTX 50 GPUs, the corporate has eliminated this help, returning any such advanced PhysX results to being calculated on the CPU. Even with fashionable CPUs being a lot sooner than when PhysX first arrived again in 2005, the complexity of those calculations continues to be sufficient to choke efficiency, as you possibly can see within the video beneath. It exhibits Batman: Arkham Asylum working with out PhysX results, with PhysX working on the CPU, and with it working on the GPU.
Not solely does the above video present that PhysX calculations being carried out on a CPU completely tanks efficiency, with the body price dropping from round 400fps with out PhysX to only 40fps with PhysX, but it surely additionally exhibits that even with PhysX accelerated on the GPU, efficiency can take an enormous hit too. The body price right here hovers round 200fps with PhysX being run on an RTX 4090 – round half the extent it was with out these results.
This hints at one of many causes PhysX has largely gone the way in which of the dodo, as the flowery results it accelerates are simply devastating to efficiency, even when accelerated on a GPU. With such an affect, and given the quantity of additional effort required to implement these physics options effectively, many recreation builders simply stopped that includes PhysX.
The opposite purpose is that extra fashionable recreation engines akin to Unreal Engine 5 embody lots of its personal equal physics results that aren’t so performance-reducing and are simpler for builders to implement.
As such, the latest recreation that’s affected by this alteration to the RTX 50 collection got here out in 2013, in response to this checklist of affected titles put collectively by resetera.com. That title is Murderer’s Creed: Black Flag, which continues to be revered as among the best Murderer’s Creed video games ever.
Whereas Nvidia hasn’t hidden this drop in help, it solely actually got here to gentle following one gamer’s discovery that enabling PhysX on Borderlands 2 tanked efficiency. Nvidia replied to the person’s query on its help web site saying “That is anticipated conduct as 32-bit CUDA functions are deprecated on GeForce RTX 50 collection GPUs.” The Nvidia consultant then linked to this Nvidia help discover describing the change.
There’s no particular point out of the standing of 64-bit help for PhysX on RTX 50 GPUs, so we imagine any 64-bit variations of those video games ought to nonetheless run wonderful. Help stays for all older Nvidia GPUs too. It’s simply that from the RTX 50 collection onwards, help will finish.
For extra on what the RTX 50 collection can do, try our RTX 5090 evaluation and RTX 5080 evaluation, the place we put to the check these monstrously highly effective new GPUs.
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