Recent news coming from NGOHQ website with statement “performance on non-Cuda cards got dropped even further (from 20 fps to 5 fps [Mirror's Edge]) in the recent PhysX software” have forced us to perform more detailed testing procedures, to discover how actually valid such claims are.

Update: From NGOHQ:

After deeper investigation, this issue has identified as a rare overflow bug. Looks like Nvidia PhysX System Software 9.10.0222 doesn’t cripple performance, but I’ll run more tests just to be sure

In following article we are comparing both GPU and CPU performance of PhysX effects, using most recent PhysX System Software 9.10.0222 (blamed for “ruining game experience”), previous 9.10.0129 version and several games – Mirror’s Edge 1.01 and Cryostasis Tech Demo.

System: C2Q 9400 @2.66 GHz CPU, GTX 275 GPU, 4GB RAM, Windows 7 Professional x64

MIRROR’S EDGE.

Standart “Flight Fly By” sequence was used (can be activated by “- FlybyFlight” parameter), in-game setting; 1680×1050, all high, 4xAA. Framerate measured by FRAPS 3.0.1.

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New PhysX System Software 9.10.0222, which comes with recently released Metro 2033 title, emerges on the web.

This release includes updated engine .dll’s for SDK from 2.7.3..  to 2.8.3  and is dated 22 February 2010.

Download PhysX System Software 9.10.0222 from our server (34 mb – download currently unavailable)

Source: Guru3D forums

Recent Geforce 196.75 GPU drivers from Nvidia have brought us something interesting – they include new PhysX System Software 9.10.0129.

This release is smaller than previous 9.09.1112 drivers – only 27 mb vs 34 mb previously, and is dated 29 January 2010, according to PhysX drivers naming system.

Download PhysX System Software 9.10.0129 from our server (download currently unavailable)

Update: Simple look at drivers installation folder reveals that engine .dll’s for SDK 2.7.3, 2.7.4.. all to 2.8.3 were updated with new subversions. No major changes except this.

Update #2: PhysX System software 9.10.0129 is now available as separate download from Nvidia website.

Includes the latest PhysX runtime builds to support all released PhysX content including Dark Void and others.

Supports NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series, 100-series, 200-series, and 300-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory and 32 CUDA cores. Note: Some applications may have higher minimum requirements.

Supports NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on GeForce via CUDA 3.0 for SDK versions 2.7.1, 2.7.3, 2.7.4, 2.7.5, 2.7.6, 2.8.0, 2.8.1 and 2.8.3 (requires graphics driver v196.21 or later).

Supports control of your GPU PhysX configuration from the NVIDIA display driver control panel. (requires graphics driver v196.21 or later).

New PhysX System Software 9.09.1112, that was leaked from Dev. Support center few days ago, is now available for download from NVIDIA website.

Official Release Notes are also available:

• Includes the latest PhysX runtime builds to support all released PhysX content including Batman Arkham Asylum and others.
• This release also resolves issues with Arabic language installations and occasional simulation interruption on some machines and titles.
• New runtimes for the PhysX SDK 2.8.3.
• Supports NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series, 100-series and 200-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory and 32 CUDA cores. Note: Some applications may have higher minimum requirements.

Newest PhysX System Software 9.09.1112 was uploaded to Developer Support Center. It contains updated runtimes for some upcoming APEX tools, but most of users and developers won’t see any differences from 9.09.30 System Software.

In addition, according to our sources, PhysX System Software 9.09.1112 will be included into next release of public GeForce drivers.

If you are experiencing trouble with registration of PhysX Developer account, please refer to our registration guide.

Update: as expected, this System Software leaked too – download | Mirror #1 | Mirror #2

Update #2: official WHQL version is available

PhysX System Software 9.09.30, available only for PhysX developers previously, leaks out. As anyone else, were were not authorised to provide public download, but as concerned gamers gained access to Developer Support center, download link emerges.

Main difference in this release from 9.09.14 Drivers is updated .dlls for 2.8.3 PhysX SDK.

You can grab 9.09.30 PhysX Drivers here, while download is still available.

Update: Mirror #2;

Back again on banned ATI+Nvidia PhysX configurations situation.  Initially, all the hype was based on e-mail from customer care support, while Nvidia official motives were undisclosed.  In order to bring some clarity, we’ve asked Nvidia for commentaries a while ago and finally recieved some answers:

PhysXInfo: Is it true that PhysX capabilities of NVIDIA GPUs and/or Ageia PPUs are disabled with newest drivers when a Non-NVIDIA (AMD) graphics card is present in the system?
Nvidia: It is true that running an NVIDIA GPU for PhysX with an AMD GPU for graphics is not a supported configuration. This mode was inadvertently turned on in a beta version of our Win7 drivers and on some older XP drivers. AMD does not support PhysX for their customers, and we don’t QA this configuration. With no QA, it is risky to run this configuration so we removed this capability in a recent driver release.

PhysXInfo: Can you please explain to us what factors have led to such decision?
Nvidia: Today NVIDIA’s GPU and PhysX drivers are interconnected to optimize performance. In the future we expect this interdependence to deepen. This alone makes it difficult to support a third party GPU.

In order to make sure our customers have a great experience, we QA every release of our PhysX or Graphics drivers by testing approximately 14 NVIDIA GPUs for graphics processing with 8 GPUs for PhysX processing on 6 common platforms with 6 OS’s using 6 combinations of CPU and memory. This is over 24000 possible configurations. While we don’t test every possible combination, it should be clear that the work and cost to NVIDIA is substantial. AMD does not support PhysX for their customers. Adding AMD GPUs would significantly increase the necessary work and cost for NVIDIA. We prefer to invest in inventing new technologies that give our customers great new experiences.

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Following Geeks3D report on that recent driver update disables PhysX hardware acceleration not only for Nvidia GPUs, but for Ageia PPUs as well (if non-Nvidia graphics card is present in the system) we’ve desided to perform small investigation.

Test methodology is simple enough: we’ll use certain sample from PhysX SDK 2.8.1 Build 13 to identify if Ageia PPU is working and initializing properly with different PhysX drivers on several systems with Nvidia and ATI GPUs.

Used PhysX System Software – 8.09.04 (last one with direct PPU support) and newest 9.09.0814 installed above 8.09.04 (PPU won’t be recognised on pure 9.09.0814 drivers)

GeForce System #1 – GTX275 + Ageia PPU

PhysX driver 8.09.04                                                         PhysX driver 9.09.0814

GeForce System #2 – GTX295 + Ageia PPU (thanks to JeGX from Geeks3d)

PhysX driver 9.09.0814

As you can see, in both cases Ageia PPU was recognised properly by the system, and hardware acceleration is working too (test applications indicates that both scene and cloth simulations are running in hardware)

What will happen if we’ll try same scenario, but now with ATI GPU installed in the system ?

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New 64-bit ready version of PhysX System Software is released. It contains updated .dlls for SDK 2.8.1 and runtimes for new SDK 2.8.3.

Another feature – installation paths are changed now, so all vital libraries and files are stored in “..\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX” folder instead of “..\Program Files\AGEIA Technologies” – this also makes PhysX drivers more compatible with Windows 7 OS.

Yon can download newest PhysX 9.09.0914 driver from our server, or just wait until it appears at nvidia website.

Mirror Link: Rapidshare