3 way sli ? & 2+1 physx ?

MGaz

heres a good question for ya!

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DJ BIG T

yes i think you could just make sure when you install everything that all the drvers are gone..so when you install your driver it reads your third card as phyxs...i would get a 9400 very cheap card to use for phyxs...

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MGaz

thanks..

another question tho.. Whats better for physics? A second graphics card, or one of them dedicated PhysX cards?

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kris23

a nvidia GPU utilized as dedicated physX.... get the 9400GT

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Mac Daddy

I agree with Big T and Kris the 9400 should be plenty. You need a minimum of 256M graphics memory to use a card for dedicated PhysX.

On the others I think you will find they are older and out of date

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MGaz

so it supports all the same features as the original PhysX cards?

Are my two 8800GTS cards any good compared to a 9400GT?

& What actually happens when you use a 9400GT? will Physx totally make use of the 9400 GPU? utilizing its Processor and memory (even if its a whopping 1GB) to its full extent?

& are there any advantage's of using an even better/expensive second card dedicated to physx instead of a 9400.

really sorry for all the questions.. this PhysX stuff is all new to me

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nicnik

as far as i know the gpu will render the physx effects on the screen, whether it has any impact in a game that does not utilize physx is beyond me. I would imagine a ageia physx card or with a gpu will jus boost your frames a bit.

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blibbax

A 9400GT is a LOT slower than an 8800GTS, it's more of a 8500 equivalent. However, it's power efficient, compact and supports all of the relavent tech. It supports everything that the original physx cards did and much, much more besides.

If you set the 9400GT as a dedicated physx card, which you can, it will do nothing other than process physx. In games without physx support, it will most likely sit idle, though you could of course find a use for it folding or running a second monitor.

A faster card than a 9400GT (something like a 9500GT (8600 equivalent) or 9600 (8800GTS 640 equivalent) will provide better physx performance, but most likely the difference will be negligible, as it will be waiting for the rest of your system much of the time.

You could also consider waiting until you replace your 8800s (not for some time I presume) and then using one of them as an overpowered physx card.

Also, you're system specs on the forum are much older than the rig you describe - update them so that we can easily see what you're talking about

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DJ BIG T

i wish you had it all set up because starting tommrow to sunday you can play unreal tournament 3 on steam and go to nvidia site and they have a phyxs pack for this game and man it looks great..

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MGaz

The specs on the forum are accurate. lol

I've updated it a little.

one of the two 8800gts's was my bros old card, I've now got it, and just bought another identical one for £40.

It's a bit of a "Horse before the cart" affair.

Basically I don't even have PCie, let alone SLi, so i'm now on the lookout for an SLi motherboard.

I have just found out my bro changed his PSU when he bought his 9800GX2, so i now have his old Antec tp3-550 PSU. I'm hoping this will be enough to power the system.

It has 3 12 volt rails, each with 18 Amps. LINKY: Antec - TruePower Trio 550

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kris23

thats not a very reliable PSU but it may work

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MGaz

Not reliable?
Whats wrong with it? Do they brake often or something?

I'm sure it was an nvidia SLi certified PSU.

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Tipstaff

edit: my bad.. wrong thread.

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DJ BIG T

i did find a site about using a 600watt psu but i think a 550 would work ill keep looking up for you..http://forums.slizone.com/lofiversio....php?t405.html

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blibbax

550W is plenty for two 8800GTs and a CPU of your choice (perhaps excusing i7), but it's the rails you want to look out for there - the motherboard 12v connector can only draw from one rail, and from that you'll be powering all PCI-E slots (up to 75W each) and the CPU.

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mike2h

the 550 wont be enough for 3 cards. i would go with something that is a quality psu in the 650 range. that way u r future proof & shouldnt have any probs as the psu degrades over time(they all do)
as far as i know only 9000+ series can be used as physx card.
for the price a 9400gt is great choice for a physx only card.

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MGaz

I thought the 8800GTS had Physx?

My bro thinks nvidia has been incorporating it in there cards for a while now, but had kept it out of the driver options. I've seen the Physx tick box in the driver options for the 8800GTS, whether it 'works' I don't know. But isn't a 9 series just a re badged 8 anyway?

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Judas

I wonder if i can jerry rig and work out a way to get ati video drivers and a nvidia card to work together in harmony.

if i get 2x HD4870x2's in crossfire and i've got a nvidia geforce 9600gt sitting here unused that should fit in 4th pci-ex slot, ATI+Physx?

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mike2h

judas- nice idea but never happen.
mgaz- the driver thing may be true, but i really dont think there is a way to make 8 deries do physx- assuming im correct about that. i do believe there are some 9 series that are basically rebadged with slight mod. dont know for sure tho. wouldnt be hard to fing out if u have at least 1 8+ series card & 1 8 series card.

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DJ BIG T

that would rock if you could get that going....

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Lelisevis

I've got a spare Asus P5n32-E SLI Plus sitting at the side of my desk as well as 4x1gb OCZ PC2 8500 SLI ready RAM. No idea at all what it's worth though.


Edit: LMAO, just out of curiousity I dug through my receipts and nearly cried when I realised at the time of purchase 2GB of that OCZ RAM cost me a crazy, insane, ridiculous £138+VAT. That works out about £300 for 4GB. Board cost me £120. I quickly put the receipts away before I started to cry.

Kizo

It is possible, I have seen it been done. But only in Win XP, since Vista doesn't allow 2 display drivers. This is rumored to be "corrected" on Win 7 though.

Judas

Indeed.. reason i mentioned it.. i've seen people "working" XP into a ati video driven, nvidia physx driven solution and the "rumored" win7 support.

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DJ BIG T

judas i came across a forum where you can add a nvidia for physx but you have to have windows 7 to do it...

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MGaz

I've seen some ppl now have 4 way sli boards, .. 3 gfx cards and one for physics?

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