Nvidia Released Physx Drivers For All 8 Series And Up Cards.

[GeoffB]

Download link for people who don't want to read the thread - http://www.nvidia.com/content/forcewithin/us/index.html

 

Pretty awesome, Nvidia acquired PhysX a while ago and they got PhysX implemented onto Nvidia's CUDA.

 

Before Nvidia owned PhysX you needed to buy this small £150 PCI card which took the strain of physics processing off of the CPU/GPU, but now if you have any 8 or 9 Series video card developed by Nvidia you can use the awesome power of PhysX without needing the now semi-obsolete card, for free.

 

A lot more games than you might think implement PhysX in some way, this includes UT3, GRAW, the list goes on, and there are some games specifically designed for it, such as Cell Factor.

 

You'll notice with games like GRAW there will only be minor changes, but in cell factor you get real cloth physics that rips and sways realistically, fluid liquids that flow and look simply epic, very nice ragdolls and rigid/softbody physics.

 

You can run it in a variety of modes provided you have the hardware -

 

Standard - one GPU renders both Graphics + PhysX, for people with one graphics card.

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SLI mode - have two GPUs render both Graphics + PhysX. - for people with two of the same graphics card in SLI.

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Multi-GPU mode - GPU1 renders Graphics and GPU2 renders PhysX. - for people with a 9800GTX and a spare 8800GT lying around.

 

So you can download the drivers along with a variety of tech demos here - http://www.nvidia.com/content/forcewithin/us/index.html

 

And I think I will finish off with some pictures of the various tech demos:

 

Softbody Alien FPS tech demo.

 

Liquid tech demo.

 

Tech demo with breast and cloth physics.

 

MKZ - a supported FPS with cloth and destructible enviroments.

 

 

I wouldn't suggest trying this with anything less than a 8800GT unless you have some cards in SLi.

 

And don't worry ATi users, a code-writer has a conversion nearly ready for release apparently.