Keep in mind PhysX, the GPU-accelerated expertise that permit video games realistically simulate destructible material, shattering glass, transferring liquids, smoke, fog, and different particle results? It solely ever received deployed in just a few dozen video games — however with PhysX turned on, these video games reportedly now run quicker on Nvidia’s last-gen playing cards than they do on a brand new RTX 5090, 5080, 5070 Ti or past.
That’s as a result of Nvidia has quietly eliminated assist for PhysX in its newest graphics chips, the company confirmed this week, after patrons observed PhysX video games like Borderlands 2 have been mysteriously taxing their CPU as an alternative of their GPU and both chugging or failing to work. Nvidia factors to a support page from January the place it did say that the RTX 50 collection wouldn’t assist 32-bit CUDA purposes, however that web page doesn’t explicitly point out PhysX, and the corporate’s different PhysX assist pages are a number of years previous.
Once more, we’re speaking about mere dozens of video games right here, throughout a decade previous, however a great variety of them have been marketed by Nvidia as showcase PC video games due to their physics simulations — and a handful of these have been not less than cult hits.
I fondly bear in mind PhysX material results in Mirror’s Edge (above) and the Batman: Arkham video games. One of the best Murderer’s Creed additionally used it (Black Flag, the pirate one, don’t @ me) and so did Metro 2033 and Metro: Final Mild.
And as you may see within the video simply above, PhysX simply doesn’t run terribly properly with no GPU’s help, tanking efficiency when its results are most vividly felt on display.
One Redditor claims that once they compelled PhysX on in Borderlands 2, they “received drops to under 60 FPS by simply standing and capturing a shock gun at a wall,” regardless of having a system with at this time’s prime PC parts (an RTX 5090 and an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D). They declare their RTX 4090 by no means dipped under 120fps in the identical recreation.
I gained’t terribly miss PhysX, as a result of fashionable video games have loads of different methods to do physics constructed into their varied engines, however Nvidia might in all probability have communicated this higher. It’s additionally simply the most recent proof that its RTX 50-series playing cards aren’t the upgrades we’d hoped. My colleague Tom reviewed the brand new RTX 5070 Ti at this time, and located it’s largely a less expensive RTX 4080, besides perhaps not cheaper since you in all probability gained’t have the ability to discover one anyplace close to its $750 sticker value.
Nvidia’s older playing cards don’t appear to be shedding worth on account of this yr’s upgrades, both: the road value of an RTX 4080 has really jumped over the previous month, from a median eBay promoting value of round $1,000 in January to over $1,200 now.