ATI Radeon HD 4890 vs. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on April 2, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
PhysX in Warmonger: Fail
Cryostasis is a title due out this year, unfortunately there is no playable demo. Just a tech demo. Next.
Metal Knight Zero, MKZ for short, was another game on NVIDIA’s list. Once more, no playable demo, just a tech demo. We need real games here people, real titles, if you’re trying to convince someone to buy NVIDIA on the merits of PhysX.
Warmonger, ah yes, now we have a playable game. Warmonger is a first person shooter that uses GPU accelerated PhysX to enable destructible environments. Allow me to quote NVIDIA:
The first thing about Warmonger is that it runs horribly slow on ATI hardware, even with GPU accelerated PhysX disabled. I’m guessing ATI’s developer relations team hasn’t done much to optimize the shaders for Radeon HD hardware. Go figure.
The verdict here (aside from: I don’t want to play Warmonger), was that the GPU accelerated PhysX effects were not very, well, impressive. You could destroy walls, but the game itself wasn’t exactly fun so it didn’t matter. The realistic cloth that you could shoot holes through? Yeah, not terribly realistic looking.
Look at the hyper realistic cloth! Yeah, it looks like a highly advanced game from 6 years ago.
Warmonger itself wasn’t a triple A first person shooter, and the GPU accelerated PhysX effects on top of it weren’t going to make the game any better. Sorry guys, none of us liked this one. PC Gamer gave it a 55/100. Looks like we weren’t alone. Next.
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piesquared - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
Must be tough trying to write a balanced review when you clearly favour one side of the equation. Seriously, you tow NV's line without hesitation, including soon to be extinct physx, a reviewer relieased card, and unreleased drivers at the time of your review. And here's the kicker; you ignore the OC potential of AMD's new card, which as you know, is one of it's major selling points.Could you possibly bend over any further for NV? Obviously you are perfectly willing to do so. F'n frauds
Chlorus - Friday, April 3, 2009 - link
What?! Did you even read the article? They specifically say they cannot really endorse PhysX or CUDA and note the lack of support in any games. I think you're the one towing a line here.SiliconDoc - Monday, April 6, 2009 - link
The red fanboys have to chime in with insanities so the reviewers can claim they're fair because "both sides complain".Yes, red rooster whiner never read the article, because if he had he would remember the line that neither overclocked well, and that overclocking would come in a future review ( in other words, they were rushed again, or got a chum card and knew it - whatever ).
So, they didn't ignore it , they failed on execution - and delayed it for later, so they say.
Yeah, red rooster boy didn't read.
tamalero - Thursday, April 9, 2009 - link
jesus dude, you have a strong persecution complex right?its like "ohh noes, they're going against my beloved nvidia, I MUST STOP THEM AT ALL COSTS".
I wonder how much nvidia pays you? ( if not, you're sad.. )
SiliconDoc - Thursday, April 23, 2009 - link
That's interesting, not a single counterpoint, just two whining personal attacks.Better luck next time - keep flapping those red rooster wings.
(You don't have any decent couinterpoints to the truth, do you flapper ? )
Sometimes things are so out of hand someone has to say it - I'm still waiting for the logical rebuttals - but you don't have any, neither does anyone else.
aguilpa1 - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
All these guys talking about how irrelevant physx and how not so many games use it don't get it. The power of physx is bringing the full strength of those GPU's to bear on everyday apps like CS4 or Badaboom video encoding. I used to think it was kind of gimmicky myself until I bought the "very" inexpensive badaboom encoder and wow, how awesome was that! I forgot all about the games.Rhino2 - Monday, April 13, 2009 - link
You forgot all about gaming because you can encode video faster? I guess we are just 2 different people. I don't think I've ever needed to encode a video for my ipod in 60 seconds or less, but I do play a lot of games.z3R0C00L - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
You're talking about CUDA not Physx.Physx is useless as HavokFX will replace it as a standard through OpenCL.
sbuckler - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
No physx has the market, HavokFX is currently demoing what physx did 2 years ago.What will happen is the moment HavokFX becomes anything approaching a threat nvidia will port Physx to OpenCL and kill it.
As far as ATI users are concerned the end result is the same - you'll be able to use physics acceleration on your card.
z3R0C00L - Thursday, April 2, 2009 - link
You do realize that Havok Physics are used in more games than Physx right (including all the source engine based games)?And that Diablo 3 makes use of Havok Physics right? Just thought I'd mention that to give you time to change your conclusion.