Nvidia dropped its hardware-accelerated physics system support for some of the best games from the early 2010s.
Its just another way modern hardware developers are failing to preserve past titles in their prime.
Effectively, the 50 series cards cannot run any game with PhysX as developers originally intended.
© Photo: Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo
This included small particle effects like fog or smoke and cloth movement.
Modern games rely on a range of physics systems that dont depend on CUDA.
These games may be playable with the physics enabled, but youll suffer from massive framerate drops.
Gizmodo tested some games and found that the performance impact can be significant.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 can push a massive number of frames.
But compare that to a game likeBatman: Arkham City.
Performance will be reduced without dedicated hardware.
The difference in ambiance without the setting enabled is striking.
Smoke no longer pools on the ground, and banners no longer flutter in the breeze.
I imagine some players may experience even worse framerates than I did when trying to force PhysX to work.
In other games, likeBorderlands 2, it simply grays out the PhysX option in controls.
Its not what the game makers intended.
For some gamers, thats enough reason not to consider upgrading.
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