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Just last week, it was discovered that Nvidia’s shiny new RTX 50 series cards had axed support entirely for 32-bit software, which hit old-school physics engine software PhysX. Now, in order to run some games better, gamers are taking to installing secondary graphics cards to get a healthy fps boost (and in one case, just to run a game with PhysX).
One user posted to Reddit (via Wccftech) that they had purchased a dedicated RTX 3050 to run a handful of games alongside their RTX 5090 and the results feel like they may actually justify the second card if you have one already hanging around.
| Row 0 – Cell 0 |
RTX 5090 and CPU-enabled PhysX average fps |
RTX 5090 and dedicated PhysX RTX 3050 average fps |
|
Mafia II classic |
28.8 fps |
157.1 fps |
|
Batman Arkham Asylum |
61 fps |
390 fps |
|
Borderlands 2 |
N/A (can’t enable PhysX) |
122 fps |
|
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag |
62 fps |
62 fps |
|
Mirror’s Edge |
12 fps |
171 fps |
It’s worth noting that, if you want to run these games and get a better average fps on an RTX 5090, you can opt to turn off PhysX entirely, but PhysX is used for cloth and particle effects so PhysX does make a lot of compatible games look better and more lively. We have tested Borderlands 2 (a game some believed wouldn’t function) on our own RTX 5090 FE rig and it will boot and play fine.
If you don’t fancy committing to a full-on RTX 30 series card, alongside your brand new $2,000 GPU, one user then went on to test a GT 1030, a budget card from 2017 in their rig. Interestingly, this user doesn’t even have an RTX 50 series card and instead uses an RTX 3080 Ti. Despite this, they found substantial increases, especially when compared to CPU-enabled PhysX support.
Perhaps the most notable difference is a 170 fps jump between the RTX 3080 Ti + GT 1030 test and the RTX 3080 Ti with CPU-enabled PhysX in Mirror’s Edge.
| Row 0 – Cell 0 |
RTX 3080 Ti with PhysX via CPU |
RTX 3080 Ti |
RTX 3080 Ti + GT 1030 |
|
Mafia II classic |
18.9 fps |
69.9 fps |
107.1 fps |
|
Mirror’s Edge |
132 fps |
187 fps |
302 fps |
|
Batman: Arkham City |
35-45 fps |
50-60 fps |
55-65 fps |
|
Cryostasis |
19 fps |
115 fps |
144 fps |
|
Metro 2033 |
12-14 fps |
53.22 fps (down to 20-25 fps in PhysX heavy scenes) |
56.24 fps (down to 20-25 fps in PhysX heavy scenes) |
This is perhaps the most interesting test of the two and not purely for the figures that came from it.
Despite having a relatively low level of support in a specific era of games (there’s a full list of them out there), many of the replies to the original thread are from gamers tempted to add a separate graphics card to their rigs just to get better PhysX support.
Notably, those on older cards who have decided to add a GT 1030 to their rigs could have done so before the launch of the RTX 50 series cards. The schadenfreude of being able to run some games better on old gear than $2,000 GPUs may have led to a light resurgence of dedicated PhysX cards, much like those you could buy when PhysX was first implemented in games.
If you really want to get the most out of the likes of Mirror’s Edge or Batman: Arkham City, it may be time to take that old GPU out of retirement.
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Kurt Indovina
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