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Patch Re-Enables PhysX When ATI Card Is Present
An anonymous reader points us to a forum posting with the inevitable followup to NVIDIA's crippling of PhysX for users of any other display adapter. "Windows 7 allows two display drivers to be used at once — like in Windows XP. Therefore, it is possible to use an NVIDIA card for PhysX and ATI card for graphics rendering. Sadly, since the release of 186 graphics drivers, NVIDIA has decided to block this feature anytime a Non-NVIDIA GPU is present in the system. In addition, for some incomprehensible reasons, the latest version of PhysX System Software also prevents PPU cards from working if a Non-NVIDIA GPU is present. ... A forum member by the name of GenL has released an experimental beta patch [that] intercepts disable-PhysX-if-Radeon-is-present-code. So far, according to user comments the patch delivers successful results." The forum post has a link to the patch for Windows 7.
NVIDIA Cease-and-desist e-mails going out in 3...2...1...
In addition, for some incomprehensible reasons,
Greedy maybe, but incomprehensible? I think it is pretty easy to understand, they want you to go buy another nVIDIA card. I don't agree with it either, but thats just a silly word choice.
?
"Sadly, since the release of 186 graphics drivers, NVIDIA has decided to block this feature anytime a Non-NVIDIA GPU is present in the system. "
He who writes the code...", oh wait.
Why don't they just put an option to disable this check in a configuration file, with a comment above it that says : UNSUPPORTED FEATURE, ENABLE AT OWN RISK. It would cost a negligible amount of programmer time (I assume there will be people reading this comment that could write in this feature in under 10 minutes)and it could HELP nvidia. If it's possible to get more value out of Nvidia products, even if you also have a competitor's card in your machine, you are going to increase sales for nvidia products in the long run. Furthermore, if the effective install base for PhysX is larger, there's a greater chance that it will become a standard.
whats with all the M$ stories lately, who cares about these cards for windows 7??? we all know its going to fail anyway. Please, more LINUX! just saying what's everyones thinking..
If a users buys hardware to perform a function they expect it to perform said function. Nvidia comes along and disables the function because for whatever reason you have a competitor's graphics card inside the system. I know some people who do this because a ATI card may be better at certain tasks outside of games. Either way Nvidia should be held accountable, the license you agreed to by opening the box says nothing about installing competitors cards into your machine. In fact I do not see how they can dictate what hardware you put into your box. It's been held that auto makers can not void your warranty for using non manufacturer parts or if they say it will the law states they have to provide the part for free. How is this any different than mixing champion and bosch ignition parts. "We refuse to spark because the distributior cap is nor our brand"
I had a similar problem with a driver update for Nvidia, though it had nothing to do with using another video card. My HTPC setup connects my PC with an 8600GT with component cables to my TV, an old, Samsung flat-screen CRT. I bought it used for cheap, the color is fantastic, and it does 640x480p. In combination with the horizontal/vertical TV adjustments, I also used the equivelant adjustments built into the Nvidia software to get the perfect screen size with no overscan.
For about a year I had been using it in that setup. I usually check the nvidia website for driver updates, and had been through at least 2 since I set it up with no problems. The latest driver update, 190.62, suddenly disabled the prized feature I was using, stating it was not supported with my particular setup. I had to downgrade to the earlier version to get it working correctly.
I'm not sure if Nvidia did this on purpose to try to get me to upgrade to a newer/better card, or if it was just some unintentional bug that was overlooked, but I've learned not to always upgrade to the newest driver.
Playing devils advocate here I can sort of see Nvidia's beef.
Their attitude to features and drivers is quite progressive and starts back with the old TNT32 when competing with voodoo. IMHO, we now have a similar situation where ATI is making good performing card at cheap prices yet are not maintaining the robust driver feature set of NVidia.
If a game is having a few glitches with shadows, chances are its with an ATI card.
NVidia's point of difference are their drivers, and I can at least see engineers being a bit miffed.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
This seems like a lose-lose scenario for NVidia. Either they support other GPUs and risk getting smacked down with conspiracy theories or "lol nvidia is crap" when the famously shitty drivers from companies like S3 break PhysX, or they lock out competitors GPUs to maintain their reputation and get smacked down with conspiracy theories or "lol nvidia is crap".
But it does seem like win-win for nvidia in a sense if they take the first option. If PhysX takes off but ATI has a better gpu, then Nvidia still gets a sale from the hardcore crowd who want an accelerator. If Nvidia has the better gpu, then Nvidia gets the sale anyway.
It's a smart idea becoming an essential part to all PCs.
It's been a long time.
This is competition taken to unhealthy levels.
But the corporate chicken shits will be issuing DMCA take down notices by the dozen. Notice how that it is illegal for Ford and GM to cripple their engines such that they can only use certain parts and exclude others. If GM made an engine that ceased to function if you used a Slappy's Air Filter, there'd be a hue and cry raised - not that you'd necessarily want to use a second rate component in your car. HMMM - I wonder. Has the hardware/software lobby become too powerful?
1 in a million it right !!
I swear, all tie-wearing brainless drones that come up with such bullshit need to be shot in the head!
I'm sick of those mouth-breathers standing in the way of good engineering.
Where could the world be if those slimy bastards wouldn't be holding back the bright people?
They're not doing anything actionable unless they're distributing the whole package. A patch against the nVidia distributed drivers is perfectly legal.
My old box had two NVidia cards, one AGP and one PCI. That worked great. Current box has motherboard with AMD (ATI) IGP. XOrg lets me use just the NV PCI card or just the AMD PCI-E IGP, but I can not use both at the same time using the free radeon driver and the nvidia blob - and the blob is the only choice here since TV-out would be the whole point of using this card. This may not be nvidias fault, but I suspect that it is since their driver is a binary blob. I also feel like complaining that I never got the NVidia card to do tv-out or 3D using free software, those features require the binary blob. The AMD IGP does OpenGL 3D (using 2.6.32-rc1-git6/xorg git) and multihead HDMI+VGA all (ab)using free software, no binary blob required. I will never buy a NVidia product until or unless they provide some documentation and source, they are pretty much the only big player who has not done so at this point. AMDs half-assed documentation release gave us free software support for 3D and faster 2D than their binary blob in a very short time.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
Why is it necessary for the nvidia driver to even know what other graphics cards are available?
Just don't buy it in the first place. They want to make their product of limited use, let 'em. Someone else will fill the void. Hell they may even change their minds. But only if we don't buy their crap.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
It would cost a negligible amount of programmer time (I assume there will be people reading this comment that could write in this feature in under 10 minutes)and it could HELP nvidia.
Yyyyeah. Go to executives in a company of that size and say "I have a project that could really benefit the company. It takes 0.00009* man-years!" and they will laugh you out of the meeting!
(*: Assuming ~1800 man-hour long man-years)
I hadn't noticed this when the original story broke. But this change also apparently disables Physx processing on Physx dedicated physics cards, i.e. the things Agiea was making before Nvidia bought them out. I know those weren't the most popular addon, but I happen to know of a school with a computer lab full of those Physx cards, and the majority of them have ATI/AMD cards for graphics. For them at least, this update renders all those standalone cards useless.
Bork Bork Bork!!
should be filed for nv
Free software is great and freedom is definitely a feature.
It's too bad that it seems to be impossible to fund decent free software development. Because, hey, it's free so why pay for it?
The only competitive free software is that which actually has full time paid developers working on it. No one has made a way to get paid developing free graphics yet.
Based on comparing actual submissions to headlines making the front page I find this article to be rather deficient in the woodscrew content.
*glaring@you, soulskill*
Why would nvidia stop there? they should tighten things up all across the board. What they should to is start disabling Physics on AMD cpu's all together. then they could start looking at preventing nvidia graphics from working on amd systems. the next logical step would be to prevent any of the competitions hardware from working with any nvidia hardware, because that is the way it is meant to be played.
So now I've got 2 battles to follow this week:
1: Apple iTunes verses Palm Pre.
2: Nvidia PhysX verses the whole rest of the non-Nvidia world.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Hello ATI. For many years I have been a hardcore believer in NVidia products. Since I build computers for a living I always recommended them to my clients. Now I will be informing people what NVidia is trying to do and why nobody should buy their products now. Also release open source drivers or gtfo.
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
Actually it's a bigger issue than that: Nvidia's Binary Blob also replaces the Mesa libGL file with an nvidia specific one, since they don't use DRI.
ATI's FGLRX driver used to do the same thing, but I believe the latest catalyst releases now use a DRI module, just like the open source drivers and simply hook against the installed version of MESA, although I *MAY* be wrong.
Free software is great and freedom is definitely a feature.
It's too bad that it seems to be impossible to fund decent free software development. Because, hey, it's free so why pay for it?
The only competitive free software is that which actually has full time paid developers working on it. No one has made a way to get paid developing free graphics yet.
Yeah, those free software projects like Perl, GCC, Linux, Apache are all failures because nobody gets paid to work on them.
Am I the only one who noticed the lack of HAVOK games lately? Last I checked it was an open API. But (almost) no one is using it after they bought the company. I guess Intel is going to close the API for Larrabee cards which is kinda a sad.
I checked my e-mail today to see a message from Nvidia:
And my response:
"I'm impressed that Nvidia monitors Slashdot.
I'm unable to give you more details or provide testing info, as that computer is currently in storage 360 miles away from me. I'm fairly certain it was with the 190.62, that's when I noticed the problem at least. It will be at least 2 months, maybe longer, before I am able to get more detail/test with the newer version again; however, I can tell you I was running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, and had been using Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit prior to that."