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.

Comments

Re:Incomprehensible?

[shoehornjob]

The patch in question does not circumvent copy protection nor does it infringe on copyrights.

Actually you're wrong. Because Nvidia owns part or all of the company that invented PhysX this is considered infringement of their intellectual property. So in fact there is no legitimate reason why an ATI user should expect to make use of PhysX.

On the other hand I don't agree with the way they block you from using two cards from different manufacturers however I would never do this because that's just asking for trouble. Windows just isn't that good.