Question about PhysX 32bit GPU compatibility with 5090
Question about PhysX 32bit GPU compatibility with 5090
Whatever NVidia's message is, it's just nonsense. It mentions that even when you set up a secondary GPU for PhysX in the NVIDIA Control Panel, modern drivers and games usually ignore it and stick to the main GPU.
Additionally, you don’t really need a second GPU just for PhysX — your RTX 5090 is powerful enough on its own to handle all PhysX effects without any slowdown.
We’ve already observed these performance differences, and the RTX 50 series doesn’t match the performance of an RTX 40 series or older GPU when processing 32-bit hardware for PhysX. Even Gamers Nexus confirmed this in their tests (using Driver 572.47 with an RTX 5080+ GTX 980 for PhysX). It seems Nvidia may have updated driver behavior recently, possibly to discourage the use of a second card. There might also be something else affecting the setup since at least version 580.88.
I’ve also run my own tests using Driver 580.88 with an RTX 3090 and GTX 1650. I had to use a PCIe 3.0 x1 slot with an x1 riser because my second x16 x4 wired slot was disabled due to a second M.2 SSD. It functioned properly, and I verified it through MSI Afterburner overlays showing both GPUs active, as well as GPU-Z sensor graphs displaying activity on the second GPU.
However, claiming it worked stretches the definition of success, as it experienced significant performance drops or technical problems that caused it to freeze for seconds or minutes—likely due to bandwidth limitations or setup issues. I considered testing with an AMD card as the primary but skipped it because of the x1 riser problems. I might try again on a full system instead of my main gaming rig.
It's really disappointing. It seems like the support for using a dedicated PhysX card was removed from the driver level. That's frustrating because it limits options for drivers.