Hd5870 & 8800gtx

[dlder]

Hello everybody!

I'm a little bit confused as I posted this message just a few minutes ago... but as it is not displayed I'll ask again

Let me do a little explaining beforehand:
I've got these two video cards working on my Win7x64 machine and confirmed that with several PhysX-Benchmarks & -Games.
At last, I tried the Cryostasis-Benchmark-Demo with everything maxed out (1920x1200, Highest, DX10, PhysX: Hardware) and got whooping 33,1 / 53,9 / 123,5 FPS!

So I told myself: I can finally play this (probably^^) awesome game!

But unfortunately I could'n install the game under my current OS. Then I googled some and found a lot of "... doesn't work in x64..."
I couldn't believe that; I hoped that only the installer is broken.
So I installed/patched it on a WinXP machine and copied it onto my main rig.
And behold: the game started! Yeah!

And because the demo ran so well, I cranked everything up and couldn't believe my eyes: ~20 FPS?! (ok, when viewing the wall or something I get way more, but that doesn't count).
Then I opend the first hatch; there's a lot of ice around that brakes and which causes the FPS to drop to single digits...
Then I disabled Physx and at least got around 30 FPS...

So, here are my two questions:
a) Why is Physx working in the demo, but not in the full game? (got the europe/english DVD if that matters)

b) Why is the performance with the HD5870 so bad? (I mean even when Physx is turned off)

Thanks in advance for any help/comments...

[Sneaksie]

With PhysX being calculated using CPU you may get even a single frame in a couple of seconds in some situations. Turn it off in-game unless you have an ok nvidia card (turning it off in nvidia control panel would mean using the CPU for calculations, not actually turning it off AFAIK).
It's advisable to install the patch if you use an nvidia card. Also, AFAIK, using an amd card for rendering and nvidia card for physics won't work, physx acceleration will be disabled.

[dlder]

Thx for your reply, albeit not very helpfull...
"using an amd card for rendering and nvidia card for physics won't work"

This does work of course; as stated in my post. It is even working in the Cryostasis demo; or I would - like you said - have gotten only single digit benchmark scores (because my cpu would have to calculate the physx stuff).

I already heard that this game doesn't run well with an AMD 5870; I just wanted that confirmed (about 30 FPS with all settings maxed out and physx disabled??).

And I wanted to know if something in the physx-department is different between the demo and the full game; or why else would there be such a performance difference when physx is enabled if not because of my Geforce not calculating physx?

Thanks again; hopefully someone can clarify this...

[dlder]

a) Maybe it's because, ...I don't know. They use a different physx path or something. Is there a console command to see, if hardware physx is working and why?

b) Or maybe it's because I didn't actually install it on the box I'm playing it on?

c) Or, maybe the nvidia-hardware-physx is working but because of the "advanced physx" from the patch (which were not in the demo?) one 8800GTX isn't enough any longer?

Just some random thoughts...


I could check if it's "b)", if someone can tell me how to install this game on Win7x64

'till later

[dlder]

Ok, I think I have the solution.

I tried a fresh start (deleting the old Cryo, re-installing the nvidia card) and tried to install it; which fortunately but confusingly worked. I fired the game up and everything's ok. Then I patched it (had graphical/texture errors with v1.0) and set Res to 1024 and everything to low; PhysX off.
Got around 100FPS. After that, I enabled Physx (with the GeForce-Physx disabled) and got around 20-6FPS with breaking ice and particles everywhere.
So I quit the game, enabled HW-Physx (did a short test with fluid mark) and tried it again: solid 90-69FPS -> *sweet*, HW-Physx finally working.

Then I cranked everything up: 30-20FPS? Shit!

Well, it seams one HD5870 just aint enough for 1920x1200. Maybe I'll wait a little while longer for the GF480; but I doubt it will help that much because graphics wise it's - sadly - not that much faster then my current video card.

cu