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Glossary:PhysX

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PhysX
PhysX cover
Developers
Nvidia Corporation
PhysX at Wikipedia

PhysX is a middleware from Nvidia to enable complex physics effects and simulations, and have been used in various game engines such as Unreal Engine 3 (and onward), Unity, Gamebryo, and more. Games making exclusive use of PhysX and promoting it in partnership with Nvidia often featured additional physics effects such as extra particles (dust, smoke, debris) or advanced cloth simulation.

PhysX does not require hardware acceleration to run physics simulations,[Note 1] but hardware acceleration was typically required to achieve a playable framerate for the most demanding titles.

As of 2020 most games making use of PhysX run the physics effects exclusively on the CPU regardless of hardware, with hardware accelerated physics being limited to older games.[2]

General information

List of games that support Nvidia PhysX
PhysX 5 CPU source on GitHub

System Software versions

These provide the PhysX runtime necessary for every pre-2.8.4 game, and the occasional title-specific update for those afterwards[3]

There are two releases of the PhysX driver that should be installed:

NVIDIA PhysX System Software versions
Version Release Date Operating Systems SDK versions Supported Products Notes
9.19.0218[4] 2019.03.08 Windows 7 64-bit, Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows 8.1 32-bit, Windows 8.1 64-bit, Windows 8 64-bit, Windows 7 32-bit, Windows 10 64-bit, Windows XP 64-bit, Windows Vista, Windows 10 32-bit, Windows 8 32-bit, Windows XP 2.7.1, 2.7.3, 2.7.4, 2.7.5, 2.7.6, 2.8.0, 2.8.1, 2.8.3, 2.8.4, and above all GeForce 9‑series, 100‑series to 900‑series GPUs, and the new 1000 series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory
9.13.0604[5] 2013.07.18 Windows 7 64-bit, Windows XP, Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows 8.1 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit, Windows Vista, Windows 7 32-bit 2.7.0 and prior as well as 2.7.2 all GeForce 8-series, 9-series, 100-series, 200-series, 300-series, 400-series, 500-series, and 600-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory These SDKs run on the CPU only

If you are using an Nvidia graphics card the first package may be already included with the drivers.

PhysX v2.5.2 compatibility

The NVIDIA PhysX Legacy System Software does not include v2.5.2; this is known to affect Infernal and The Void but there may be other affected games.
Download missing DLLs[citation needed]
  1. Install the NVIDIA PhysX System Software.
  2. Install the NVIDIA PhysX Legacy System Software.
  3. Install the AGEIA PhysX Engine v2.5.2.
  4. The game should now start up and play.

Secondary PhysX card with an AMD/ATI video card

Nvidia only allows a secondary Nvidia card to be used for PhysX if the primary card is also an Nvidia card (or since 372.70, if any monitor is reported attached to it[6]).
Windows 7 or Windows XP/Windows 2003 are required (Windows Vista will not work)
Install necessary files[7]
  1. Install the GeForce driver 256 package. If needed install the latest PSS.
  2. Use the Hybrid PhysX mod to patch all needed files and registry values automatically.
  3. Windows XP/Server 2003: Extend the display assigned to NVIDIA GPU. Or make sure it is extended already.
  4. Optional: Use command line files to set a desired configuration.

Notes

  • If you update PhysX System Software after using the mod, you should use it again to patch the updated PhysX files.
  • It is safe to use the mod several times - all needed files will be patched only once.
  • If you still have problems with fake displays and desktop extension, try to delete a fake display and create it again.
  • To let the mod correctly patch all needed files on x64 versions of Windows XP/Windows 2003, install KB942589 hotfix first.

Issues fixed

"The program cannot start because PhysXLoader.dll is missing from your computer" error at launch

Install latest versions of the PhysX System Software

Games prefer private own libraries to system ones

This was originally a developer hack to quickly deploy early UE3 builds without using the PhysX redist. Some games eventually nerfed it by the time they shipped. Others included a removal mechanism that still left to be desired[8], while others just altogether assumed this was the proper way things were supposed to work in the first place.[9]
Kill local hack[10]
  1. Open regedit
  2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\AGEIA Technologies.
  3. Delete the enableLocalPhysXCore and EpicLocalDLLHack binary data values
  4. On Windows Vista and newer also run from an elevated command prompt: reg flags "HKLM\SOFTWARE\AGEIA Technologies" set DONT_VIRTUALIZE /reg:32

Notes

If the game needs to be run as administrator (or the user account runs with admin privileges always enabled), also see Shoddy coded applications mess system-wide registry setting.
Delete/move/rename PhysXCore.dll, usually found in game executable directory

Notes

  1. Available on every Nvidia graphics card with more than 32 CUDA cores, and at least 256MB of VRAM.[1]
  2. The PhysX SDK version an application targets is the only thing to matter here, not whether the developer actually implemented advanced hardware effects or not.

References