We bring to your attention a complete description of the driver control panel. Please note that some settings are available only with certain types of equipment used. In this review, we have tried to reflect all the possible settings.
Panel main window
The main window is shown in the illustration:
The navigation bar is on the left and allows you to navigate through the desired settings with one click. The View menu allows you to turn on the extended view, which gives the most complete access to all the driver settings, or to customize the panel view, leaving only those items that you intend to use. Also, in the lower left part of the panel, access to the help system of the control panel is provided (link "System Information"):
from which you can find out about the versions of files, installed drivers and other NVIDIA software, as well as the characteristics of the video card.
Category "3D Settings"
Adjusting playback images
The following settings are available:
- Settings according to 3D application- this option allows you to control the quality and display speed by means of 3D applications. However, the trilinear filtering optimization and anisotropy sampling optimization enabled by default are retained under any application settings.
- Advanced 3D Image Settings- advanced driver settings set by the users themselves are used. The Go To link gives you access to the Manage 3D Settings tab. It is the control of additional driver options that allows you to achieve maximum image quality.
- Custom settings with a focus on ...: - the most interesting option that allows simplified management of additional driver options for novice users:
Meaning Performance corresponds to the maximum operating speed and includes settings: vertical sync disabled, all optimizations (trilinear filtering optimization, anisotropy mip filter optimization, anisotropy sampling optimization) are enabled, negative detail level: prohibit negative level - enabled, texture filtering - “quality ”, Anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing is controlled by applications.
Meaning Balance has the following settings: anti-aliasing - 2x, anisotropic filtering - 4x, all optimizations (trilinear filtering optimization, anisotropy mip filter optimization, anisotropy sampling optimization) are enabled, negative detail level is enabled, texture filtering is “quality”, vertical sync is driven by applications.
Meaning Quality has the following settings: trilinear filtering optimization - enabled, anti-aliasing - 4x, anisotropic filtering - 8x, negative detail level - enabled, texture filtering - "quality", vertical sync - controlled by applications.
All modes are provided with detailed explanations for their use, and a rotating company logo demonstrates the use of certain settings.
For more detailed settings, use the window Controlling 3D parameters.
Controlling 3D parameters
Global parameters
Possible bookmark settings Global parameters :
Anisotropic filtering. Possible values are "Off", "Application control", "2x-16x" (depending on the video adapter model). Anisotropic filtering is the most advanced pixel distortion compensation technique today, and in combination with trilinear filtering gives the best filtering quality. Enabling any value other than Application Control allows you to ignore application settings. Keep in mind, however, that this is a very resource-intensive setting that can significantly reduce performance.
Vertical sync pulse. Possible values - "On." and Off, Use 3D Application Setting. Vertical sync (it is completely incomprehensible why NVIDIA has moved away from this term) means the synchronization of the image output with the monitor's scan rate. Turning on vertical sync allows you to achieve the smoothest possible image on the screen, turning it off allows you to get the maximum number of frames per second, often leading to a breakdown (displacement) of the image due to the fact that the video adapter has started drawing the next frame, while the output of the previous one has not yet been completed ... Due to the use of double buffering, enabling Vsync can cause frames per second and below the monitor refresh rate to drop in some applications.
Enabling scalable textures. Possible values are "None" and "Bilinear", "Trilinear". No - Do not enable scalable textures in applications that do not support them. Bilinear - the best performance due to a drop in quality. Trilinear - good image quality with lower performance. It is highly discouraged to use this option in the forced bilinear filtering mode, since the image quality obtained when forcing the option is simply depressing.
Shading background lighting. Enabling the technology for simulating global illumination (shading) Ambient Occlusion. The traditional lighting model in 3D graphics calculates the appearance of a surface based solely on its characteristics and the characteristics of light sources. Objects in the path of the light cast shadows, but they do not affect the lighting of other objects in the scene. The global illumination model increases the realism of the image by calculating the intensity of light reaching the surface, with the brightness value of each point on the surface depending on the relative position of other objects in the scene. Unfortunately, an honest volumetric calculation of shadowing caused by objects in the path of light rays is still beyond the capabilities of modern hardware. Therefore, the ambient occlusion technology was developed, which allows using shaders to calculate the mutual shadowing of objects in the plane of the "virtual camera" while maintaining acceptable performance, first used in the Crysis game. This option allows you to apply this technology to images of games that do not have built-in ambient occlusion support. Each game requires a separate adaptation of the algorithm, so the option itself is enabled in the driver profiles, and the panel option only allows the use of the technology as a whole. The list of supported games can be found on the website NVIDIA... Supported for G80 (GeForce 8X00) and newer GPUs starting with driver 185.81 in Windows Vista and Windows 7. May decrease performance by 20-50%. Possible values - "On." and Off.
Maximum number of pre-trained personnel- allows you to limit the control of the maximum number of frames prepared by the central processor when disabled. In case of problems with the slow response of the mouse or joystick, you need to decrease the default value (3). Increasing the value can help achieve a smoother picture at low frame rates.
Expansion limitation. Possible values are "Enabled" and "Disabled". It is used to solve compatibility problems with old OpenGL applications due to overflow of the memory allocated for storing information about the capabilities of the video card. If applications crash, try enabling extension limiting.
Stream optimization- allows you to control the amount of GPUs used by applications, in most cases changing the default value (Auto) does not require. However, some older games may not work properly in these configurations. Therefore, the ability to manage this option is given.
Power management mode... Possible values are "Adaptive" (default) and "Maximum performance". With GeForce 9X00 and newer graphics cards that have a division into performance modes, for games and programs that create a small load on the graphics processor, the driver does not switch the graphics card to 3D performance mode. This behavior can be changed by selecting the "Maximum Performance" mode, then any time you use 3D, the video card will go into 3D mode. These functions are available only when using driver 190.38 or higher in Windows Vista and Windows 7.
Anti-aliasing - gamma correction. Possible values "On" and Off. Allows you to perform gamma correction of pixels with anti-aliasing. Available on video adapters based on GPU G70 (GeForce 7X00) and newer. Improves the color gamut of applications.
Anti-aliasing - transparency. Possible values are "Off", "Multiple sampling", "Oversampling". Controls advanced anti-aliasing technology that reduces the “ladder” effect at the edges of transparent textures. We draw your attention to the fact that under the phrase "Multiple sampling", there is a more familiar term "Multisampling", and under "Oversampling" - "Supersampling". The latter method has the most serious impact on the performance of the video adapter. The option is operable on video cards of the GeForce 6x00 family and newer, when using drivers version 91.45 and higher.
Anti-aliasing - options. The item is active only if the item "Anti-aliasing - mode" is set to "Increase application settings" or "Override application settings". Possible values are "Application control" (which is equivalent to the "Application control" value of the "Antialiasing - mode" item), and from 2x to 16x, including "proprietary" Q / S modes (depending on the capabilities of the video card). This setting has a serious impact on performance. For weak cards, it is recommended to use the minimum modes. Note that only the 8x, 16x and 16xQ options will have an effect for the "Increase Application Setting" mode.
Anti-aliasing - mode... Enables full-screen image anti-aliasing (FSAA). Anti-aliasing is used to minimize the "jagging" effect that occurs at the boundaries of 3D objects. Possible values:
- "Application control" (default value) - anti-aliasing works only if the application / game directly requests it;
- "No" - completely disable the use of full-screen anti-aliasing;
- Application Settings Override - forcibly apply the anti-aliasing specified in the Anti-aliasing - Options item to the image, regardless of whether or not anti-aliasing is used by the application. "App Settings Override" will have no effect on games that use the technology Deferred shading, and DirectX 10 or higher applications. It can also distort images in some games;
- Increase application settings (available only for GeForce 8X00 and newer video cards) - allows you to improve the anti-aliasing requested by applications in problem areas at a lower performance cost than when using Application Settings Override.
Error messages. Determines whether applications can check for rendering errors. The default value is "Off", because many OpenGL applications do this check quite often, which degrades overall performance.
Corresponding texture binding. Possible values - "Off." , "Hardware is being used", "The OpenGL specification is being used." Texture binding refers to the binding of texture coordinates outside of its bounds. They can be anchored to the edges of the image or within it. You can turn off snapping in case of texture defects in some applications. In most cases, changing this option is not required.
Triple buffering. Possible values - "On." and Off. Enabling triple buffering can improve performance when using vertical sync. Keep in mind, however, that not all applications are capable of forcing triple buffering, and the load on video memory increases. Works for OpenGL applications only.
Acceleration of multiple displays. Possible values are Single Display Performance Mode, Multi Display Performance Mode, and Compatibility Mode. The setting defines additional options for OpenGL when using multiple graphics cards and multiple displays. The control panel assigns a default parameter. If you experience problems with OpenGL applications running on multiple video cards and displays, try changing the setting to Compatibility Mode.
Texture filtering - Anisotropic filtering optimization. Possible values - "On." and Off. When enabled, the driver forces the use of a point mip filter at all stages, except for the main one. Enabling this option slightly degrades the picture quality and slightly increases performance.
Filtering textures. Possible values are "High Quality", "Quality", "Performance", "High Performance". Allows you to control Intellisample technology. This parameter has a significant impact on image quality and speed:
- High Performance - Offers the highest possible frame rate for the best performance.
- "Performance" - setting optimal performance of applications with good image quality. Provides optimal performance and good image quality.
- "Quality » Is the standard setting that gives the optimum picture quality.
- "High quality" - gives the best image quality. It is used to obtain images without using software texture filtering optimizations.
Texture filtering - ohnegative deviation of UD (level of detail). Possible values are "Allow" and "Bind". Applications sometimes use a negative level of detail (LOD) value to filter textures with more contrast. This increases the contrast of the still image, but “noise” appears on moving objects. To obtain a better image when using anisotropic filtering, it is advisable to set the option to "snapping" in order to prohibit negative UD deviation.
Filtering textures - tlinear optimization. Possible values - "On." and Off. Enabling this option allows the driver to lower the trilinear filtering quality to improve performance, depending on the Intellisample mode selected.
Software settings
The bookmark has two fields:
Select the program to configure.
In this field you can see the possible application profiles that serve to override the global driver settings. When you run the corresponding executable file, the application-specific settings are automatically activated. Some profiles may contain settings that cannot be changed by users. As a rule, this is the adaptation of the driver for a specific application or the elimination of compatibility problems. By default, only those applications that are installed on the system are displayed.
Specify the settings for this program.
In this field, you can change the settings for a specific application profile. The list of available settings is completely identical to the global parameters. The Add button is used to add your own application profiles. When you click it, a Windows Explorer window opens, with which you select the executable file of the application. After that, in the field "Specify settings for this program" you can set personal settings for the application. The Delete button is used to delete user application profiles. Please note that it is impossible to delete / change the initially present application profiles by means of the driver; for this you will have to use third-party utilities, such as nHancer.
Setting up a PhysX configuration
Allows you to enable or disable the processing of physical effects using NVIDIA PhysX technology by means of a video card, provided that it is based on a G80 (GeForce 8X00) or newer GPU. Support is enabled by default; disabling may be required when solving problems with applications that incorrectly use PhysX (for example, the Mirror`s Edge game without patches). If there is more than one NVIDIA GPU in the system, the user is given the choice of the GPU on which the physical effects will be processed, unless the SLI mode is used. For more details on the specifics of using NVIDIA PhysX, see the dedicated FAQ section of our website.
Additionally, starting with driver version 195.62, you can enable the display of the PhysX acceleration indicator in games. To do this, in the top menu "3D Settings" check "Show PhysX visual indicator". The acceleration status is displayed in the upper left corner of the image.
Foreword
Immediately I emphasize once again, this guide is not for everyone, but only for those who have a weak point - the processor and at the same time it does not a panacea, not a magic pill that will turn cheap into expensive... That is, if in any specific processor dependent
the game you load it up to 100%, then these simple steps may
improve the situation.
However, how much they improve it depends on how weak the processor is. There is no need to build illusions, and then be offended, give a low grade, write that the author is madak, which did not help, if your processor is too weak now and only does what it chokes, and think that after the guide it will fly like an airplane. There is a difference between "getting to 100%" and "always holding at 100%".
In general, friends, let's assess our hardware adequately.
By the way, this guide was written from the very beginning as part of
, but I decided to take this part out as a general one, since theoretically this should unload percentages in other processor-dependent games to one degree or another but haven't personally tested it. Write in the comments if you noticed a difference if you tried it with any other processor-dependent game.
If the processor is the weak link in your system, and at the moments of its peak load you observe microfreezes FPS or other problems associated with lack of deduction. CPU power, it might be possible to solve this problem, together with other optimization methods, by setting just a few parameters via NVidia control panel.
Perhaps AMD has similar settings, but I'm not aware, so if anyone knows, please write about it in the comments, someone might be helped.
Personally, this is the only way I managed to get rid of FPS stutters in GTA V on my cheap Intel G4500, running with a Palit Super JetStream GTX 980 video card, 8 GB of RAM and an SSD with Windows 10. At the same time, I got more than playable FPS and picture quality. True, I also applied several tweaks and found one interesting setting in the game, but about all this in a separate article.
Processor-dependent games and a weak processor
On the example of GTA V it can be seen that the more FPS, the more the processor load. In my case, the Intel G4500 load at FPS more than 50 does not just reach 100%, but often freezes on them, the processor simply "chokes". In the game, this is expressed by the appearance of micro-freezes from which the game becomes unplayable. But if, by increasing the graphic settings, I achieve the creation of a video card no more than 47 FPS, the processor load only occasionally reaches 100% and freezes are not observed.
That is, as a result, it is impossible to play at minimum salaries, but at max. settings 35-47 FPS with a beautiful picture. All because of the weak processor. Many people say that with such a processor it is generally impossible to play GTA V normally, but we now already know that this is not true.
Of course, I could also get rid of micro-freezes with my processor by turning on 50% vert. sync, which will also lead to 30 FPS (60Hz monitor), but why, if you can play at 35-47 FPS with better mouse and keyboard response.
Theoretically, it would also be possible to downgrade the frequencies of the video card in order to get an FPS that does not load the processor beyond its capabilities, but why, if you can do this by improving the picture quality.
Here are the graphs of the CPU load at FPS> 50 at low graphics settings and at 35-47 FPS at max. settings. It is clearly seen how in the first case the processor often "chokes", and in the second case it works almost at its maximum, but not higher than that.
This graph shows the processor overflowing on the left a little more clearly:
NVIDIA Control Panel
- Open up "NVIDIA Control Panel", go to section
3D Settings -> Manage 3D Settings -> Software Settings
and select the game you are interested in from the drop-down list. - Set the following parameters to the specified values:
Parameter
Explanation
Shader caching
Reduces the likelihood of microfreezing FPS, since shaders are compiled once and saved to disk in this form so that they can be loaded from it in the future instead of recompiling. It also speeds up the loading of levels and other things, if it is in the process of compiling shaders.
Maximum number of pre-trained personnel
The most important parameter. The higher the value, the more the processor is loaded with the preparation of frames for their processing by the video card. The pre-rendered frames help the graphics card feed evenly for processing, which can smooth out small differences in render times. However, a high value can result in an input lag. Important: if you put the value "Use 3D application setting", then the game can use some of its own value other than 1, or the default value accepted in the Windows OS, that is, 3.
- Now go to the section
3D Settings -> 3D Settings Control -> Surround Settings, PhysX
and in the area PhysX Settings just in case, explicitly indicate your video card.This is with regard to the parameters, aimed specifically at unloading the CPU... Also, in the software settings for games, the following values are advised:
For all settings for which it is possible - "Application control / Use 3D application setting". And the setting is already done in the game itself, but if there is no setting, then through the control panel. Remember that if you set an explicit value for a parameter, i.e. On, Off. or, for example, x2, x4, etc., you forcing using this value, ignoring the game settings. For example, only if you set Vertical Sync Pulse to Use 3D Application Setting, the game setting will be respected. Settings via the control panel have a higher priority.It is also worth mentioning that it is not advisable to apply this kind of settings in the global parameters, since for some games it is sometimes necessary to set other values. The specified settings for unloading the CPU should be used if it does not cope, that is, if the level of its load often reaches 100% in the game.
Disable unnecessary NVIDIA services and programs
So that you can determine which service is necessary and which is not personally for you, I will give a short description of each. I'll make a reservation right away that the launch of the GeForce Experience program does not depend on services, but the functionality it provides depends.
Service name
Short description
NVIDIA Display Driver Service
If disabled, it will not be possible to open the NVIDIA Control Panel, it will disappear from the desktop context menu. However, everything will continue to function normally, as if the service were still running. You can set the startup type - Manual, then the service will start on the first call to the control panel, but after that it will remain running.
NVIDIA GeForce Experience Service
Regardless of which service is started (including Disabled), GeForce Experience will start, so if you are using only ShadowPlay of all GeForce Experience features, you can disable the service.
This is for NVidia services. You can always find information on the network about other services, system services and those that are installed with programs, in order to understand whether you need them, whether you can and should disable them.
It is also worth paying attention to the startup programs. For example, which again concerns NVIDIA:
- Nvidia Backend (NvBackend.exe), responsible for the functions of optimizing games according to the parameters for them from GeForce Experience. Can be removed from startup if you do not use this function.
- Nvidia Capture Server (nvspcaps64.exe) is needed for ShadowPlay.
Other programs and services
Naturally, setting these values in the NVidia control panel is not the only way to unload the processor in the game, so if this was not enough in your case, I recommend that you pay attention, using the task manager, what other programs / services use the processor in parallel with the game.
03.02.16, 10:49 About computers 
1
The performance of a video card can be increased in one of two ways: change the characteristics by changing the hardware or change the operating parameters by customizing the software.
If, for some reason, you do not want to change the hardware characteristics of the video card, i.e. accelerate it, for example, so as not to burn. Then the second method will suit you - increasing the performance of the video card by changing the software settings.
How to find out the model of the installed video card
You can get a video card model in different ways. Let's consider several options for the Windows operating system.
Through the desktop
- In windows 7, right-click on any free space on the Desktop and select Screen Resolution.
- Selecting Advanced Options
- A window will appear in which you have all the information about the video device. On the Adapter tab, you will find the name of your video card.
The same window is opened using the command
- Start -> Control Panel -> Display -> Screen Resolution (for Windows 7)
- Start -> Settings -> System -> Advanced display settings -> Graphics adapter properties (for Windows 10)
We look at the name in the device manager
Right-click on "My Computer" and select Properties from the menu. In the left edge, select the Device Manager item.
Start -> Control Panel -> System (in Windows 7)
Start -> Settings -> System -> About System -> Device Manager (in Windows 10)
Expand the Video adapters tab and see the video adapter model.
Using the command line
Perhaps it will be easier for someone to use the command to find out which video card is installed on a computer or laptop.
Press the Win + R key at the same time, in the window that appears, write the dxdiag command. A window will open with complete information about the system, installed drivers and components. In the Display tab, you will find all the information about the video card. In the flesh before how much video memory is installed in it and the version of the driver.
Using the Aida program
If for some reason you do not want or cannot use standard tools, then you will learn more advanced information about your computer or laptop after installing the Aida program. You can download it from the official website http://www.aida64.com/downloads
After starting the program, go to the Display - Windows Video tab here you will find everything about your graphics accelerator.
Setting up an Nvidia graphics card
If you decide to figure out how to set up an Nvidia video card, then initially you need to right-click on the desktop, and then select "Nvidia Control Panel" in the window that opens. Now choose Manage 3D Settings. If you do everything correctly, you will see a window in which you need to set the following settings for the nvidia driver:
- Anisotropic filtering - 16x(Anisotropic filtering has only one setting - the filter coefficient (2x, 4x, 8x, 16x). The higher it is, the sharper and more natural the textures look. Usually, at a high value, small artifacts are visible only on the most distant pixels of tilted textures.)
- Triple Buffering - Off(Triple buffering in computer graphics is a form of double buffering; a method of displaying an image that avoids or reduces artifacts.)
- Texture filtering / anisotropic optimization by sampling - Off.(Anisotropic filtering is needed to sharpen the image of 3D objects relative to the camera (character, car, etc.). Set the value Application-controlled - this means that the application will automatically select the desired anisotropic filtering mode, or filtering is controlled in the application itself (program, game), the higher the filtering value, the clearer the image will be. It practically does not affect performance. For each application, this parameter can be configured separately (the program settings tab), obtaining a higher quality if the application does not support or does not correctly process anisotropic filtering.)
- Texture filtering / negative UD deviation - Snap(For more contrast filtering of texture, applications sometimes use a negative value for the level of detail (LOD). This increases the contrast of a still image, but there is a "noise" effect on moving objects. to prohibit negative UD rejection.)
- Texture filtering / quality - performance
- Texture filtering / trilinear optimization - Off.(Texture filtering - trilinear optimization. Possible values are “On” and “Off.” Enabling this option allows the driver to lower the quality of trilinear filtering to improve performance, depending on the Intellisample mode selected. Trilinear filtering is an improved version of bilinear filtering. MIP- texturing, increasing the clarity of the image and the percentage of cache hits at long distances, has a serious drawback: the boundaries between MIP-levels are clearly visible. Trilinear filtering allows you to fix this drawback at the cost of some reduction in the sharpness of textures. For this, the pixel color is calculated as a weighted average of eight texels: four on two adjacent MIP-textures If the MIP-texturing formulas give the largest or smallest of the MIP-textures, trilinear filtering degenerates into bilinear filtering.
Insufficient sharpness is dealt with by setting a negative mip bias - that is, textures are taken more detailed than would be necessary without trilinear filtering.) - Texture Filtering / Anisotropic Filtering Optimization - Off.(Possible values are "On" and "Off."
- Multiple Display / Mixed GPU Acceleration - Single Display Performance Mode
- Vertical sync pulse - Adaptive(The vertical sync pulse is turned off to reach 100 fps, but with a 120 Hz monitor, you don't have to turn it off. Fps_max will not rise more than 100 if you do not turn on develover "1" (fps_override))
- Streaming Optimization - On(Controls the number of GPUs used by 3D applications)
- PhysX - CPU
- Anti-aliasing-transparent. - Off
- Power Management Mode - Maximum Performance Mode preferred
- The maximum number of pre-trained personnel - 1
After setting these settings, click the "Apply" button. Note that the number of settings may be different for different video cards, so change only those that are available for your model. You can evaluate the performance gain by running some kind of toy or using special programs such as 3DMark, for example.
Customizing individual games through the Nvidia control panel
If you do not need the proposed settings to apply to all games at once, you can configure each application / game separately. This is done according to the same principle, only in the drop-down list we select the desired game and do our own optimization, while the settings that have been set will in no way affect other games.
Every owner of a video card from NVIDIA has opened its control panel at least once. And I probably got to the item "PhysX configuration setup". There is almost no useful information in this section, but there is only one parameter "PhysX processor selection", which provides an opportunity to choose by whose forces to process NVIDIA's proprietary technology, PhysX, integrated into many games.
PhysX is a cross-platform, embedded physics engine for simulating a range of physics phenomena. Originally developed by Ageia for its PhysX physical processor. After Ageia was acquired by NVIDIA, the engine became the property of NVIDIA, which continues to develop it further. NVIDIA has adapted the engine to accelerate physics calculations on its CUDA graphics chips. PhysX can also compute using a conventional processor. PhysX is currently available on the following platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, Xbox one. The engine is used in many games and is actively offered for sale (licensing) to everyone.(c) Wikipedia
When looking at this item, many people thought about the question: “What parameter should I choose? Auto, CPU or GPU "- We will figure it out today!
It should be noted right away that NVIDIA allows processing some PhysX capabilities only on its own video cards, while the rest should be content only for processing by the CPU.
Test Stand
Monitor: DELL U2414H 1920х1080 60 Hz
CPU: Intel Core [email protected] 1.025v;
GPU: EVGA NVIDIA GTX 1070;
Motherboard: ASUS X99-A / USB3.1;
SSD (systeam + games): Intel 530 Series 120GB;
Memory: Corsair ValueSelect DDR4 [email protected]
Testing technique
For testing, we chose games that use PhysX technologies and have a built-in performance test, which was used to test with different operating modes "PhysX processor selection" AUTO / GPU / CPU.
Here is a list of handpicked games:
Rise of Tomb Rider
Batman: arkham knight
Metro: Last Light Redux
Mafia 2
A brief description of the main technologies used in the selected games
Rise of Tomb Rider
The previous part of Tomb Rider used AMD TressFX technology, which allowed real-time simulation of the hair and hair of the characters. The new part uses a new technology based on AMD TressFX, PureHair developed by Crystal Dynamics in collaboration with NVIDIA and based on PhysX. 
The second technology used here is the VXAO shading method, analogous to HBAO + and SSAO. VXAO is a higher quality option compared to its competitors. This Ambient Occlusion (AO) method allows for even more accurate shading, taking into account lighting and the influence of objects on each other. VXAO is part of the VXGI (Voxel Global Illumination) volumetric lighting technology, which correctly accounts for direct and indirect light. In VXGI, the scene is split into a bill of exchange grid, and then the scene is traced using different parameters for each segment. In addition to correctly modeling the illumination of each area, this method produces more accurate shading of Ambient Occlusion. An illustrative example is below. 
Batman: arkham knight
Probably the brightest representative for this test. It uses a lot of technologies from the NVIDIA PhysX Gameworks library, both available to everyone, and several that can only be used by owners of NVIDIA video cards.
Cloud FX is a realistic simulation of smoke and fog. Allows you to simulate the full behavior of particles and the influence of the external environment on them. Only available for NVIDIA graphics card owners. Another such technology is interactive scraps of paper. It is very difficult to describe, but it can be perfectly seen in the technical preview of the game, which shows other technologies that are available to everyone.
Mafia 2
Old man, it used APEX technology. It made it possible to work with small elements, into which objects were divided upon destruction. Break large objects into parts and leave parts of it on the scene.
Metro: Last Light Redux
The game that “humiliated” the top video cards of the time, as it used all the most advanced technologies from NVIDIA. Simulation of destruction, smoke calculation, tessellation.
Testing
Rise of Tomb Rider
It was decided to disable anti-aliasing, because unjustifiably overloads the system and does not affect the result of our testing. 
Test results: 
Batman: arkham knight
For GPU mode: 
For CPU / AUTO modes 
Test results: 
Mafia 2
Test results: 
Metro: Last Light Redux
Test results: 
Conclusion
The result, I would say, is unexpected. In almost all tests, the automatic mode is ahead of, or is within the margin of error with its pursuers. Only Batman: Arkham Knight caused confusion. The test was rechecked 3 times, and all the time the result was the same, with what it can be connected - I don't know. As for our original question - "What is better than a CPU or GPU for processing PhysX?" in different games, the results can be turned upside down.
Afterword
The result is extremely logical. While starting work in the field of video cards, NVIDIA was able to attract programmers who were able to create software. It helped them to outflank their competitors. And, as we see now, high-level programmers in the company are not extinct, which is good news.
The central processing unit has always been considered the heart of the computer. This small microcircuit is responsible for performing all the important operations specified by the programs of the operating system and coordinates the work of PC components. However, modern graphics chips in their power (and in the number of transistors) have long outstripped the CPU, and attempts to shift some of the work of the central processor onto the shoulders of a video card have recently been made more and more often. The most active in this field is the company NVIDIA, whose video cards have recently ceased to be just game graphics accelerators. They calculate physical processes, encode video, and even participate in global programs related to distributed computing.
Our today's story about what modern graphics cards can offer their owners, as well as how important it is, and whether it is important at all.
It all started a couple of years ago when NVIDIA bluntly stated that next-generation graphics cards should be able to do more than just display beautiful images on the screen. And after a while, the company introduced a set of components for developers called CUDA(Compute Unified Device Architecture). The new platform opened up a wide field of maneuver for video cards. Now graphics chips could try themselves in the following tasks: video decoding, scientific and engineering calculations, medical research, financial computing.
To add value to the platform in the eyes of the general public, NVIDIA empowered GPUs to accelerate physics. Almost all modern games have a subsystem that simulates the physical laws of the real world, which, in turn, increases the realism of the gameplay. Take for example The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion... The physics engine of this game takes into account the mass and density of objects, friction force, gravitational action and other parameters. What does it do? The water behaves almost like real water, the bodies of killed enemies float on its surface, trees bend in the wind, clothes repeat body movements.
In car simulators, we are talking about those parameters on which the speed, controllability and braking distance of the car directly depend. That is why the player can feel the difference between the Lamborghini Murcielago and the Ford Mustang GT.
Physical computing is a CPU headache. After all, he already has a hard time, and then they are forced to calculate many parameters related to the interaction of objects. A modern graphics chip with a large number of threads is much better suited for this purpose.
Realizing this, NVIDIA is firmly committed to using CUDA and its graphics cards to take game physics to the next level. At first, the company used the engine Havok fx... But after Intel bought Havok, NVIDIA found itself in a quandary.
Lifebuoy
And then a company turned up under the arm of NVIDIA Ageia that crashed with its physics accelerator PhysX and slowly but surely went to the bottom. NVIDIA hurried in advance and in February 2008 bought out the distressed company. The graphic giant was interested not so much in the iron development of Ageia as in the software set PhysX SDK, which used the hardware capabilities of the PhysX chip, but could do just fine without it (in this case, the calculation of physical effects fell on the processor). Less than six months later, PhysX technology began to breathe with renewed vigor. First of all, NVIDIA tied its support to its top-end solutions. With each new version of the drivers, other models of video cards also acquired PhysX compatibility.
In mid-August 2008, NVIDIA released GeForce Power Pack activating PhysX on series boards GeForce 8xxx, GeForce 9xxx and GTX 2xx... Thus, the company expanded its user base to 80 million people worldwide. Anyone can download this software package, and it is located on the page www.nvidia.ru/theforcewithin .
The Power Pack includes: drivers, free game Warmonger - Operation: Downtown Destruction, game demo Metal knight zero, additional levels for Unreal Tournament 3, a client of a distributed computing project [email protected] , trial version of video encoder Elemental Technologies Badaboom, as well as several demos showing the capabilities of PhysX technology. You can find our impressions of the games and demos included in the Power Pack in the testing section.
A few words about Badaboom. Only a personal computer can view videos of any format. The rest of the devices (consoles, players, PDAs, etc.) need to recode the video into a form that they understand. There are many encoder programs available, but they all use CPU resources. Therefore, it takes a lot of time to convert a standard one and a half hour movie. Badaboom is also an encoder, but it uses the shader processors of video cards, due to which the process of transferring formats is at least twice as fast (depending on the video card used). Best of all, the CPU is free to perform any other task. For example, when encoding a clip from H.264 to MP4, the processor is loaded by only 6%.
The program has an extremely simple interface, there are many presets (for the most popular devices). However, there are some drawbacks: the current version of Badaboom supports a limited number of input formats. And, of course, the owners of video cards from AMD and integrated Intel solutions will not be able to use the program - Badaboom works only with NVIDIA boards.
Will they fight again?
NVIDIA's intentions are as strong as ever. The company wants its physical platform to be used in as many games as possible. Intel, in turn, claims that multi-core processors will do just fine with accelerating physical effects. She has an army of experienced programmers on her side, which the company received after purchasing the Havok company.
Intel is currently working on architecture Larrabee... The first graphics chips in the new family will have over ten cores per die. Of course, the scope of such processors is not limited to just one graphics processing. They will be used for scientific calculations, modeling natural processes and, of course, speeding up physics in games. Importantly, Larrabee is programmed with the same commands as regular x86 processors. This will greatly simplify writing applications compatible with Intel's new graphics chips.
AMD also does not intend to sit on the sidelines. Already, its processors and video chips are being optimized for the Havok physics engine. As practice shows, Havok is very good friends with AMD processors, especially with quad-core Phenom X4... By the beginning of 2009, the company plans to release a video card that will use standard tools to speed up computations. DirectX 11.
Practice
Let's say you are the lucky owner of a GeForce 8th, 9th, or 200th series. How to enable acceleration of physics by means of a video card in games? What applications can benefit from NVIDIA PhysX technology? Are the results really as impressive as NVIDIA promised? We will try to answer all these questions.
The problem statement is simple: to prove that modern NVIDIA video cards handle physics better than the latest generation of processors, or to refute this statement. Therefore, the set of main components for the test bench was obvious: taken from the heat of the CPU Intel Core i7-920, a pair of powerful video cards ZOTAC GeForce GTX 280 AMP! Edition and another couple of graphics cards, but weaker - two ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX +... Remaining: motherboard ASUS P6T Deluxe and 6 GB of RAM from OCZ... Tests were carried out in 64-bit version Windows Vista Ultimate.
The suite of test applications was as follows:
Unreal Tournament 3 with PhysX add-on installed;
Multiplayer action game with completely destructible environment Warmonger - Operation: Downtown Destruction;
Pre-alpha version of Metal Knight Zero, a multiplayer online shooter in which the entire environment can be destroyed;
Benchmark Nurien based on the technologies of the social network game of the same name (under development).
All of them are included in the GeForce Power Pack (in the case of Unreal Tournament 3 we are talking only about the PhysX add-on) and can be freely downloaded from the company's website.
Installation
First you need to get the latest drivers for your video card. At the time of this writing, the version was available GeForce 180.48 which included the driver PhysX 8.10.13... That is, you only need to download one installation file.
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After installing the drivers, you need to open NVIDIA Control Panel(right-click on the desktop and select the appropriate item) and go to the tab with PhysX settings. Here you can enable or disable hardware processing of physics, and also, when two (or more) video cards are installed in the system, select the mode of their joint work. If the boards are the same, then two modes are available: SLI, in which both video cards share both graphics and physical workload, and multi-GPU when one board takes care of all the graphics and the other takes over all the physics. If different video cards are installed in the system (for example, in the first PCIe x16 slot - GeForce 9800 GTX, in the second - GeForce 9600 GT), then it would be reasonable to hang the physics processing on the weakest of them.
Testing
We ran all test runs at 1280x1024 with 16x anisotropic filtering enabled, but no anti-aliasing. Such a low resolution was not chosen because we did not have monitors with a larger diagonal at our disposal. The fact is that in this mode the influence of the central processor on the fps level in games is most objectively monitored.
Let's walk through our test results.
Unreal Tournament 3
The original UT3 is very well optimized and does not contain any extraordinary physics special effects. Therefore, we used the PhysX add-on, which includes three new levels: Tornado, Lighthouse PhysX and Heat Ray PhysX. The first map is dominated by a giant tornado. He moves freely through the level, demolishing everything in his path and striving to catch up with the players. The second map is one large lighthouse, in which you can literally rake every wall, staircase and ceiling. Well, the third level is the classic Heat Ray card with the possibility of partial destruction and support for several more physical effects.
What we see: testing has just begun, and the Core i7-920 has already been put to shame. Both boards demonstrate a threefold advantage over the processor. The addition of a second graphics card, which deals exclusively with physics processing, results in a performance increase of 20-50% depending on the board model.
Warmonger - Operation: Downtown Destruction
This game is also based on the engine Unreal Engine 3, but by the number of physical "additives" it is noticeably ahead of UT3. Everything is destroyed here, and reliable shelters do not exist in principle, since any stone behind which you decide to hide can be turned into dust after several successful volleys of the enemy. The smoke from the weapon spreads in the direction of the wind, and the fog dissipates from a series of explosions.
At this stage, NVIDIA video cards only strengthened their positions - all the same threefold advantage. The Intel processor is starting to slowly burn out with shame. Interestingly, a system with a GeForce 9800 GTX + gains almost a 100% increase after installing another card, while an additional GeForce GTX 280 increases fps by only 30%.
Metal knight zero
There is not much to tell about Metal Knight Zero. We run, shoot, observe how objects are scattered into small pieces in accordance with the laws of physics. Plus, the simulation of the fabric is fully implemented here: flags and other rags flutter in the wind and tear just like in real life.
