The Verge: Nvidia’s new RTX 50-series GPU driver restores PhysX support for popular games

Thick Thighs Save Lives

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
STK083_NVIDIA_2_D.jpg


Via The Verge

Nvidia launched its first RTX 50-series graphics cards earlier this year without support for PhysX, the GPU-accelerated technology that let games realistically simulate shattering glass, moving liquids, smoke, fog, and more. Now, Nvidia is bringing back PhysX support for the RTX 50-series GPUs for top-played games like Borderlands 2, Mirror's Edge, and Batman: Arkham City.

"We heard the feedback from the community, and with the launch of our new driver today, we are adding custom support for GeForce gamers' most played PhysX-accelerated games, enabling full performance on GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs, in line with our existing PhysX support on prior-generation GPUs," says Nvidia.
PhysX was a big part of games like Borderlands 2 and Mirror's Edge, and it originally didn't ship with Nvidia's latest GPUs because the RTX 50-series dropped support for 32-bit CUDA support. That prevented these older games using PhysX from being GPU-accelerated on the latest Nvidia GPUs. Some titles like Borderlands 2 dropped below 60fps, because the games were relying on a CPU to deliver PhysX effects.
Click to expand...
Nvidia has now created "custom support" for top-played PhysX-accelerated games, but not all games are supported yet.

Here's the current list:
  • Alice: Madness Returns
  • Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
  • Batman: Arkham City
  • Batman: Arkham Origins
  • Borderlands 2
  • Mafia II
  • Metro 2033
  • Metro: Last Light
  • Mirror's Edge
Nvidia says it's also planning to support Batman: Arkham Asylum "in the first part of 2026," but there's no word on any additional games. PhysX was always limited to a handful of titles anyway, but Resetera forum members have been tracking more than 40 games that have been affected by the removal of PhysX support on RTX 50-series GPUs. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that Nvidia will fully support all of these older PhysX games.

You can download Nvidia's new Game Ready driver (591.44) over at Nvidia's website or through the Nvidia app.
 
Batman Arkham Knight not even mentioned lmao they didnt want to reopen that can of worms and have people asking why their 5090 is running a game from 2015 at 35fps
 
Windom Earle said:
Nice, I actually wanted to try Arkham City with my 5090.
Click to expand...
no idea what's going on with this game but it stutters worse than some of the new unreal engine 5 games
we first realized this when my friend built a budget 3060 system just to play this game at high framerates after years of mastering it on xbox 360 and xbox one
game would consistently stutter when you are gliding over city randomly
i tried the game, same happened to me too
then I tried the game on geforce now when it landed on there, same happened there

tell me about your experience if you eventually play it
 
Last edited:
Will a RTX5080 be much of an upgrade from an RTX4070?
They got them at Bestbuy for normal MSRP pricing with 1 or 2 year no interest financing. I kind of want to upgrade but the 4070 works just fine (At 1080P anyway).
 
Magic Carpet said:
Will a RTX5080 be much of an upgrade from an RTX4070?
They got them at Bestbuy for normal MSRP pricing with 1 or 2 year no interest financing. I kind of want to upgrade but the 4070 works just fine (At 1080P anyway).
Click to expand...
Yes, the 5080 is 64% faster than the 4070. It's a worthwhile upgrade.
 
Last edited:
Magic Carpet said:
Will a RTX5080 be much of an upgrade from an RTX4070?
They got them at Bestbuy for normal MSRP pricing with 1 or 2 year no interest financing. I kind of want to upgrade but the 4070 works just fine (At 1080P anyway).
Click to expand...
For playing these old games? No really.

If you want to game at 4K on Ultra? Yes, the 5080 is about 75% more powerful.
 
yamaci17 said:
no idea what's going on with this game but it stutters worse than some of the new unreal engine 5 games
we first realized this when my friend built a budget 3060 system just to play this game at high framerates after years of mastering it on xbox 360 and xbox one
game would consistently stutter when you are gliding over city randomly
i tried the game, same happened to me too
then I tried the game on geforce now when it landed on there, same happened there

tell me about your experience if you eventually play it
Click to expand...
play the game in dx9 mode
 
Thick Thighs Save Lives said:
STK083_NVIDIA_2_D.jpg


Via The Verge

Nvidia launched its first RTX 50-series graphics cards earlier this year without support for PhysX, the GPU-accelerated technology that let games realistically simulate shattering glass, moving liquids, smoke, fog, and more. Now, Nvidia is bringing back PhysX support for the RTX 50-series GPUs for top-played games like Borderlands 2, Mirror's Edge, and Batman: Arkham City.


Nvidia has now created "custom support" for top-played PhysX-accelerated games, but not all games are supported yet.

Here's the current list:
  • Alice: Madness Returns
  • Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
  • Batman: Arkham City
  • Batman: Arkham Origins
  • Borderlands 2
  • Mafia II
  • Metro 2033
  • Metro: Last Light
  • Mirror's Edge
Nvidia says it's also planning to support Batman: Arkham Asylum "in the first part of 2026," but there's no word on any additional games. PhysX was always limited to a handful of titles anyway, but Resetera forum members have been tracking more than 40 games that have been affected by the removal of PhysX support on RTX 50-series GPUs. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that Nvidia will fully support all of these older PhysX games.

You can download Nvidia's new Game Ready driver (591.44) over at Nvidia's website or through the Nvidia app.
Click to expand...
I am legit surprised. Good on them for rectifying the issue.
 
Magic Carpet said:
Will a RTX5080 be much of an upgrade from an RTX4070?
They got them at Bestbuy for normal MSRP pricing with 1 or 2 year no interest financing. I kind of want to upgrade but the 4070 works just fine (At 1080P anyway).
Click to expand...
I went from 3080Ti to 5080 and it was worth it. I figure it's similar ballpark as from 4070.
 
Magic Carpet said:
Will a RTX5080 be much of an upgrade from an RTX4070?
They got them at Bestbuy for normal MSRP pricing with 1 or 2 year no interest financing. I kind of want to upgrade but the 4070 works just fine (At 1080P anyway).
Click to expand...
At 1080p the 4070 is totally fine. 5080 will be a substantial upgrade at higher resolutions, it is close to a 4090 with OC.
 
StereoVsn said:
I went from 3080Ti to 5080 and it was worth it. I figure it's similar ballpark as from 4070.
Click to expand...
I just went 3080ti to 5070ti and it was a good jump. My PayPal points finished processing, so if the $20 rebate comes through $580 was more than worth it. I couldn't rationalize $800 for a 5080, especially with the higher power draw then requiring a new PSU.
 
SScorpio said:
I just went 3080ti to 5070ti and it was a good jump. My PayPal points finished processing, so if the $20 rebate comes through $580 was more than worth it. I couldn't rationalize $800 for a 5080, especially with the higher power draw then requiring a new PSU.
Click to expand...
I upgraded the PSU to a 1200 watt a long time ago thinking I was going to grab a 5090 on release day. :)
 
Old borderlands games could use an update. Physics break if you go above 120fps and the old Direct X does not play nice with Smooth Motion (Lossless Scaling works fine).
 
SScorpio said:
I just went 3080ti to 5070ti and it was a good jump. My PayPal points finished processing, so if the $20 rebate comes through $580 was more than worth it. I couldn't rationalize $800 for a 5080, especially with the higher power draw then requiring a new PSU.
Click to expand...
Yeah, replacing a PSU is a pain and extra $$. I already had a Corsair 1000w there so was good for that. And really 5080 is probably not worth the $300+ uptake.
 
Windom Earle said:
Pretty sure it uses 64bit Physx and runs very well on 50 cards.
Click to expand...

Last time I checked specifically BAK running with all the Physx settings set to On on any nvidia GPU pulled it down to sub 60fps. The framerates may appear fine in a benchmark but the frametimes are very spikey so the effective framerate is far lower.

It was the 3090 I saw it running on last, maybe things improved with the 40 and 50 series through sheer brute force though tbf.

edit: Nope not really



The framerate is very high but you can see the frametime spikes, it will occasionally show nearly 10ms in that clip and the person who recorded the video (probably purposefully) avoids driving the batmobile properly, I mean at high speed to not show the issue. If they had driven it properly and made lots of smoke from drifting and donuts then the framerate would crash.

I'm not saying its terrible performance or anything obviously, its just I want to one day play that game locked to at least to 60fps with the way the code is thats not possible no matter the GPU. I've played the game at native 4K on a GTX 1080, but without the paper debris and smoke simulation, and I had to lock it to 30fps to clamp the frametime above the largest spikes.

Maybe on a 4090 or 5090 you could do the same for 60fps, but not with the smoke simulation on. Richard from DF is obsessed with getting it locked at or above 60fps and he last tried with the 2080ti I think it was (might be 3080?) and even then it had issues. If the 4090 or 5090 could finally lock it down (to 60fps lol) that would be awesome, but I'm sure he'd have made a video about it:





In the videos they say they've modified the game files, or aren't running the Gameworks settings.
 
Last edited:
Kuranghi said:
Last time I checked specifically BAK running with all the Physx settings set to On on any nvidia GPU pulled it down to sub 60fps.

The framerates may appear fine in a benchmark but the frametimes are very spikey so the effective framerate is less.

This was the 3090 I saw running it last, maybe things improved with the 40 and 50 series through sheer brute force though tbf.
Click to expand...
Yeah Arkham Knight can be brute forced nowadays and it runs smoothly.

Unlike Arkham City which I just tested and it's still terrible in the Open World, even with DX11 off. The PhysX update did help but it's still not great. Maybe I should not run 8xMSAA but that should really not be a factor I would think.
 
Magic Carpet said:
Will a RTX5080 be much of an upgrade from an RTX4070?
They got them at Bestbuy for normal MSRP pricing with 1 or 2 year no interest financing. I kind of want to upgrade but the 4070 works just fine (At 1080P anyway).
Click to expand...

Consider the RTX 5070 Ti, which is cheaper and offers very similar performance.
 
Gitaroo said:
They figured it out how to emulate this somehow or there was never the lack of HW support?
Click to expand...

The HW support was always there, they just didn't bother because 32-bit CUDA is now depreciated and they are all 12 year old games.

Literally more ink has been spilled on this than people who actually play the games.
 
Last edited:
asdasdasdbb said:
The HW support was always there, they just didn't bother because 32-bit CUDA is now depreciated and they are all 12 year old games.

Literally more ink has been spilled on this than people who actually play the games.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't be surprised if they are creating a wrapper that just handles the calls the games make versus supporting the full PhysX suite.
 
I loathe giving a company like Nvidia credit, but fair play to them.

They could have just told the hundreds of people that still play these games to piss off and move on with their lives.
 
YeulEmeralda said:
Cool. But why did they deprecate physX in the first place?
Click to expand...
They dropped all official 32-bit support because they wanted to stop towing that particular ship behind the 64-bit one. It's pretty common for companies to drop 32-bit support these days. I'm not a fan of it, but it makes sense if a company is looking to reduce legacy support costs.
 
yamaci17 said:
no idea what's going on with this game but it stutters worse than some of the new unreal engine 5 games
we first realized this when my friend built a budget 3060 system just to play this game at high framerates after years of mastering it on xbox 360 and xbox one
game would consistently stutter when you are gliding over city randomly
i tried the game, same happened to me too
then I tried the game on geforce now when it landed on there, same happened there

tell me about your experience if you eventually play it
Click to expand...
I remember playing this game from start to finish with a 512MB card ATi card. I had some traversal stutters but not too bad.
I gave it a try later with better hardware and it was worse. Both in DX9 and DX11 modes.

I just tried it and made some ini tweaks that fixed the issue for me. I think that it's related to the VRAM limits paired with the more demanding setting (like DX11 tessellation) and likely higher resolutions.
There are a few ways to do it. If you change the values in BmEngine.ini from the folder Documents\WB Games\Batman Arkham City GOTY\BmGame\Config you need to mark it as read only after the changes are done and you won't be able to change other setting from the game config menu .
You can change the same values in DefaultEngine.ini from the game \BmGame\Config intallation folder and the file PCEngine.ini found in \BmGame\Config\PC and forget about having to check and uncheck "read only" to change other settings.
The values I changed are:
PoolSize=512 (DefaultEngine.ini value was 1024) to PoolSize=8192 I have a 16GB card. It probably won't be any different past some value, 4096 (4GB) was fine for me aswell.
SizeOfPermanentObjectPool=11600000 to SizeOfPermanentObjectPool=23200000

While at it I tried to run PhysX on my old GTX card using the RX 9060XT as primary GPU. It worked flawlessly. It was unexpectedly hassle-free. No dummy HDMI nor second monitor needed.
I just installed the GTX card (I still had the Nvidia 581.80 driver installed), plugged the Nvidia card to the monitor with the DisplayPort cable, I booted the system and went into de Nvidia Control to set the card as PhysX processor. I turned off the monitor, switched the DP cable from the Nvidia to the AMD card, I turned on the monitor and it was done. It just works!

There are some tweaks I have yet to try in that same DefaultEngine.ini related to PhysX, they could help in some heavy PhysX scenarios, maybe.
The original values were PhysXGpuHeapSize=64 and PhysXMeshCacheSize=8
I'll try with this when I have some time. And maybe I'll increase it until 4096 and 64 just to see what happens.
Code: 
; NVCHANGE_BEGIN: More reasonable PhysX GPU memory usage
PhysXGpuHeapSize=1024
PhysXMeshCacheSize=32
; NVCHANGE_END:  More reasonable PhysX GPU memory usage
 
yamaci17 said:
no idea what's going on with this game but it stutters worse than some of the new unreal engine 5 games
we first realized this when my friend built a budget 3060 system just to play this game at high framerates after years of mastering it on xbox 360 and xbox one
game would consistently stutter when you are gliding over city randomly
i tried the game, same happened to me too
then I tried the game on geforce now when it landed on there, same happened there

tell me about your experience if you eventually play it
Click to expand...
Maybe try getting rid of the fps cap. Dropping from 140 to 120 less than dropping from 60 to 45. The game having horrible stutters while gliding was always an issue since it first came out.
 
Magic Carpet said:
Will a RTX5080 be much of an upgrade from an RTX4070?
They got them at Bestbuy for normal MSRP pricing with 1 or 2 year no interest financing. I kind of want to upgrade but the 4070 works just fine (At 1080P anyway).
Click to expand...
Came from 4070 to 5080. Great upgrade at MSRP. 4K is attainable in all the games I'm playing. That's without path tracing in most cases.
 
Gaiff said:
Maybe try getting rid of the fps cap. Dropping from 140 to 120 less than dropping from 60 to 45. The game having horrible stutters while gliding was always an issue since it first came out.
Click to expand...
believe me, me and my friend, we tried everything possible

directx 9, directx 11, physx off, physx on
uncapping the framerate, using fps caps with rivatuner or nvidia control panel
nothing seemed to work

eventually we gave up. he played this game for maybe thousands of hours on various consoles so it was unacceptable for him and eventually gave up on his dreams of playing it on PC
 
AltruisticFormality said:
I remember playing this game from start to finish with a 512MB card ATi card. I had some traversal stutters but not too bad.
I gave it a try later with better hardware and it was worse. Both in DX9 and DX11 modes.

I just tried it and made some ini tweaks that fixed the issue for me. I think that it's related to the VRAM limits paired with the more demanding setting (like DX11 tessellation) and likely higher resolutions.
There are a few ways to do it. If you change the values in BmEngine.ini from the folder Documents\WB Games\Batman Arkham City GOTY\BmGame\Config you need to mark it as read only after the changes are done and you won't be able to change other setting from the game config menu .
You can change the same values in DefaultEngine.ini from the game \BmGame\Config intallation folder and the file PCEngine.ini found in \BmGame\Config\PC and forget about having to check and uncheck "read only" to change other settings.
The values I changed are:
PoolSize=512 (DefaultEngine.ini value was 1024) to PoolSize=8192 I have a 16GB card. It probably won't be any different past some value, 4096 (4GB) was fine for me aswell.
SizeOfPermanentObjectPool=11600000 to SizeOfPermanentObjectPool=23200000

While at it I tried to run PhysX on my old GTX card using the RX 9060XT as primary GPU. It worked flawlessly. It was unexpectedly hassle-free. No dummy HDMI nor second monitor needed.
I just installed the GTX card (I still had the Nvidia 581.80 driver installed), plugged the Nvidia card to the monitor with the DisplayPort cable, I booted the system and went into de Nvidia Control to set the card as PhysX processor. I turned off the monitor, switched the DP cable from the Nvidia to the AMD card, I turned on the monitor and it was done. It just works!

There are some tweaks I have yet to try in that same DefaultEngine.ini related to PhysX, they could help in some heavy PhysX scenarios, maybe.
The original values were PhysXGpuHeapSize=64 and PhysXMeshCacheSize=8
I'll try with this when I have some time. And maybe I'll increase it until 4096 and 64 just to see what happens.
Code: 
; NVCHANGE_BEGIN: More reasonable PhysX GPU memory usage
PhysXGpuHeapSize=1024
PhysXMeshCacheSize=32
; NVCHANGE_END:  More reasonable PhysX GPU memory usage
Click to expand...
I have also found this, but it does not seem this "dual core optimizer" was actually installed on my machine:
steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: Macrowolf :: Review for Batman: Arkham City GOTY

READ THIS BEFORE LAUNCHING THE GAME During the installation process, along with the DirectX libraries another program will be installed called AMD Dual-Core Optimizer , which was meant to improve the performance on systems that run Windows XP and use old AMD Dual-Core CPUs. On PCs that run...
steamcommunity.com steamcommunity.com
 
Arkham Asylum is not officially supported yet but it can be enabled through Nvidia Profile Inspector. The same applies to some other games.

The new driver (591.44) adds 32-bit support for Physx on the RTX 50-series for select games. Batman: Arkham Asylum is not one of the games officially supported, but it can be enabled in this game through the NVIDIA Profile Inspector. Details here
Click to expand...
That reddit post says that so far this method worked with Batman: Arkham Asylum, Borderlands the Pre-Sequel, Cryostatis and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2.
 
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