Why choose the central processor in the physx setup. A Guide to the NVIDIA Driver Control Panel
We bring to your attention a complete description of the driver control panel. Please note that some settings are only available with certain types of equipment used. IN this review We tried to reflect all possible settings.
Main panel window
The main window is shown in the illustration:
The navigation panel is located on the left and allows you to navigate through the desired settings with one click. The View menu allows you to enable an advanced view, which gives you the most full access to all the driver settings options or configure a custom panel view, leaving only those items that you intend to use. Also, in the lower left part of the panel, access to help system control panel (link “System information”):
from which you can find out about file versions, installed drivers and other NVIDIA software, as well as graphics card characteristics.
Category "3D Settings"
Adjusting images with playback
Available following settings:
- Settings according to 3D application— this option allows you to control the quality and speed of display using 3D applications. However, the default trilinear filtering optimization and anisotropy sampling optimization enabled by default remain regardless of application settings.
- Advanced 3D image settings— advanced driver settings installed by the users themselves are used. The “Go” link provides access to the “Manage 3D Settings” tab. It is management additional options driver allows you to achieve maximum quality Images.
- Custom installations 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 the following settings: vertical sync is disabled, all optimizations (trilinear filtering optimization, mip filter optimization for anisotropy, sampling optimization for anisotropy) are enabled, negative level details: negative level prohibition - enabled, texture filtering - "quality", anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing are controlled by applications.
Meaning Balance has the following settings: anti-aliasing - 2x, anisotropic filtering - 4x, all optimizations (trilinear filtering optimization, mip filter optimization for anisotropy, sampling optimization for anisotropy) are enabled, negative level of detail - enabled, texture filtering - "quality", vertical sync - controlled by applications.
Meaning Quality has the following settings: trilinear filtering optimization - enabled, anti-aliasing - 4x, anisotropic filtering - 8x, negative level of detail - enabled, texture filtering - "quality", vertical synchronization - controlled by applications.
All modes are provided with detailed explanations of their use, and a rotating company logo demonstrates the use of certain settings.
For more detailed settings, use the window Managing 3D Settings.
Managing 3D Settings
Global options
Possible bookmark settings Global options :
Anisotropic filtering. Possible values are “Off”, “Application control”, “2x-16x” (depending on the video adapter model). Anisotropic filtering is today the most advanced technique for compensating pixel distortion, and in combination with trilinear filtering it gives best quality filtration. Activating any value other than “Application Control” allows you to ignore application settings. But we should not forget that this is a very resource-intensive setting that significantly reduces performance.
Vertical sync pulse. Possible values are “On.” and Off, Use 3D Application Setting. Vertical synchronization (it is completely unclear why NVIDIA moved away from this term) refers to the synchronization of image output with the monitor’s refresh rate. Enabling vertical sync allows you to achieve maximum smooth image images on the screen, turning it off allows you to get the maximum number of frames per second, often leading to disruption (displacement) of the image due to the fact that the video adapter has begun 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 may cause frames per second to drop below the monitor's refresh rate in some applications.
Enable scalable textures. Possible values are “None” and “Bilinear”, “Trilinear”. No - do not enable scalable textures in applications that do not support them. Bilinear - better performance at the expense of quality. Trilinear - good image quality with lower performance. It is highly not recommended to use this option in the forced bilinear filtering mode, since the image quality obtained when forcing the option is simply depressing.
Background lighting shading. Enabling technology for simulating global illumination (shading) Ambient Occlusion. The traditional lighting model in 3D graphics calculates the appearance of a surface solely based on its characteristics and the characteristics of the light sources. Objects in the light's path cast shadows, but they do not affect the illumination of other objects in the scene. The global illumination model increases the realism of an image by calculating the intensity of light reaching a surface, with the brightness value of each surface point depending on the relative position of other objects in the scene. Unfortunately, honest volumetric calculations of shading caused by objects in the path of light rays are still beyond the capabilities of modern hardware. Therefore, ambient occlusion technology was developed, which allows using shaders to calculate the mutual occlusion of objects in the plane of the “virtual camera” while maintaining acceptable performance, first used in the game Crysis. This option allows you to use this technology to display games that do not have built-in support for ambient occlusion. 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 later GPUs starting with driver 185.81v Windows Vista and Windows 7. May reduce performance by 20-50%. Possible values are “On.” and "Off."
Maximum number of pre-prepared frames— allows you to limit the control of the maximum number of frames prepared by the central processor when disabled. If you encounter problems with a slow response of the mouse or joystick, you need to reduce the default value (3). Increasing the value can help achieve smoother images at low frame rates.
Expansion limitation. Possible values are “Enabled” and “Disabled”. Used to solve compatibility problems with older OpenGL applications due to the overflow of the memory allocated for storing information about the capabilities of the video card. If applications crash, try enabling extension restriction.
Stream optimization— allows you to control the number of GPUs used by applications; in most cases, changing the default value (Auto) does not require. However, some older games may not work correctly in such configurations. Therefore, it is possible to manage this option.
Power management mode. Possible values are “Adaptive” (default) and “Maximum performance”. With GeForce 9X00 and newer video cards that have separate performance modes, for games and programs that place a small load on the GPU, the driver does not switch the video card to 3D performance mode. This behavior can be changed by selecting the “Maximum Performance” mode, then whenever the 3D graphics card is used, it will switch to 3D mode. These features are only available when using driver 190.38 or higher in Windows Vista and Windows 7.
Smoothing - gamma correction. Possible values: "On" and "Off." Allows you to perform gamma correction of pixels during anti-aliasing. Available on video adapters based on the G70 (GeForce 7X00) graphics processor and newer. Improves the color gamut of applications.
Anti-aliasing - transparency. Possible values are Off, Multisampling, Oversampling. Controls advanced anti-aliasing technology to reduce the laddering effect on the edges of transparent textures. We draw your attention to the fact that the phrase “Multiple Sampling” hides the more familiar term “Multisampling,” and “Oversampling” means “Supersampling.” The last method has the most serious impact on video adapter performance. The option works on video cards of the GeForce 6x00 family and newer, when using drivers version 91.45 and higher.
Antialiasing - parameters. The item is active only if the “Smoothing - Mode” item is set to “Increase application settings” or “Override application settings”. Possible values are “Application control” (which is equivalent to the “Application control” value in the “Anti-aliasing - 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 minimal modes. It should be noted that for the “Increase Application Settings” mode, only the 8x, 16x and 16xQ options will have an effect.
Antialiasing - mode. Enable full screen image anti-aliasing (FSAA). Anti-aliasing is used to minimize the "jaggies" 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” - force the anti-aliasing specified in the “Anti-aliasing - parameters” item to be applied to the image, regardless of the use or non-use of anti-aliasing by the application. "App Settings Override" will have no effect on games using the technology Deferred shading, and DirectX 10 and higher applications. It may also cause image distortion 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 using "Override Application Settings".
Error messages. Determines whether applications can check for rendering errors. The default value is “Off”, because Many OpenGL applications perform this check quite frequently, which reduces overall performance.
Appropriate texture binding. Possible values are “Off.” , "Hardware is used", "OpenGL specification is used". By “texture snapping” we mean snapping texture coordinates beyond its boundaries. They can be snapped to the edges of the image or inside it. You can disable snapping if texture defects occur in some applications. In most cases, changing this option is not necessary.
Triple buffering. Possible values are “On.” and "Off." Enabling triple buffering improves performance when using Vsync. However, you should remember that not all applications allow you to force triple buffering, and the load on video memory increases. Only works for OpenGL applications.
Accelerate multiple displays. Possible values are Single Display Performance Mode, Multi-Display Performance Mode, and Compatibility Mode. The setting defines additional OpenGL parameters when using multiple video cards and multiple displays. The control panel assigns the default setting. If you have problems with OpenGL applications running on multiple graphics cards and displays, try changing the setting to compatibility mode.
Texture filtering - anisotropic filtering optimization. Possible values are “On.” and "Off." When enabled, the driver forces the use of the point mip filter at all stages except the main one. Enabling this option slightly degrades the picture quality and slightly increases performance.
Texture filtering. 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, resulting in better performance.
- "Performance" - Setting up optimal application performance with good image quality. Gives optimal performance and good image quality.
- "Quality » — standard installation which gives optimal quality Images.
- "High quality" - gives the best image quality. Used to obtain images without using software optimizations for texture filtering.
Texture filtering - onegative deviation of LOD (level of detail). Possible values are “Allow” and “Binding”. For more contrast-rich texture filtering, applications sometimes use a negative Level of Detail (LOD) value. This increases the contrast of a still image, but creates a “noise” effect on moving objects. To get more high-quality image When using anisotropic filtering, it is advisable to set the option to “snap” to prohibit negative LOD deviation.
Texture filtering - trilinear optimization. Possible values are “On.” and "Off." Enabling this option allows the driver to reduce the quality of trilinear filtering to improve performance, depending on the selected Intellisample mode.
Software settings
The bookmark has two fields:
Select a program to configure.
In this field you can see possible profiles applications that serve to replace global driver settings. When you run the corresponding executable file, the settings for the specific application are automatically activated. Some profiles may contain settings that cannot be changed by users. As a rule, this is an adaptation of the driver for specific application or troubleshooting compatibility issues. By default, only those applications that are installed on the system are displayed.
Specify settings for this program.
In this field you can change the settings for a specific application profile. Scroll available settings completely identical to global parameters. The “Add” button is used to add own profiles applications. When clicked, a window opens Windows Explorer, with which you select executable file applications. After that, in the “Specify settings for this program” field, you can set personal settings for the application. The “Delete” button is used to delete user application profiles. Please note that you cannot delete/change initially existing application profiles using driver tools; to do this you will have to use third party utilities, such as nHancer.
Setting up PhysX configuration
Allows you to enable or disable physics effects processing using NVIDIA PhysX technology using the graphics card, provided that it is based on a G80 (GeForce 8X00) or newer GPU. Support is enabled by default; disabling it may be necessary when solving problems with applications that do not use PhysX correctly (for example, the game Mirror`s Edge without patches). If there is more than one graphic NVIDIA processor in the system, the user is given the opportunity to select the GPU on which the physical effects will be processed, unless SLI mode is used. You can find out more about the features of using NVIDIA PhysX in the special FAQ section of our website.
Additionally, starting with driver version 195.62, you can enable the display of the PhysX acceleration indicator in games. For this purpose in top menu In 3D Options, check Show PhysX Visual Indicator. The acceleration status is displayed in the left top corner Images.
Every owner of an NVIDIA video card has opened its control panel at least once. And I probably got to the “Installing PhysX configuration” item. There is almost no useful information, but there is only one parameter “Select PhysX processor”, which provides the opportunity to choose whose power to process NVIDIA’s proprietary technology, PhysX, integrated into many games.
PhysX is a cross-platform, embedded physics engine for simulating a range of physical 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 its further development. NVIDIA adapted the engine to accelerate physical calculations on its graphics chips with CUDA architecture. PhysX can also perform calculations 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 viewing this item, many people thought about the question: “Which parameter should I choose? Auto, CPU or GPU” – That’s what we’ll figure out today!
It’s worth noting right away that NVIDIA allows you to process some PhysX capabilities only on its video cards, while the rest should be content only with CPU processing.
Test Stand
Monitor: DELL U2414H 1920x1080 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 8GB@2400.
Testing methodology
For testing, we selected games that use PhysX technologies and have a built-in performance test, which was used to test with different operating modes “Select PhysX processor” AUTO/GPU/CPU.
Here is a list of selected games:
Rise of Tomb Rider
Batman: Arkham Knight
Metro: Last Light Redux
Mafia 2
Brief description of the main technologies used in selected games
Rise of Tomb Rider
The previous part of Tomb Rider used AMD TressFX technology, which made it possible to realistically simulate the fur and hair of characters in real time. The new part uses new technology, which is 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, an analogue of HBAO+ and SSAO. VXAO is a higher quality option compared to its competitors. This Ambient Occlusion (AO) technique allows for even more precise 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 takes into account direct and reflected light. In VXGI, the scene is divided into a vexel grid, and then the scene is traced, taking into account different parameters for each segment. In addition to correctly modeling the illumination of each area, this method produces more accurate Ambient Occlusion shading. A good example below. 
Batman: Arkham Knight
Probably the brightest representative for this testing. 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. Available only to owners of NVIDIA video cards. Another such technology is interactive scraps of paper. This is very difficult to describe, but it can be clearly 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 when destroyed. Break large objects into parts and leave parts of it on the stage.
Metro: Last Light Redux
A game that “Humiliated” the top video cards of that time, since it used all the most advanced technologies from NVIDIA. Destruction simulation, smoke calculation, tessellation.
Testing
Rise of Tomb Rider
It was decided to disable antialiasing because... does not unreasonably overload 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 auto mode is ahead of, or within the margin of error with, his pursuers. Only Batman: Arkham Knight caused ambiguity. The test was rechecked 3 times, and all the time the result was the same, I don’t know what this might be connected with. Regarding our original question - “What better CPU or GPU for PhysX processing?”, it is impossible to answer unequivocally, because V different games the results can be turned upside down.
Afterword
The result is extremely natural. While still starting work in the field of video cards, NVIDIA was able to attract programmers who were able to create software. It helped them get ahead of their competitors. And, as we see now, the company has not lost its high-level programmers, which is good news.
Kanter, who conducted a detailed analysis of the commands, also admitted that Nvidia is free to run PhysX on the processor using single-threaded rather than multi-threaded code "if it chooses." "But the choice does not benefit developers and consumers, and raises serious doubts about the supposed performance advantage of PhysX processing on the GPU rather than on the CPU. But, for Nvidia, reducing the base performance of the processor with x87 instructions and a single thread makes the GPU look better This tactic calls into question the processor-to-chip comparison using PhysX, but Nvidia wants GPUs to look good, and PhysX certainly delivers on that goal in its current incarnation."
However, Nvidia spokesman Bryan Del Rizzo said Kanter's theory is "factually incorrect." "With the acquisition, we have begun and will continue to invest heavily in PhysX performance for all platforms, including CPU-only ones. But we cannot become dependent on any hardware features such as SSE after the first revision. And although our SDK includes some SSE codes, we have found that non-SSE code can result in improved performance over SSE in many situations. However, we will continue to use SSE and plan to enable it by default in future versions. By the way, not all developers want it. enabling SSE by default because they still need support for older processors for their SW versions."
Del Rizzo also emphasized that PhysX is "fully compatible" with multi-core processors. "It is incorrect to say that PhysX does not allow multi-threading when in reality it allows the developer to allocate threads as they see fit based on their needs. Examples of multi-core use of PhysX include 3DMarkVantage and FluidMark. It is clear that Nvidia is committed to improving performance in PhysX for everyone platforms, including with and without GPU acceleration. Having only greater processor performance, it is important to allow developers to use more PhysX in . We are of course happy to receive comments on any PhysX performance issues, in particular from developers. However, any assertion. that we are somehow slowing down the processor, as Kanter says, is patently false."
The central processing unit has always been considered the heart of the computer. This small chip is responsible for performing all important operations, specified by programs operating system, and coordinates the operation of PC components. However, modern graphics chips have long surpassed the CPU in terms of power (and the number of transistors), and attempts to shift part of the work of the central processor to the shoulders of the video card Lately are being undertaken more and more often. The company is most active in this field NVIDIA, whose video cards have recently ceased to be just game graphics accelerators. They're counting physical processes, encode videos and even participate in global programs related to distributed computing.
Our story today is 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 explicitly stated that the new generation of graphics cards should be able to do more than just display a beautiful picture on the screen. And after some time, the company introduced a set of components for developers called CUDA(Compute Unified Device Architecture). New platform opened up a wide field for maneuvers for video cards. Now graphics chips could try their hand at the following tasks: video decoding, scientific and engineering calculations, medical research, financial calculations.
To increase the value of the platform in the eyes of ordinary people, NVIDIA assigned physics acceleration to video cards. Almost all modern games have a subsystem that simulates the physical laws of the real world, which, in turn, increases realism gameplay. Let's 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 influence and other parameters. What does this give? The water behaves almost like real water, the bodies of killed enemies float on its surface, trees bend in the wind, clothes repeat the movements of the body.
In car simulators we're talking about about those parameters on which the speed, controllability and braking distance of the car directly depend. This is why the player feels the difference between the Lamborghini Murcielago and the Ford Mustang GT.
Physical computing is a headache for the processor. After all, he already has a hard time, and here he is also 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 these purposes.
Realizing this, NVIDIA firmly set out, using CUDA and its video cards, to raise gaming physics to new level. At first the company used the engine Havok FX. But after Intel bought Havok, NVIDIA found itself in a difficult situation.
Lifebuoy
And then NVIDIA turned up Ageia, which crashed with its physics accelerator PhysX and slowly but surely sank to the bottom. NVIDIA came to the rescue and in February 2008 bought out the distressed company. The graphics giant was interested not so much in Ageia's hardware developments as in its 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 added its support to its top solutions. With each new driver version, other video card models also became compatible with PhysX.
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 .
Power Pack includes: drivers, free game Warmonger - Operation: Downtown Destruction, demo version of the game Metal Knight Zero, additional levels for Unreal Tournament 3, distributed computing project client Folding@home, trial version video encoder Elemental Technologies Badaboom, as well as several demo applications 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. Other devices (consoles, players, PDAs, etc.) require recoding of the video into a form they understand. There are many encoder programs, but they all use CPU resources. Therefore, it takes a fair amount of time to transform a standard hour and a half film. Badaboom is also an encoder, but it uses shader processors on video cards, making the format conversion process at least twice as fast (depending on the video card used). The best part is that the CPU is free to perform any other tasks. For example, when encoding a clip from H.264 to MP4, the processor load is only 6%.
The program has an extremely simple interface and has many presets (for the most popular devices). However, there are some downsides: the current version of Badaboom supports a limited number of input formats. And, of course, owners of video cards from AMD, as well as integrated Intel solutions they will not be able to use the program - Badaboom only works with NVIDIA boards.
Will they fight again?
NVIDIA's commitment is stronger than ever. The company wants its physical platform to be used in as many games as possible. Intel, in turn, says that they will cope perfectly with the acceleration of physical effects multi-core processors. On its side is an army of experienced programmers, which the company received after purchasing the Havok company.
Intel is currently working on the architecture Larrabee. The first graphics chips of the new family will have over ten cores on a single chip. Of course, the scope of application of such processors is not limited to graphics processing alone. They will be used for scientific calculations, modeling natural processes and, of course, accelerating physics in games. What’s important is that Larrabee is programmed with the same commands as regular processors x86 architecture. This will greatly simplify writing applications compatible with new graphics chips Intel.
AMD also does not intend to sit on the sidelines. Already now 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 means DirectX 11.
Practice
Let's say you are the happy owner of a GeForce 8, 9 or 200 series card. How to enable physics acceleration using 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: prove that modern video cards NVIDIA handles physics better than last generation processors, or refute this statement. Therefore, the set of main components for the test bench was obvious: a CPU taken from the heat of the moment Intel Core i7-920, a pair of powerful video cards ZOTAC GeForce GTX 280 AMP! Edition and another couple graphics cards, but weaker - two ZOTAC GeForce 9800 GTX+. Remaining: motherboard ASUS P6T Deluxe and 6 GB random access memory from OCZ. Tests were carried out in the 64-bit version Windows Vista Ultimate.
The set of test applications was as follows:
Unreal Tournament 3 with PhysX add-on installed;
Network action with a completely destructible environment Warmonger - Operation: Downtown Destruction;
Pre-alpha version of the game 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 should get the latest drivers for your video card. At the time of writing, the version available was GeForce 180.48, which included drivers 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 PhysX settings tab. Here you can enable or disable hardware physics processing, and also, when two (or more) video cards are installed in the system, select the mode for their joint operation. If the boards are the same, then two modes are available: SLI, in which both video cards share both the graphical and physical load, and multi-GPU, when one board takes care of all the graphics, and the second - all the physics. If the system has different video cards(for example, in the first PCIe x16 slot - GeForce 9800 GTX, in the second - GeForce 9600 GT), then it would be reasonable to assign physics processing to the weakest of them.
Testing
We performed all test runs at 1280x1024 resolution with 16x anisotropic filtering enabled, but without anti-aliasing. Such a low resolution was chosen not 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 take a look at our test results.
Unreal Tournament 3
The original UT3 is very well optimized and does not contain any extraordinary physical special effects. That's why 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 around the level, destroying everything in his path and trying to catch up with the players. The second map is one large lighthouse in which you can destroy literally every wall, staircase and ceiling. Well, the third level is a classic Heat Ray card with the possibility of partial destruction and support for several more physical effects.
What do we see: testing has just begun, and the Core i7-920 is already put to shame. Both boards demonstrate a threefold advantage over the processor. Adding a second video card that 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 in terms of the number of physical “additives” it is noticeably ahead of UT3. Absolutely everything is destroyed here, and there are no reliable shelters in principle, since any stone you decide to hide behind can be turned into dust after several successful volleys from the enemy. Smoke from weapons 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 position - the same threefold advantage. Intel processor slowly begins to burn with shame. It is interesting that a system with a GeForce 9800 GTX+ after installing another board receives almost a 100% increase, while an additional GeForce GTX 280 increases fps by only 30%.
Metal Knight Zero
There's not much to say about Metal Knight Zero. We run, shoot, watch how objects fly into small pieces in accordance with the laws of physics. Plus, fabric simulation is fully implemented here: flags and other rags flutter in the wind and tear in the same way as in real life.
Preface
Let me immediately emphasize once again that this guide is not for everyone, but only for those who have a weak point - the processor, and at the same time it is not not a panacea, not a magic pill that will turn cheap into expensive. That is, if in some specific processor dependent
game its loading reaches 100%, then these simple steps can
improve the situation.
However, how much they will improve it depends on how weak the processor is. There is no need to create illusions, and then be offended, give a low rating, write that the author is an asshole, which did not help, if now your processor is too weak and does nothing but choke, and think that after the guide it will fly like an airplane. There is a difference between “getting to 100%” and “staying at 100% all the time.”
In general, friends, let's adequately evaluate our hardware.
By the way, this guide was written from the very beginning as part of
, but I decided to make this part as general, because theoretically this should unload the processor in others as well processor-dependent games to one degree or another, but haven't checked it personally. Let me know in the comments if you noticed a difference if you tried this with any other CPU-dependent game.
If the processor is the weak link on your system, and at peak load times you observe FPS microfreezes or other problems associated with a lack of computing power. CPU power, it may be possible to solve this problem together with other optimization methods by adjusting just a few parameters via panel NVidia control
.
Perhaps AMD has similar settings, but I don't know, so if anyone knows, please write about it in the comments, it might help someone.
Personally, this is the only way I managed to get rid of FPS stuttering in GTA V on my cheap Intel G4500, working 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 all this will be discussed in a separate article.
CPU-dependent games and weak processor
Using GTA V as an example, you can see that the higher the FPS, the higher the CPU load. In my case Intel download The G4500 with an FPS of more than 50 does not just reach 100%, but often freezes at them, the processor simply “chokes.” In the game this is expressed by the appearance of micro-freezes, which makes the game unplayable. But if, by increasing the graphics settings, I achieve that the video card produces no more than 47 FPS, the processor load only occasionally reaches 100% and freezes are not observed.
That is, in the end it is impossible to play at minimum settings, but at maximum. settings 35-47 FPS with a beautiful picture. All due to a weak processor. Many people say that with such a processor it is generally impossible to play GTA V normally, but we now know that this is not true.
Of course, I could also get rid of micro-freezes with my processor by turning on 50% vert. synchronization, which will also lead to 30 FPS (60Hz monitor), but why, if you can play at 35-47 FPS with best response mouse and keyboard.
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 CPU load graphs at FPS >50 at low graphics settings and at 35-47 FPS at max. settings. You can clearly see how in the first case the processor often “chokes”, and in the second case it works almost at maximum, but not higher than that.
This graph shows the “choking” of the processor on the left a little more clearly:
NVIDIA Control Panel
- Open "NVIDIA Control Panel", go to section
3D Settings -> Manage 3D Settings -> Program 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 FPS microfreezes, since shaders are compiled once and saved to disk in this form so that in the future, instead of re-compiling, they can be loaded from it. It also speeds up the loading of levels and other things, if shaders are compiled during the process.
Maximum number of pre-prepared frames
The most important parameter. The higher the value, the more the processor is loaded with preparing frames for processing by the video card. Pre-prepared frames help ensure an even supply of data to the video card for processing, which helps smooth out small differences in rendering time. However high value may result in input lag. Important: if you set the value to "Use 3D application setting", then the game can use some of its own values other than 1, or the default value accepted in Windows, i.e. 3.
- Now go to the section
3D Settings -> Manage 3D Settings -> Surround Setting PhysX
and in the region "PhysX Settings" just in case, explicitly indicate your video card.This is regarding the parameters, aimed specifically at unloading the CPU. Also in software settings For games, the following values are recommended:
For all settings for which it is possible - "Application control/Use 3D application setting". And the settings are already made in the game itself, but if there are no settings, 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 force using exactly this value, ignoring the game settings. For example, only setting Vertical Sync to "Use 3D Application Setting" will take into account the setting of the game itself. Settings via the control panel have higher priority.It is also worth mentioning that it is not recommended to use this kind settings in global parameters, because for some games it is sometimes worth setting other values. Specified settings It is worth using to unload the CPU if it cannot cope, i.e. if its load level often reaches 100% in the game.
Disable unnecessary NVIDIA services and programs
So that you can determine which service is needed and which is not for you personally, I will provide a brief description of each. Let me make a reservation right away: launching the GeForce Experience program does not depend on services, but the functionality it provides does.
Service name
Short description
NVIDIA Display Driver Service
If disabled, you will not be able to open the NVIDIA Control Panel and it will disappear from context menu desktop. However, everything will continue to function normally, as if the service remained running. You can set the startup type to Manual, then the service will start upon the first call to the control panel, but will remain running after that.
NVIDIA GeForce Experience Service
Regardless of the startup type of this service (including Disabled), GeForce Experience will start, so if you only use ShadowPlay among all GeForce Experience features, you can disable the service.
This concerns NVidia services. You can always find information on the Internet about other services, system ones and those that are installed along with programs, to understand whether you need them, whether it is possible and whether it is worth disabling them.
It is also worth paying attention to programs in startup. For example, which again concerns NVIDIA:
- Nvidia Backend (NvBackend.exe), responsible for game optimization functions according to the parameters for them from GeForce Experience. You can remove it 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 paying attention, using the task manager, to what other programs/services are using the processor in parallel with the game.
