Nvidia GTX 960M... And no PhysX?

[Elindiir]

So I have a ROG gaming laptop with a NVIDIA GTX 960m card and all of the guts to make it all work... May I ask what physx is? And may I ask why the option is not selectable?

 

EDIT: I checked to see if Directx11 was active and it was, and I checked to see if I could DL physx and it told me that I already had it on the nvidia site.

Edited April 27, 2016 by Elindiir

[(PSN)Crackle2012]

Oddly enough, I have a 950m in my laptop and my PhysX effects went bye bye for a couple of "hours" the other day as well.  It was strange though because some of them were fine, and some of them were gone - IE:  both of Volt's agile and nobile animations produce a mass amount of PhysX effects - these were working - while Banshee's sonic Boom also produces a ton - these were not working. 

Upon updating to the latest drivers from http://www.nvidia.com/page/home.html I was able to see them again on my laptop with my GeForce GTX 950m.  

It's worth mentioning that there is a notable difference between "Flow" or "Curl Noise" particles (what consoles and PC's with an AMD / Other non Nvidia cards use) and PhysX -- The main difference being that the "flow" particles are big and floaty, while the PhysX particles are more glittery looking, and will actually bounce off of surfaces / look more like a fire-work exploding.  (The jat Kittag slam attack produces a huge amount of both of these particles).

Here is a super old tweet from the man himself - Steve,when first showing off the Flow / Curl noise particle effects that we now have on console (super awesome, thank you again for this Steve!!!):  

^^ are the Curl Noise Particles I am speaking of.  So if you are just seeing these "floaty particles" - then your PhysX is likely not working.

With all of that said, it is worth mentioning that even when I noticed mine not working, there was never a point at which the selection was "greyed out" for me in Warframe's display options.

I hope this helps clear up any confusion you may have  / others who often get these two particle systems mixed up!  

Also, thanks to the people above who have offered suggestions to help Elindiir out!  :-)

[MillbrookWest]

Try installing the legacy PhysX libraries.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx-9.12.1031-legacy-driver.html

There is no harm in having the legacy libraries since Nvidia updated PhysX to use a new set of libraries - There is no overwrite of the new libraries. This essentially sits in its directory and its there for older titles or titles that require something from those libraries.

EDIT:

I'm assuming you've already done what everyone else has stated above me - drviers, options etc.

Edited April 27, 2016 by MillbrookWest

[tifanator]

Nvidia PhysX is the system that generates all of the game's spectacularly bright particle effects. Watch this to get a general idea. It is 3 years old, so most of the content is no longer relevant, but it will give you a pretty good idea. 

Spoiler

 

As for why you cannot turn it on, I have no idea unfortunately. My best guess would be to make sure you have the newest drivers for your card and then restart your computer. 

[taiiat]

PhysX (Apex) particles is an Nvidia proprietary particle system, that uses the GPU to calculate Particles(usually in the form of extra Particles) that interact with the environment with realtime collisions, as well as being able to be affected by environmental forces, Et Cetera.

see also:

On 4/25/2016 at 6:08 PM, taiiat said:

as of (quite a while ago), PhysX Particles in Warframe are only supported in DirectX 11, 64-bit.
i.e:

but ensuring your Video Drivers (and PhysX driver) are up to date is a good idea as well.

though personally i really don't recommend enabling these Particles on an GT 840m.

[Elindiir]

36 minutes ago, tifanator said:

Nvidia PhysX is the system that generates all of the game's spectacularly bright particle effects. Watch this to get a general idea. It is 3 years old, so most of the content is no longer relevant, but it will give you a pretty good idea. 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

As for why you cannot turn it on, I have no idea unfortunately. My best guess would be to make sure you have the newest drivers for your card and then restart your computer. 

So, after playing Ember Prime after watching this, it SEEMS like the current graphics ARE in fact the same, despite the fact that the selector for physx is 'greyed out'

[Omnimorph]

5 hours ago, Elindiir said:

So, after playing Ember Prime after watching this, it SEEMS like the current graphics ARE in fact the same, despite the fact that the selector for physx is 'greyed out'

That's because they've done a lot of work on the "native" (software, CPU-driven) physics in the game over the years, mainly because they wanted shiny particles stuff in the game but consoles don't do PhysX. 

IOW, when the game started, the PhysX particles stuff was way ahead of the software physics, now the software physics is ahead of PhysX. 

The only purpose for PhysX now is that you can use PhysX if your CPU is a bit weaker, i.e. you can take a little bit of load off the CPU.  But the load on the CPU is so negligible it's hardly worth even that.  Or, you might actually prefer the look of the PhysX particles.  Try both and see what you like.

[taiiat]

the most likely culprit is still that you're not running Warframe in x86-64 (64-bit). both this and DirectX 11 are required for it to function in Warframe.

10 hours ago, Omnimorph said:

IOW, when the game started, the PhysX particles stuff was way ahead of the software physics, now the software physics is ahead of PhysX. 

not quite. PhysX is the only game applicable Particle Library that can handle realtime collisions. which isn't usually necessary but i think it makes a big difference. CPU calculated Particles don't have a chance in hell of realtime collisions anytime soon, they can't handle the parallel load required to do it.

GPU is going to be the only option for realtime collisions on upwards of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of unique entities that need collision checks in realtime - for a long time to come.