Nvidia’s 50-series cards drop support for PhysX, impacting older games
1 min read
Summary
Nvidia’s new RTX 50 80 and 50 90 graphics cards lack the physics simulation tool, PhysX, which has been deprecated in favour of the company’s AI capabilities.
The impact on PhysX-enabled, 32-bit games, many over ten years old, has been pointed out by PCGamesN, including the fact that smooth-moving hair and destructible environments will be less impressive.
PhysX was originally a dedicated simulation engine from Swedish firm Novodex, which was then acquired by Ageia in 2004 and expanded to include hardware cards to run the physics simulations in devices.
After Nvidia bought Ageia in 2008, it incorporated PhysX onto its GPUs, giving developers the opportunity to create advanced particles, collision, and other physics effects.
PhysX was available on PS3 and some games that utilised the technology included Mafia II and Batman: Arkham City.
