Graphics card really used?
Hi,
When I ran a simulation I used to get the message "no physics hardware present", so I installed the Ageia PhysX PCI Card.
Now the error message is not displayed any more, but the simulation is still very slow. The card is working well when I test it separately. So I am wondering if I need to specify in my code that the PhysX card should be used to perform the physics computations? Or is it used automatically?
Thanks for your answer,
Adeline
Could it be a problem with a slow/older Graphics Card?
If you start the samples, are they slow also? How many Frames per second (in the simulation, View menu, enable the Status Bar)
Erik
Hi Erik,
My graphics card is a NVidia GeForce 6800 GS.
When I start the simulation tutorial 4 all is ok. The framerate is around 58 FPS in Visual Mode.
But with my simulation, it is 1 or 2 FPS in Visual Mode, around 10 FPS in Wireframe Mode and around 40 FPS in Physics Mode.
Adeline
Hi!
I tested today a simulation with and without physics card. It was just a robot which falls down from 1 meter height. The code was the same for both tests,
Without the physX card the robot falls over and with the PhysX card the robot still stands after falling down. So the physics card has definetly an effect even without programming with it explicitly
The physics card should be used automatically if it is present. It sounds like your main problem is graphics rendering speed. Select Status Bar from the View menu to display the frame rate and then turn off rendering by selecting No Rendering from the Render menu. If your framerate is still slow even without any rendering, it is an indication that the physics is running slowly. If the framerate is not slow when graphics is turned off, then it is your graphics card which is running too slowly. From your description above, I would guess this is the case.
Try to simplify your scene by using fewer objects and by using meshes with fewer triangles. For example, the Lego NXT model has a lot of triangles in it and several of them can really slow even fast cards down.
Or, you could get a faster graphics card ;-)
-Kyle
