• Possibly Shocking discovery about DX11 and older GPUs.
    12 replies, posted
I managed to get Unigine Benchmark and Crysis 2 both in Directx 11 (with Tessellation, sub-surface scattering and all that other heeb) running on my old GTX 285! We were told that this isn't "possibru", right? Here's how I did it: I decided that I miss having PhysX, but of course that's only packed in nVidia GPUs--I have an AMD HD 6970. So I dusted off my old GTX 285, slapped it in, and downloaded something called "Hybrid PhysX" which allows you to use your nVidia card as a dedicated PhysX card, with an AMD card doing all the display work. All you need to do is install the nVidia display drivers/PhysX software, and download the hack. After I was done, I got curious to see what would happen if I yanked this display cord from my AMD card to my GTX 285, and to my surprise, it displayed almost immediately, which means both AMD and nVidia display drivers were working simultaneously (and no, it's not a noticeable impact on performance at all). So my curiosity grew to running Crysis 2 with tessellation on my AMD card and doing the same thing. To my fucking amazement, it WORKED. And I knew it was the 285 doing the displaying, because my framerate lowered from 50 (with my AMD) to about 25--and for fuck's sake the display cord was attached to it and not the AMD card. No artifacting either, it was working really well. So I booted up Unigine and did the same thing and boom, my old GTX 285 which supposedly wasn't designed to run DX11 features, was churning out pretty good frames. This leads me to believe that the whole DX11 thing was just a marketing gimmick, which of course doesn't surprise me. Also means I wasted about $450 on a new GPU that I guess I didn't need all along, though I wouldn't have been able to find a hack online or make one--and I quite frankly enjoy my new framerates. I'm not really even sure anyone else already knew this or not, and I'm hoping some of you won't be contradicting assholes, but I thought it'd be a cool thing to share.
next time run some app behind and see the gpu usage too.
[QUOTE=tratzzz;35762505]next time run some app behind and see the gpu usage too.[/QUOTE] Good idea, just got to find what program I could use that would monitor the cards in tandom.
highly doubt it's doing it.
[QUOTE=k4rl;35762513]Good idea, just got to find what program I could use that would monitor the cards in tandom.[/QUOTE] MSi Afterburner might be your best bet. My idea is that the system is rendering on the 6970 and pumping it to the 285 to display.
[QUOTE=ClaBrendon;35762560]highly doubt it's doing it.[/QUOTE] I don't understand how it wouldn't...but I guess it makes sense how it could...maybe the GTX 285 is processing it through my AMD card? I don't have them connected with a bridge connector. I may have completely debunked DX-11. I did the same with Just Cause 2 CUDA water simulation just a minute ago. Started it up with GTX 285 plugged in--simulation was turned on. Switched cords and my AMD displayed CUDA intended processing, but it was a lot slower.
is the 6970 in your top PCI-E Slot? And i'm agreeing with brt. I think the 6970 is handling the dx11 features
Yeah it's on top. You guys might be right...that was exactly my thought too was that my AMD card is pushing the display through my 285, but I just wanted your opinions. It was cool little experiment. [QUOTE=ClaBrendon;35762739]is the 6970 in your top PCI-E Slot? And i'm agreeing with brt. I think the 6970 is handling the dx11 features[/QUOTE]
then it's your 6970 rendering dx11.
I'm going to do a test on MSI afterburner. It may be able to monitor both card temps. I'll get back t you guys when I'm done. [editline]29th April 2012[/editline] Damn. I ran some tests and turns out all of our initial thoughts were right. After I booted up Unigine DX11 with my 6970 and the temp stopped at around 65 degrees celsius. I switched to the GTX 285 and the temperature only went up to 43 from idling at 39, while my 6970 went up to 70 celsius. Somehow my system is churning AMD rendering instructions through my GTX 285 to my comp display. I guess it's not a gimmick after all. Saaaaddd facccceeee :(
No need to watch the temps, watch the usage.
Try running Heaven and see what happens, Crysis 2 is DX11 as much as Crysis was DX10, even with the patch [editline]2nd May 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=k4rl;35762831]I'm going to do a test on MSI afterburner. It may be able to monitor both card temps. I'll get back t you guys when I'm done. [editline]29th April 2012[/editline] Damn. I ran some tests and turns out all of our initial thoughts were right. After I booted up Unigine DX11 with my 6970 and the temp stopped at around 65 degrees celsius. I switched to the GTX 285 and the temperature only went up to 43 from idling at 39, while my 6970 went up to 70 celsius. Somehow my system is churning AMD rendering instructions through my GTX 285 to my comp display. I guess it's not a gimmick after all. Saaaaddd facccceeee :([/QUOTE] Your motherboard probably has a GPU that might be doing the DX11 renders
Though that is still interesting that the AMD card is processing the DX11 then putting the information to the 285 for the display out.
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