Whether it's the littered newspapers that gracefully catch the wind under Batman's feet in the Arkham games, chunks of wall crumbling under gunfire in Metro: Last Light, or the technicolor mayhem of a singularity grenade in Borderlands 2, PhysX can add a great deal of dynamism to a game. Unfortunately, it usually comes with a substantial (and often underestimated) performance cost - not just in the form of a FPS hit, but also microstuttering or downright freezes.
We can counteract this performance penalty by dedicating a secondary video card exclusively to PhysX, but how much does it actually help? I've long known the benefits of a dedicated PhysX card from personal experience, but until now I'd never tested them systematically.
We can counteract this performance penalty by dedicating a secondary video card exclusively to PhysX, but how much does it actually help? I've long known the benefits of a dedicated PhysX card from personal experience, but until now I'd never tested them systematically.