32-bit implementations of PhysX, the open-source, real-time physics engine middleware SDK owned by NVIDIA that has enabled simulated debris, soft body dynamics (e.g., cloth simulation), and/or other realistic effects in nearly 70 popular PC games, are not supported on GeForce RTX 50 Series “Blackwell” GPUs, NVIDIA has confirmed.
“PhysX still isn’t working on the 50 series cards. Attempting to force it on via a config file edit in Borderlands 2 and turning on the PhysX indicator shows it’s running on the CPU,” a member of the official NVIDIA forums noted last week in response to green team’s new GeForce Game Ready 572.42 driver, to which a staff member replied:
This is expected behavior as 32-bit CUDA applications are deprecated on GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs.
32-bit compilation native and cross-compilation were removed from CUDA 12.0 and later Toolkit. 32-bit CUDA applications cannot be developed or debugged using CUDA 12.0 or later toolkit for any target architecture. Use the CUDA Toolkit from earlier releases for 32-bit compilation
CUDA Driver will continue to support running 32-bit application binaries on GeForce RTX 40 (Ada), GeForce RTX 30 series (Ampere), GeForce RTX 20/GTX 16 series (Turing), GeForce GTX 10 series (Pascal) and GeForce GTX 9 series (Maxwell) GPUs. CUDA Driver will not support 32-bit CUDA applications on GeForce RTX 50 series (Blackwell) and newer architectures.
The response from Manuel@NVIDIA, which has been described as “unacceptable” by some members, comes over a week after GeForce RTX 50 Series users began complaining about missing PhysX support, with one, in particular, saying how the option was grayed out in GPU-Z and unavailable in some games on GPUs that include the flagship GeForce RTX 5090.
“I noticed that in GPU-Z, the checkmark next to PhysX in Technologies is missing,” one complaint reads. “So, I booted up a PhysX game, Borderlands 2, and sure enough, PhysX is greyed out. Is this a issue with the card, or is it a driver issue?”
According to online sources, there are a total of 68 PC games that have been released with support for PhysX, including Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Metro Exodus, and almost every game in the Batman Arkham series: Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, and Arkham Origins.
“At least give RTX 50 users a ‘Use at your own risk’ option,” one member advised.
Discussion (16 replies)
Join Discussion →I don't recall ever being able to use Physx on Batman Arkham with my RTX3070 or GTX1070
I mean isn't cpu physx fine I thought that's what everyone was doing anyway.
I didn’t even realize GPU-accelerated PhysX was still a thing, and these older games, well… given how much faster hardware is do they still require hardware acceleration?
The only modern game I know of that uses GPU-accelerated PhysX is Metro Exodus I think.
Yeah, but only because you can't even enable their PhysX effects unless you have GPU hardware that can run it.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.phoronix.com/news/ZLUDA-Q1-2025[/URL]
"The ZLUDA project hopes to have PyTorch up and running on it this year along with eyeing 32-bit PhysX support since NVIDIA has dropped support upstream for the 32-bit PhysX libraries with the recent RTX 50 Blackwell launch."
"PhysX on the modern ZLUDA hasn't been a big focus but since NVIDIA dropping support for 32-bit PhysX with the GeForce RTX 50 / Blackwell GPUs, that thinking changed slightly. There's a belief that ZLUDA can 'rescue' the 32-bit PhysX support to get it working for both AMD and NVIDIA GPUs."
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/nvidias-physx-and-flow-go-open-source-running-legacy-physx-on-rtx-50-may-be-possible-using-wrappers[/URL]
"We won't be surprised if modders now work to create a 32-bit to 64-bit compatibility layer to enable PhysX support for older titles on Blackwell GPUs. With access to the source code, it's technically possible to decouple PhysX and Flow from CUDA and port the technology to hardware-agnostic platforms like OpenCL/Vulkan to enable support for AMD and Intel processors, but that's much easier said than done."
I was into PhysX at first because you dedicate a GPU to it back in the day. I even have a physical box edition of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened that if I remember correctly has an installer from the company that originally created it before NVIDIA bought it from them. It was pretty awesome back then but even though there's still an option to pick a GPU for it in NV CP it doesn't really do squat.
I don't remember exactly when but it was right around the 1080/1080 Ti days that NV changed something and basically you lost any real advantage in offloading PhysX to a another GPU. Many games mentioned still supporting PhysX but it never really seemed the same after that and not too much later, 3D was dropped and RT came to the forefront.
Near as I can tell PhysX died a long time ago despite it still being an option for some games, and yep the Metro series has supported since day one. I've mentioned many times how I had 2x GTX 970s in SLI, and a GTX 780 (PhysX) and that rig (4930K @ 4.3 GHz) could easily do 1440p and some 4K with the original Metro Games.
Honestly, I used to react more to such things as losing A3d sound support and such, but really in the end, its how it goes. In consoles, its just that you buy a whole box that may or may not change everything, with computers different things just lose support at different times.
Oh gawd, please don't remind me about Aureal A3D, I'm still pissed about that. Also upset I can't find my Vortex 2 sound card. It's somewhere in my parents' house, has to be. I wish to look upon it again.
I still have access to DirectSound 3D hardware-acceleration via ALchemy (which takes DirectSound 3D calls and translates them into OpenAL calls) and my X-Fi sound card, so when I play old games that depend on such, I don't have to go without. I appreciate the few rare modern games that use OpenAL cuz then that sh1t runs directly on my X-Fi. I also have an OpenAL output plugin for Winamp 5 for when I listen to music in Windows. In Linux there are no issues cuz ALL sound for everything is hardware-accelerated, with the X-Fi processing the sound instead of the CPU. In Windows I'm limited to whatever uses OpenAL (or DirectSound 3D cuz then I can use ALchemy). If a program uses XAudio2 (like most modern Windows programs) or the older DirectSound (without the "3D" at the end) then I'm SoL.
I think this is awesome no doubt but arn't you tied to your device with cables plugged into your sound card? I have grown far to accustomed to a wireless headset and USB dongle for my sound. And honestly that's probably sad. But I also use my headset for meetings and such so....
The 3 audio cables plugged into my sound card (front channel, rear channel, and center/subwoofer channels) travel about a foot and a half away to the subwoofer that is part of my 5.1 speaker system. This is all under my desk. Most of the wires going from the subwoofer to the satellites are hidden behind and under the desk.
I'm not a headset guy, wired or wireless. I'm a speaker guy. I don't like wearing headphones/headsets, especially for extended periods of time. I used to use a headset in the past sometimes, especially the few rare times I met up with friends online to do co-op stuff, or when I was in college and some of my classes met up online, but I sit right next to my PC, so having a wired headset was no worse than having a wired keyboard or mouse or controller. Didn't bother me at all. I'd simply reach down under my desk and plug the headset in, and when I was done I would reach down and disconnect it. No biggie.
I do have a friend that mainly uses a wireless headset, and he likes being able to step away from his PC and move throughout his house while still talking to his friends online or listening to music through the headset. I admit that a headset is handy if other people live in your house and you are gaming or watching a movie in the middle of the night and you don't want to wake anyone else up. But in situations like that I just turn the volume on my speakers down. And yeah if I was doing job stuff on my PC and had to talk to co-workers online and be in video meetings then I would use a headset then too.
Back in the day I had a nforce2 Abit mobo with DD Live coupled via SPDIF with a sony 5.1 home theater, man that was AWESOME. Not that many games had 5.1 back then but the ones that did were amazing.
I still have the 5.1 setup but I can no longer do DDL, I'm not aware of any DDL or DTS Connect capable sound card.
Current soundblaster cards should be able to (AE series)
This was indeed as good as it got until we got PCM 7.1 over HDMI - note that these lossy codecs do impart noticeable compression and decompression latency, something to be aware of in case you're planning on reviving the idea :).
Same here, but I do use my wireless headset on occasion like when my wife has her book club ladies over, but it's not something I'd want to do for very long.
Actually, I still have an audigy card X-fi I think, its PCI though. Also I was never able to activate DDL on it, it was supposed to support it.