Nvidia RTX 5090 Drops PhysX Support, Forcing Gamers to Improvise

The removal of 32-bit PhysX functionality from Nvidia's RTX 50 series GPUs has left older games struggling, with some users resorting to secondary GPUs for improved performance.

• Nvidia's RTX 50 series GPUs, including the flagship RTX 5090, no longer support 32-bit PhysX, impacting performance in older games reliant on the technology.
• Without PhysX support, legacy games like Mirror's Edge and Borderlands 2 experience severe frame rate drops or fail to run PhysX effects entirely on RTX 50 GPUs.
• Gamers have found a workaround by pairing their RTX 5090 with older GPUs, such as the RTX 3050, to offload PhysX processing, achieving significant performance improvements.
• Tests show frame rate boosts of over 500% in some PhysX-heavy games when using a secondary GPU, with Mirror's Edge jumping from 12fps to 171fps in one setup.
• Nvidia has not announced any replacement for PhysX, leaving users disappointed and questioning the lack of backward compatibility in the expensive $2,000 RTX 5090.

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Digital Trends PC Gamer Wccftech