Putting the Demos back in the PhysX Control Panel

2012-07-31T22:54:00.001-07:00

If you don't feel like reading, you can also view the Video Tutorial below...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE6WK-Awjkw

When updating to newer PhysX drivers (older than 9.09.0720), some of you may have noticed that there are no more PhysX demos left under the Demo Tab in PhysX Properties. Nvidia cut back on the demos to save space on the newer drivers, but there is a way for you to make the Demo Tab useful again...

If you managed to hold on to the older PhysX demos, you're off to a good start and you can go ahead and skip the following paragraph! However if the PhysX control panel doesn't exist, then you are using some of the latest Nvidia PhysX drivers and may either:

Rollback to an older Driver (9.09.0720 or older)
Follow the PPU Restoration Tutorial to restore the PhysX control panel with the Latest Nvidia Drivers

To recollect those demos, uninstall your current PhysX drivers and reinstall them starting with an older, Ageia Driver. After installing that, go to the AGEIA Technologies folder in Program Files and copy the bin folder and save it in a separate area of your choosing. Then install the Nvidia 8.09.04 PhysX driver, return to the AGEIA Technologies folder and copy the demos folder and save it elsewhere. Upon installing a newer PhysX driver (apart from PhysX driver 9.09.1112 and above, where they completely remove the PhysX Control Panel), restore those two folders you saved back to their original location (as their contents were deleted when updating drivers).

Now you simply need to make links to them by doing a little registry editing, open up the registry editor (regedit.exe) and find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/AGEIA Technologies.

Find the PhysX Demos folder, then right click, select new, string value. Type in the Name of the Demo you wish to add in place of "New Value #1", then right click the new Value, and select Modify. Here you will enter the location of the demo followed by backslash, the title of the demo followed by ".exe".

(Example: C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Engine\bin\AGEIAPhysXBoxes.exe)

After returning to the PhysX Control Panel and checking if the demo you just added is working properly, you have officially reestablished that particular PhysX Demos back into the Demo Tab, you can now proceed to restore the remaining Demos in there if you wish. The locations of the other demos can be found in the following places:

Within Original AGEIA PhysX Drivers

C:\Program Files (x86)\AGEIA Technologies\bin\

Within 8.09.04 Nvidia PhysX Driver

C:\Program Files (x86)\AGEIA Technologies\demos\

With Modified Nvidia PhysX Drivers with Restored PPU Support

C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Engine\bin\
C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Engine\demos\

Once all's said and done, you should have a completely renewed PhysX Demos Tab, you can even get a little crazy and add a few more "Demos" there if you wish. (ie: Nurien, StarTales, Mars Benchmark, even all your PhysX games!)

Stay groovy, stay crazy, happy gaming!

How to restore Ageia PPU support with latest Nvidia Drivers

2012-07-22T13:21:00.002-07:00

Original Forum post with related comments and questions can be found at physxinfo.com
http://physxinfo.com/forum/index.php?topic=120.0

Video Tutorial can be found at the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdUToGiqIw

_________________________________________________________________________________
If you're reading this, then you have an Ageia PhysX card and your frustrated with Nvidia for abandoning THE Relic of Dedicated Physics Processors with their latest PhysX drivers.

However, there is something you can do to fix that and restore support to that PPU, and all it requires is a little copy/paste and some registry editing. I'll be going through, step by step, what specifically you need to do to restore PPU support with the latest PhysX drivers for both 32 and 64 bit systems.

You will need 3 things to start with:

1) An old Ageia PhysX System Software (doesn't matter which one, as long as it's AGEIA. You can Google it or look for it on PhysXFiles)

2) Nvidia PhysX System Software 8.09.04 (which can be picked up from the Nvidia website)

3) Newest Nvidia PhysX System Software (9.10.0513 or higher)

Once you have all three downloaded and ready, you can begin...

Uninstall Nvidia PhysX (since we're rolling back drivers)
Install the Ageia PhysX Driver
Now go to C:\Program Files\AGEIA Technologies (or C:\Program Files (x86)\AGEIA Technologies if you're using a 64 bit system.)
Copy the bin folder
Create a new folder elsewhere (I put it on a separate hard drive) on your system
Rename the new folder AGEIA Technologies
Paste the bin folder under the new AGEIA Technologies you just created

Note: the bin folder contains demos and an application extension which allows you to play older Ageia PhysX games like Switchball and Stoked Rider.

Now install the Nvidia PhysX 8.09.04 drivers
After installing, return to C:\Program Files\AGEIA Technologies
Copy everything under AGEIA Technologies
Paste the copied files under your created folder, AGEIA Technologies
Go to C:\Windows\System32 (and/or C:\Windows\SysWOW64 if you're using 64 bit).
Sort everything by name.
Scroll down to P and find anything starting with the word PhysX.
Copy those files with the word "PhysX" in it's name.
Return to the folder you created, AGEIA Technologies
Create a new folder under the copied AGEIA Technologies.
Rename the folder Windows.
Enter the new Windows folder and create a new folder.
Rename the new folder System32.
If you're using 64bit, create another folder here and rename it SysWOW64
Paste the files you copied into the System32 folder you created.

Note: When using 64bit be sure to differentiate the files you copied between System32 and SysWOW64, so anything from C:\Windows\System32 will go into the AGEIA Technologies\Windows\System32 folder you created, and anything from C:\Windows\SysWOW64 will go into the AGEIA Technologies\Windows\SysWOW64 folder you created.

Now return to C:\Windows\System32.
Enter the drivers folder.
Sort files by name and scroll down under the names beginning with P.
Copy a PhysX.sys related file. (physX64.sys on 64bit)
Return to AGEIA Technologies\Windows\System32 and create a new folder.
Rename the new folder drivers.
Paste the file in drivers.
Now return to C:\Windows\System32 (or C:\Windows\SysWOW64 for 64 bit)
Find the AGEIA folder and copy it.
Return to AGEIA Technologies\Windows and paste it in the folder you pulled it from.
Now install the newest Nvidia PhysX Drivers; 9.10.0513 or higher.
After the installation has finished, find C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Engine. (C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Engine for 64bit.)
Copy all contents of the Engine folder
Create a new folder and name it Backup, now paste all contents inside Backup.

The backup folder will be used to restore selective PhysX engines, depending on the games you play.

Now copy all contents of the AGEIA Technologies folder you created, spare for the Windows folder.
Return to C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Engine. (C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Engine for 64bit.)
Paste the copied contents of AGEIA Technologies to the Engine folder, overwrite when prompted.
Now return to the AGEIA Technologies\Windows folder you created.
Copy the contents, minus the registry entry.
Paste them under C:\Windows, say yes when prompted to overwrite.

At this point you are officially done, all that needs to be done now is the configuration of your PhysX settings by opening C:\Windows\System32\PhysXCplUI.exe (or C:\Windows\SysWOW64\PhysXCplUI.exe for 64 bit).

Depending on which games you play and what kind of hardware acceleration you want them to use, you can use the backup folder to restore GPU support to certain games that use a selective type of engine.
For example, say you think Cryostasis runs too slow off the PPU. You enter the Cryostasis system folder and find in the details of NxCooking.dll that it uses the v2.7.3 Engine. So restore the v2.7.3 folder from the C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Engine\Backup folder.

Even if you do have a dedicated GPU for PhysX, go ahead and set the Hardware Device Selection to AGEIA PhysX, the GPU will still engage with GPU heavy PhysX games and the Ageia PhysX card will only engage for PPU and CPU PhysX games.

Now there are some games that can use either a GPU or PPU for PhysX (Mirror's Edge, UT3, GRAW2); these games will use the GPU by default. If you want the PPU to be used for these games, open the Nvidia Control Panel and go to Manage 3D Settings. Go to the Program Settings tab and look for those specific games that can use either PhysX accelerator. Once you found the specific game, scroll down under feature, to "CUDA - GPUs" and disable all other GPUs besides the main Video Card.

After following these steps, you now can play every PhysX game in history, with out having the need to uninstall and reinstall PhysX drivers.

Certainly hope this helps for all you PPU owners out there. If something didn't work or wasn't clear, let me know; and if you prefer to see a video tutorial on how to do this, comment "I request a video tutorial" with any other questions or comments you may have. If I receive enough video requests, then I'll get to production right away.

Have fun and get GAMING! (Crank that S#!T up!)

How to Restore Ageia PPU with the latest Nvidia Drivers

Putting the Demos back in the PhysX Control Panel

How to restore Ageia PPU support with latest Nvidia Drivers