Benefits of HD Monitors? & PhysX

[cozzielex]

I'm trying to get the best out of my Nvidia GeForce 8600GT with PhysX (v 9.09.1112)

I'm playing GRAW1&2(amongst other games) and trying to get the best possible graphics. I have PhysX enabled and frankly don't see any great improvement.

My monitor is a 19" LGW 1943SS and I was wondering if a similar size HD monitor would significantly improve things.

In time I will get a better video card, but with what I've got would a HD monitor make much impact.

Any advice (in simple terms please) would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Rocky]

In simple terms, if you cannot see the difference on your current monitor, you will not see the difference on a HD monitor.

Having said that, you should be seeing a difference. Search the forum for Physx or look back on Thales posts, he's posted videos on these forums showing the difference.

[Pave Low]

"HD" is really just an easy to remember buzzword from the "TV world" and particularly in PC monitors it more accurately means Higher Resolution

so yes a Higher Resolution will mean better image (and you usually want to get a larger screen (preferable Wide-screen) as well)

but higher Resolution will also take more processing power from your video card (and may mean that you actually have to turn some options down a bit to maintain the best framerate, unless you have a really top end video card(s))

Definition of High Definition

High Definition is largely a fluid term, taking the shape of a lot of different containers, with the only real meaning being something with a significantly increased picture quality and clarity based on the resolution of the monitor in question. For this reason, High Definition is, in reality, a synonym for high resolution.

High resolution means more pixels in your screen, which leads to a remarkably more clear picture. There are some standards now that allow a more concrete resolution of what it means to have an "official" HD display monitor, even for your PC.

The following are the standard definitions for HD video, which is able to be displayed on monitors of slightly varying native resolutions, some being standard for computer screens, other for TV screens, but they are to a large degree interchangeable because they all work to display these resolutions of video:

* 1280x720 - aka 720p

* 1920x1080 - aka 1080i

* 1920x1080 Progressive - aka 1080p

The "p" and "i" after the resolution denotes either Progressive or Interlaced scanning, respectively. Progressive has been proven to the the faster, clearer picture, less prone to blurring, and therefore has won the title of the "standardized" best possible resolution for HD broadcasting at 1080p.

For your PC, high definition means taking your computer to the next level when it comes to playing video games, watching movies, and watching HD online video. HD means that the screen will be 'widescreen,' so you'll be watching it as it was originally intended to be seen, uncropped, in the theater.

With just a single video card and enabling PhysX, you will be already taking away a chunk of your video cards power to "drive" the "PhysX"

if you turn PhysX off you will find you get a better frame-rate and can bump up higher video settings

or could get a second video card, so the lowest one (8-series) just drives the PhysX and the highest spec one drives the "image"

*Originally PhysX was a dedicated card meant to take the physics processing load from the CPU, but this fell out of favour and nowadays physics processing focus has shifted to the GPU (and with newer core processors even back to the CPU!)

While the PhysX in the "Agiea island" map looks very impressive the majority of effects demonstrated in it aren't in the normal game maps (to save performance) and you have to judge whether what is included is "worth the load"

a lot of gamers think of PhysX as more of a fad that wasn't really taken up by majority of games and usually prefer to turn it off to give the full power of the card to the graphics

You can still get impressive physics processing in games without needing PhysX

Personally I don't have PhysX enabled and prefer to look to a large wide-screen monitor, powerful SLI cards and CPU for better quality & smoother games

[cozzielex]

Thank you very much that's very helpful, having balanced it out I think I'll just switch it off!