CPU assisting GPU? Is it possible?

[Hitman69]

I'm pretty sure no-one has asked this before, so I will. I'm running a laptop, so replacing parts is hardly an option, please refrain from giving such an answer, thanks.

 

Now, on to the problem. You see, I'm running a terrible grapic's card (Nvidia Quadro FX 880M), which, for oblivion is fine, but newer stuff (Fable 3, Mirror's edge, and I'm guessing AC:Brotherhood as well) doesn't run that smooth on the thing. I'm also absolutely certain that it's a graphics issue, as turning the settings to lowest does wonders for performance. However, seeing as my gaming screen (a.k.a. television) is huge, I'd actually like to see some detail, because frankly, these settings are just crap.

Now, I do have an Intel Core i7 quad (which, ironically, has 8 cores (4 real, 4 virtual))

 

So, my question is, is there any way that I could allow a core of my CPU to assist my GPU at graphical tasks? Dedicating it to do so would be fine too, but not preferred. Either via software, settings in BIOS or otherwise.

 

I'm running Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium, if that matters.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Guest strike105x]

No it can't the only thing it can do is take care of the phisX if that card has it, you do that by disabling phisX in the Nvidia control panel.

[Hitman69]

No it can't the only thing it can do is take care of the phisX if that card has it' date=' you do that by disabling phisX in the Nvidia control panel.

[/quote']

 

Well...

Actually, I think I may have found something that contradicts your statement.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg615082.aspx

 

It's no use though, just look at the stats.

 

Also, it's meant as a replacer for a GPU (low-end games only, obviously ), not as a boost to performance, so I'm not sure if it actually could run alongside the GPU. Not that it matters, with those performances .

 

If anyone might find something that actually works good enough, I'd still love to hear it, though.

[Ryanhabs]

pretty much the answers here are spot on. Oblivion won't take advantage of your processor as it's engine was never designed to do so. The newer game have a better chance of being able to work with more than 1 core of your processor but still need a decent gpu to perform well utilizing any real detail effects. while you will be able to run these games you best option is to set every thing super low detail wise to combat your performance issues.

[Hitman69]

pretty much the answers here are spot on. Oblivion won't take advantage of your processor as it's engine was never designed to do so. The newer game have a better chance of being able to work with more than 1 core of your processor but still need a decent gpu to perform well utilizing any real detail effects. while you will be able to run these games you best option is to set every thing super low detail wise to combat your performance issues.

 

Yeah. I already did that. (although Mirror's edge didn't really mind the mid-high range). Fable 3 with highest settings = lag of epic proportions. Second to lowest settings are fine, though, but you really lose a lot of quality, which is a shame, considering the Full-HD-ness of my gaming-screen/TV. I would have given you a comparison shot of Fable 3 Highest and Lowest settings, but I can't find them online, and I'm too lazy to make them myself.

 

As far as oblivion goes, that one runs quite well with mid-high settings. I dare not set them any higher, as my GPU starts tripping, when I do that (inverted normals on everything, among other weird shit). I do fear for Skyrim, though.

[Ryanhabs]

Yeah, skyrim will most likely be run-able, but I wouldn't get my hopes up for being able to up your quality too much from low to mid as I'm sure it will stress most mid grade gpu's that are currently available. I'm also assuming skyrim on mid to high settings will be like crysis used to be a few years back when you could have a good mid grade card that only allowed so-so performance @ medium settings but ran great at low settings.

 

It could be an interesting thing to test out though depending on how the game engine is optimized towards multi-core processors.

[Guest strike105x]

No it can't the only thing it can do is take care of the phisX if that card has it' date=' you do that by disabling phisX in the Nvidia control panel.

[/quote']

 

Well...

Actually, I think I may have found something that contradicts your statement.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg615082.aspx

 

It's no use though, just look at the stats.

 

He asked if it would be possible to redirect GPU specific usage to the CPU rather then video board for demanding games, not if software rasterization was possible, two different things, software rasterization has been available since a very long time, in the past games used to support both software rasterization, opengl and D3D, nowdays is mostly D3D with a few rare games having also a support for opengl, this days only emulators stick to both software rasterization (because despite not looking so fancy graphically it allows much better compatiblity for coding) and opengl for those emu's that want to be crossplatform.

[Hitman69]

No it can't the only thing it can do is take care of the phisX if that card has it' date=' you do that by disabling phisX in the Nvidia control panel.

[/quote']

 

Well...

Actually, I think I may have found something that contradicts your statement.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg615082.aspx

 

It's no use though, just look at the stats.

 

He asked if it would be possible to redirect GPU specific usage to the CPU rather then video board for demanding games, not if software rasterization was possible, two different things, software rasterization has been available since a very long time, in the past games used to support both software rasterization, opengl and D3D, nowdays is mostly D3D with a few rare games having also a support for opengl, this days only emulators stick to both software rasterization (because despite not looking so fancy graphically it allows much better compatiblity for coding) and opengl for those emu's that want to be crossplatform.

 

What? I AM the original poster... You should check the username and signatures more often.

 

Your post did make the difference to what I wanted, and what I found clear to me. Thanks for that, anyways.

[Guest strike105x]

lol sorry i just looked at the post for some reason there. But at least it should help understand what software rasterization is . Although part of Direct X its actually a different rendering method which uses CPU and RAM for most of the usage rather then gpu, but for a game to use this it has to be implemented, like i said in the old days, games used to support D3D, software rasterization and opengl. The only way to achieve what you want would be via emulation but by doing so it would bring your and pretty much any PC to a crawl.