Simbabluenobi: Alice 2 uses PhysX from what I have read .. and PhysX doesn't seem to work on my computer (SQUARE FIRE in Legendary) ... I myself won't risk buying another PHYSX needed game until I get a computer that would run it ... and I guess that means one with a Nvidea Graphics card ... :(
BUT I have ALICE 1 for the mac and it is very atmospheric and I like it ... my good emacs both died ... and had to replace them with a Walmart emachine :(
or am I wrong and there IS a way to force PhysX or a workaround to get better graphics that rely on it if you can't use it ???
SQUARE FIRE=no fun
Hold on there, you are a bit confused about Physx. Physx is a physics engine, just like Havok. A lot of games use Physx, even on consoles, and you have probably played at least one Physx-powered title on your PC.
Physx works perfectly well on a CPU, and this is why even consoles can handle it. If it were GPU-only, then both consoles wouldnt be able to handle it. However, there are a few titles on PC that provide Physx GPU-support, this way its possible to use the huge processing power of GPUs to get some other cool effects not available when running Physx only on CPU. I think this is where you are mixing up things. Unless your PC is really, REALLY old, it can handle Physx-powered games just fine. Maybe it just cant handle Physx effects that rely on GPU power, thats all.
And unless you have either a high end nvidia GPU or a spare nvidia GPU to use exclusively for Physx, then you really will not be able to turn Physx on high on the games that support GPU-accelerated Physx. Even high end nvidia video cards may take huge performance hits when setting Physx on high (because they have to do 2 things at the same time", generate the graphics and calculate physics effects). So the best option would be to tuse a discrete nvidia card along with the main video card. Not worth it in my opinion.
To be honest, i dont give a flying fuck about these GPU-enabled Physx effects and i do have an nvidia GPU (GTX680). Theyre cool and all but nothing that really changes gameplay. It is just a marketing gimmick by nvidia (a failed one).
Anyway, you can find more information about Physx on Alice on the following link. Theres even a comparison video.
http://physxinfo.com/news/5883/gpu-physx-in-alice-madness-returns/
By the way there really is no workaround for this. If you want to set Physx to high on GPU-accelerated Physx games, you will pretty much need a spare nvidia card just for that. Physx uses CUDA, which is only supported by nvidia cards.