Unless you've been living under a rock, Nvidia's RTX 50 series launch has been a disappointment. The gen-on-gen gains are abysmal, the paper launch means you can't find anything in stock, and the street prices are off the charts. If you don't count Nvidia's Multi Frame Generation as true performance, which many don't, then there seem to be few reasons to buy an RTX 50 series graphics card.

In contrast, the RTX 40 series looks better than ever. The previous-gen cards seem to be aging well, thanks to similar performance to the latest GPUs, access to many DLSS 4 features, lower TDPs, better prices, and the absence of some less-than-desirable issues seen on the Blackwell cards.

In a silent move, Nvidia removed support for 32-bit PhysX applications from the RTX 50 series GPUs. What this means is that some older games that used the 32-bit version of PhysX will now have to rely on the CPU instead to power PhysX effects such as dynamic debris, fluid simulations, and cloth physics. Needless to say, the CPU-powered results are sub-par, forcing some users to resort to a secondary 30 series GPU to handle the PhysX calculations.

Nvidia GPUs belonging to the RTX 40 series and older still support 32-bit PhysX. Unfortunately, the latest and greatest Nvidia GPUs are lagging behind the previous-gen cards in an area that might be important for many gamers. After all, the list of affected games includes beloved titles like the Batman: Arkham series, Borderlands 2, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Mafia II, and Metro 2033.