Nvidia abandons 32-bit CUDA with its RTX 50 series, breaking PHYSX in older games

PhysX support in 32-bit games is broken on RTX 50 series GPUs, and Nvidia won’t fix it

Over on the Nvidia Forums, a user called MrEWhite reported an issue when using PhysX in Borderlands 2 with their RTX 50-series GPU. PhysX was running on their CPU, not their GPU, resulting in performance issues. In response, an Nvidia representative called this “expected behaviour”, as the company has abandoned their older PhysX games.

With the release of their RTX 50 series GPUs, Nvidia has dropped support for 32-bit CUDA applications, which includes 32-bit PhysX games. This means that Nvidia’s newest and most powerful GPUs cannot use PhysX in older 32-bit games. This impacts titles like Borderlands 2, Batman: Arkham City, BioShock Infinite, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, and more. Note that 64-bit PhysX games will continue to run normally on RTX 50 series GPUs.

This is expected behavior as 32-bit CUDA applications are deprecated on GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs.

– Manuel@Nvidia – Nvidia Forums

Below is an official statement from Nvidia on their removal of 32-bit CUDA support. Note that while RTX 40 series and older GPUs will continue supporting 32-bit applications, Nvidia’s RTX 50 will not support it. As such, gamers shouldn’t expect Nvidia to restore support for older PhysX games for their RTX 50 series GPUs. Note that these games will still run on RTX 50 series GPUs. They simply will run without PhysX enabled, or with PhysX running on their CPUs.

32-bit compilation native and cross-compilation were removed from CUDA 12.0 and later Toolkit. 32-bit CUDA applications cannot be developed or debugged using CUDA 12.0 or later toolkit for any target architecture. Use the CUDA Toolkit from earlier releases for 32-bit compilation.

CUDA Driver will continue to support running 32-bit application binaries on GeForce RTX 40 (Ada), GeForce RTX 30 series (Ampere), GeForce RTX 20/GTX 16 series (Turing), GeForce GTX 10 series (Pascal) and GeForce GTX 9 series (Maxwell) GPUs. CUDA Driver will not support 32-bit CUDA applications on GeForce RTX 50 series (Blackwell) and newer architectures.

Support for running x86 32-bit applications on x86_64 Windows is limited to use with:

– CUDA Driver

– CUDA Runtime (cudart)

– CUDA Math Library (math.h)

– Nvidia

Sadly, we don’t expect Nvidia to restore the functionality of 32-but CUDA code on RTX 50 series GPUs. Regardless, we think the dropping of this support is disrespectful to Nvidia’s gaming legacy. PhysX is a part of Nvidia’s history, and they are abandoning it. For shame Nvidia, for shame.

You can join the discussion on Nvidia breaking PhysX support on 32-bit games with RTX 50 series GPUs on the OC3D Forums.