The chip test each card on the subsystem, and does load balancing on the fly.Originally Posted by Shintai
The chip test each card on the subsystem, and does load balancing on the fly.
Do we know how the "recombining" of the picture works? If you use a lot of different cards it seems like you also have to use a Y or W DVI connector, for I cant see SLI/Crossfire working that well over several generations.
BTW checkout the PDF if you havent, seems legithttp://lucidlogix.com/files/hydra_100_product_brief.pdf
Hmm, it also reads a bit like "any gpu from any vendor" but they never state clearly that you can mix vendors at the same time..
Last edited by Gilhooley; 12-24-2008 at 05:42 AM.
Q9650@4000 - Apogee GTX, Gigabyte X48-DS5, 8GB Corsair Dominator XMS2-8500, GTX480 El cheapo Asetek block, Audiophile 192 + Adam-A7, Win7
I think you honestly make it up
The chip would have no knowledge about the cards. And a new card would ruin it quickly.
Personally I think Hydra will be good for consoles with locked HW. On a PC it will flop so hard it hurts. And as someone else pointed out. It smell of bitboys.
Plus lag and shuttering issues got potential to be very bad. Also the Hydra chip as such doesnt do anything that AMD/nVidia couldnt do..if it worked. It would be much more elegant in drivers. Both for fixes and future compability with DX, OpenGl and OpenCL versions. And ofcourse new cards and such.
Crunching for Comrades and the Common good of the People.
I think you honestly make it up
The chip would have no knowledge about the cards. And a new card would ruin it quickly.
Personally I think Hydra will be good for consoles with locked HW. On a PC it will flop so hard it hurts. And as someone else pointed out. It smell of bitboys.
Plus lag and shuttering issues got potential to be very bad. Also the Hydra chip as such doesnt do anything that AMD/nVidia couldnt do..if it worked. It would be much more elegant in drivers. Both for fixes and future compability with DX, OpenGl and OpenCL versions. And ofcourse new cards and such.
Shintai,
Hey bro... have you honestly made an effort to look at the technology and invest a bit of your time reading and understanding? They have 27 patents, some of the engineers behind this company are notable people within the industry.
The Hydra chip does know about the said card on the bus. This was already mentioned in their press release. Take time to read! It is not out of the realm of probability that the drivers for the hydra chip know the texture units of the verity of cards plugged into a bus, and know it's over-all performance due to internal testing. So that when that card is on the bus, Lucid has already previously tested the algorithm.
edit:
Not to hard, similar to DDR memories SPD function.
Whether or not it is true is another story...!
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Last edited by Xoulz; 12-27-2008 at 06:03 AM.
Yes and I did since their demo. Also their release target is H1 2009.
Wow 27 patents. Thats so ensuring...
I could ask you the same thing if you even bothered to read anything. Because as I wrote before. This screams on locked/controlled HW.
Also I think you miss an extra layer that Lucid SW would provide. Also new cards would instantly ruin any hardwired information in the chip. Or perhaps even its capabilities. Plus any driver changes. The HYDRA chip does NOT know how the shaders etc work. Thats only something nVidia and AMD knows.
It might be easier for them to do it with Larrabee since its standard x86.
People lost focus and now its starting to be hyped into madness. Lucid showed 2 8800GT cards running in a controlled environment on non standard HW with x software. It was also timedemos running. No user input.
As said, using this with random x cards etc sounds like an epic nightmare that just wont work in reality.
Last edited by Shintai; 12-27-2008 at 05:58 AM.
Crunching for Comrades and the Common good of the People.
Your quick, {I edited my post a bit..!}
Anyways, I really think your argument is lacking.
Updating the Hydra chip can be as easy as firmware or even just a new driver, etc. I've never seen you be such a naysayer before and I'm somewhat dumbfounded as to your reluctancy to accept this technology for what it is.
Nobody is saying it will work flawlessly, seeing this is first gen, but over a few years, it may be 100% scalability with all the problem you are suggesting removed.
Just look at the shaky history of SLI... after 5 years, it still isn't resolved!
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You edited your post too..
Anyways, updating can be as easily as firmware or driver update, etc.
What I do not understand, is your unwillingness to admit that the Hydra chip would know the general capabilities of each video card on it's bus.
All that is pre-determined by the actual architecture of the chip. If you are playing a game with heavy shaders and having two different video cards, the Hydra chip would know that the 800 SIMD's on the HD4870 would make more efficient use of this, etc.
Secondly, I think Lucid has been mum about their work because of their patents. I think they did solve what has been plaguing the multi-GPU market and have been busy refining their product. Why would nVidia or AMD embrace this? They are cutting the SLI market off at the head. Because even an old 8800 is no longer worthless. you do not have to keep buying newer and newer cards. Someone can have a HD3850, HD 4850 on the same system and have more graphics power than a HD4870.
Where-as before the HD3850 would be relegated to an older system, become a mantle piece or given away...
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Last edited by Xoulz; 12-27-2008 at 06:30 AM.
You are assuming abit too much already.You edited your post too..
Anyways, updating can be as easily as firmware or driver update, etc.
What I do not understand, is your unwillingness to admit that the Hydra chip would know the general capabilities of each video card on it's bus.
(Removed useless image)
All that is pre-determined by the actual architecture of the chip. If you are playing a game with heavy shaders and having two different video cards, the Hydra chip would know that the 800 SIMD's on the HD4870 would make more efficient use of this, etc.
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First of all that the Hydra chip knows its a shader heavy game.
Secondly the Hydra chip have no clue what goes over the PCIe bus to the card itself. Besides textures and framebuffer copy thats is easily read. But shader instructions etc...nopes.
The Hydra chip aint the key, its a semi dumb device. The software needed is.
What the hydra chip will do is simply splitting tagged data and combining 2 framebuffers and send it back to 1 GPU.
The combining is the easy part. The first part might stop after a simple driver update from nVidia/AMD. Since the data it needs to spy on and tag is different. Unless AMD/nVidia actively backs this. It wont go anywhere but consoles.
Plus this have the potential to make microshutter look like nothing.
Also your edit about using different generation cards is utter garbage to say it mildly. Sorry. But you have a featureset and a game engine. And you would sit with previous card features instead. As you would have to follow the lowest determinator.
Just like physics. Using old cards is a joke and will always be.
http://ati.amd.com/technology/crossf...ics/index.html
Btw, did you notice the complete lack of FPS numbers in the Lucid demo? I mean if I had something with 100% scaling. I would show 1 8800GT vs 2...specially when you claim it.
Last edited by Shintai; 12-27-2008 at 06:40 AM.
Crunching for Comrades and the Common good of the People.
The Hydra chip is all about LOAD BALANCING.....! It's main job is to know what the game is doing, and to know what resources are available to it and using the best graphics card to render aspects of the game, etc.
How this is actually done has not been released as has remained a secret..!
Though, with so many patents involved, one would have to suggest that it is true. Doubting it is natural, but to turn a blind eye and say it is a hoax is being a tad ignorant!
Even if it is 80% scaling with some graphic anomolies... it is a win/win for gamers.
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