Lucid Hydra on Smackover 2

[MrHydes]

ELSA Japan and LucidLogix to Introduce High Performance Computing Products to Japanese Market

The companies have teamed up to transform high performance computing in
the Japanese marketplace. For the first time, a product based on Lucid’s
HYDRA technology will be used in a new line of ELSA Japan high performance
systems for the HPC, broadcast and medical markets.


End of Mar 2009, The new solution will allow ELSA to provide a cost affective
solution based on multi GPUs from any vendor. First products will feature dual
and quad GPU configurations

source: elsa-jp

[clonez]

what a monster, wall of cards
funny kind of connectors..
and an ethernet-port?!

[gumballguy]

ELSA Japan and LucidLogix to Introduce High Performance Computing Products to Japanese Market

News via elsa's website is enough to excite me

[nr4]

I read most of the posts in this thread and i like Xoulz's, del_fuego's, Decami's and others opinions.

I'm not a guru or something like that, but i've experienced systems with feedback concept (very, very many electronic products have something similar implemented) and in my opinion Hydra is very real and can do what is said. I'm speaking about the scaling between lets say 2 different Nvidia video cards.

Let me explain the feedback concept:
The input is controlled by the ouput.
So i have a detector that analyzes the output and sets the input so the output is the desired one.
This is done in real time.
So the Hydra engine can analyze the outputs of the 2 video cards an rebalance the inputs for the 2 video cards.

You dont have to know what the cards can do, or their specifications, because you are testing them in every moment in real time, and you are adjusting the input data of the work in every moment so the system can be balanced in load.

This is my guess how could Hydra work, but i am not saying this is the real way.
For example every power supply unit has implemented this feedback system (just for record).

[MrHydes]

LucidLogix’s Hydra Renders Objects, Not Frames

The guys over at Fudzilla have been talking to the people over at Lucidlogix.

LucidLogix, if you did not already know, is the maker of the very highly
anticipated Hydra Chip. They asked questions about ELSA Japan’s recent
usage of the Hydra Chip and were told that ELSA is not using it for graphic
performance but as more of a PCI-Control Chip for GPGPU functions.

In Graphics Performance Mode the Hydra changes the traditional way that
multiple GPUs deal with rendering. In traditional SLI or CrossfireX setups the
GPUs share the rendering burden by rendering alternate items; this is usually
broken up in to frames, (AFR) Tiles, and in older SLI cases lines. With Hydra
the Hydra Chip controls the rendering, it is capable of sending commands to
the GPUs telling them which objects to render in a give frame and then it
assembles the distributed objects and send that data to the monitor.


This is a significantly more efficient method. The problem is that no one has
seen a truly working demo of this. Perhaps by CeBit we will know more.

source: tweaktown

More details about Lucidlogix Hydra revealed

Another interesting aspect is that its possible to cascade multiple Hydra
chips, although at the moment this is limited to two chips, but this would
allow for more cards to be used. This could at least in theory allow for four
GPU graphics cards, but Nir suggested that in the future up to 8 GPU's per
Hydra chip could be possible, in theory at least.

For those that are worried that this will be another nForce 200 chip, there's
no need to worry as Nir assured us that the Hydra has a TDP of a mere 4W
and as such it shouldn't even need a heatsink, although we expect
motherboard makers to add one just in case.

Source: fudzilla

[Talonman]

Could they make a Hydra card to give my X38 mobo the ablilty to run 2 Nvidia GPU's?

I like the idea, but it's only on new mobo's...

I would be more excited to get Hydra abilities on my current mobo, and look at picking up a second 280 on the cheep!

Running (2) 280's in Hydra would rock.

[trinibwoy]

Let me explain the feedback concept:
The input is controlled by the ouput.
So i have a detector that analyzes the output and sets the input so the output is the desired one.
This is done in real time.
So the Hydra engine can analyze the outputs of the 2 video cards an rebalance the inputs for the 2 video cards.

That's a very simplistic way to look at it. The "output" of a graphics renderer is a 2D array of pixels. There's no way you can analyze that and know anything at all about the input data used to render the scene.

And what does "set the input so the output is the desired one" mean exactly? Rebalance the inputs? Sure, if the inputs were completely isolated and independent. But they're not. There are inter-frame dependencies that make AFR a pain in the ass. Now we're supposed to believe that Hydra can manage considerably more granular and complicated intra-frame dependencies too by inspecting the DirectX draw calls and breaking them up across GPUs? Right.......

[Xoulz]

That's a very simplistic way to look at it. The "output" of a graphics renderer is a 2D array of pixels. There's no way you can analyze that and know anything at all about the input data used to render the scene.

And what does "set the input so the output is the desired one" mean exactly? Rebalance the inputs? Sure, if the inputs were completely isolated and independent. But they're not. There are inter-frame dependencies that make AFR a pain in the ass. Now we're supposed to believe that Hydra can manage considerably more granular and complicated intra-frame dependencies too by inspecting the DirectX draw calls and breaking them up across GPUs? Right.......

I suspect that we have another year before the Lucid HYDRA series is enthusiast level. I'm sure it will revitalize the older GPU market and might see better true Dual-GPU cards that use the lucid chip, instead the PLX for just better data transfer and xross communication.

While the firmware or driver support for DirectX10.1 (11.0) mature and SLI/Xfire is removed from out mobo's forever.

What if AMD uses this with their new "hyper port" or whatever they call it? Even if this scales at 70%, that is an enormous and vast improvement over any SLI/Xfire.

We might see 2 of these in peoples rigs within a few years. One on a dual-gpu card and another on the mobo..! At least that how I see it, if the Hydra chip scales even remotely close to what it claims.