Lucid Hydra 200: Vendor Agnostic Multi-GPU, Available in 30 Days

[Russian]

Anyone notice that these "previews" were really done by Lucid?

Both Techreport and PCPer(and hot hardware) are using images from the same setup. My only conclusion is that they dont even have these setups in house... and that Lucid is providing them with all these #'s

[BenchZowner]

Yeap, that seems to be the case Russian.

And just like expected, the numbers are nothing to go crazy or brag about.

[Nedjo]

Yeap, that seems to be the case Russian.

And just like expected, the numbers are nothing to go crazy or brag about.

and possible reason why MSI gave up on Big Bang... what's the point of having that product on the market? who would mix outdated NV card with cutting edge ATI DirectX 11 cards, and hassle with Lucid profiles?

[Russian]

Yeap, that seems to be the case Russian.

And just like expected, the numbers are nothing to go crazy or brag about.

Nope, not really. More hype than anything else.

As for the reason why MSI is delaying the Bigbang... from what i've heard again and again, the drivers including the Hydra chip's did not pass their QA muster and as such had go to back and go for a rewrite. Simply put, their drivers weren't good enough for a finished product.

[Solus Corvus]

meh same crappy scaling only positive ting is that you can use nvidia and ati together

I'd still use it for multi-gpu, even homogeneous multi-gpu, if it means no AFR and about the same scaling as SLI/CF. As long as the bugs are worked out.


Edit: not to mention that these are early drivers. How well did SLI/CF perform at this stage of development?

[Russian]

I'd still use it for multi-gpu, even homogeneous multi-gpu, if it means no AFR and about the same scaling as SLI/CF. As long as the bugs are worked out.


Edit: not to mention that these are early drivers. How well did SLI/CF perform at this stage of development?

While this is true, i dont necessarily think that these guys should be getting the praise that they are considering that this is their second product and its still lackluster at best.

[Solus Corvus]

Well they are getting praise for trying something different and difficult. Certainly not for how well it performs at the moment, that is mostly criticism.

[Stevethegreat]

As far as scaling goes I can't say I'm too impressed. Even for SLI/CF setups getting 80% advantage in performance is not out of the question even if it is not too common. On grade A titles though at high resolutions and AA 70% scaling *is* the norm for SLI/CF, I don't see how that -less than 10%- improvement that Hydra offers over SLI/CF was/is worth the hype. Sure the cross card support is interesting and the promise for multiple card support it is thus too, but to say that Hydra would revolutionize the GPU industry -circa 2010- is a bit of an overstatement; maybe in the far future when bugs may have been worked out we'd see a different picture, but we're certainly nowhere near there, are we?

[zalbard]

Well, what did you expect, a miracle? It will not offer better scaling, why on Earth would it... Hydra =/= magical fairy powder.

[One_Hertz]

I'd still use it for multi-gpu, even homogeneous multi-gpu, if it means no AFR and about the same scaling as SLI/CF. As long as the bugs are worked out.


Edit: not to mention that these are early drivers. How well did SLI/CF perform at this stage of development?

Yes. The horrible microstutter currently makes 5870 CF COMPLETELY useless. The 'real' performance gains from CF do not feel like anything; it is just the FPS counter that goes up. If hydra removes AFR and thus microstutter, then it is a GREAT solution.

[Vinas]

Yes. The horrible microstutter currently makes 5870 CF COMPLETELY useless. The 'real' performance gains from CF do not feel like anything; it is just the FPS counter that goes up. If hydra removes AFR and thus microstutter, then it is a GREAT solution.

Microstutter is a myth, or at least I haven't had any problems with it for the past two years. I'd actually like to see microstutter on mythbusters so they could convince all the people who used CF/SLI 5 years ago...

[BenchZowner]

Technically, no matter what technique you deploy, microstuttering will always ( unless something really revolutionizing comes out ) be there when there's more than 1 GPU doing the work.

[One_Hertz]

Technically, no matter what technique you deploy, microstuttering will always ( unless something really revolutionizing comes out ) be there when there's more than 1 GPU doing the work.

Not with object based rendering. It is an AFR problem.

Microstutter is no myth. 50fps on single card feels just like 80 on my 5870 CF on farcry 2. To the point where I do not know why I bother turning it on.

[Vinas]

Technically, no matter what technique you deploy, microstuttering will always ( unless something really revolutionizing comes out ) be there when there's more than 1 GPU doing the work.

With that logic technically even a single GPU produces microstutter all the time.

[Vinas]

Not with object based rendering. It is an AFR problem.

Microstutter is no myth. 50fps on single card feels just like 80 on my 5870 CF on farcry 2. To the point where I do not know why I bother turning it on.

Well I have not tried farcry2, but I believe you. I guess that I have not noticed it ever, but that was with the 3800 series cards. I have yet to purchase another 5870.

[SamHughe]

As for the reason why MSI is delaying the Bigbang... from what i've heard again and again, the drivers including the Hydra chip's did not pass their QA muster and as such had go to back and go for a rewrite. Simply put, their drivers weren't good enough for a finished product.

Really? It is interesting some companies would do that. As an ATI user, I am not very familiar with this notion.

Oh btw, I have been constantly using SLI and CF configurations since gtx7800 came out and I've never noticed (let alone annoyed by) microstuttering. Currently playing Fallout3, Borderlands, TF2, Crysis Warhead, CoH:ToV. No problems here.

[BenchZowner]

Not with object based rendering. It is an AFR problem.

Microstutter is no myth. 50fps on single card feels just like 80 on my 5870 CF on farcry 2. To the point where I do not know why I bother turning it on.

Find a title that gains something with SFR and check for MS

With that logic technically even a single GPU produces microstutter all the time.

Well, the answer is yes.
Even a single GPU "suffers" from microstuttering.
But with a single GPU ms is unnoticeable for us humans.

[Solus Corvus]

Yes. The horrible microstutter currently makes 5870 CF COMPLETELY useless. The 'real' performance gains from CF do not feel like anything; it is just the FPS counter that goes up. If hydra removes AFR and thus microstutter, then it is a GREAT solution.

Personally, I didn't have any problems with MS on my 4870x2. I did very well in the FPSes I played with it. But even if it is working perfectly and scaling perfectly, AFR still introduces some input lag.

[One_Hertz]

I have yet to purchase another 5870.

Don't. One card plays everything just fine. There are also odd texture issues in FC2 from time to time with CF on. I keep my CF off 95%+ of the time.

I had 2900CF a while back and it was horrid also. I thought they MUST have fixed it with 5870s, but nope. No change from 2900s.

EDIT: Solus, yes maybe it is input lag that I feel, but in either case CF is currently a pretty useless technology for me at this point in time. I have high hopes in Lucid Hydra.

[\/icious]

subbed

[massman]

Due to load balancing, it seems that the only advantage over SLI (being the capability of running multiple non-identical cards) has become non-existent as the load is balanced between GPU's.

[Manicdan]

for the people talking about microstuttering, please do me a quick test favor. (i dont have 2 cards to xfire)

run a game with 1 card, use a program (i think fraps might) that can track the time between each frame.
run the same game with 2 cards and repeat.

if 1 card is 100ms per frame (10fps) you see it exactly as is at 100 ms per frame
if 2 cards alternate between 80ms and 20ms, you should be getting 20fps, but you notice the 80ms frames and feels like 12.5fps

thats my theory, but i would like to see people run the tests and see how real MS is on a few titles and settings.

[Lightman]

Don't. One card plays everything just fine. There are also odd texture issues in FC2 from time to time with CF on. I keep my CF off 95%+ of the time.

I had 2900CF a while back and it was horrid also. I thought they MUST have fixed it with 5870s, but nope. No change from 2900s.

EDIT: Solus, yes maybe it is input lag that I feel, but in either case CF is currently a pretty useless technology for me at this point in time. I have high hopes in Lucid Hydra.

FarCry2

I had input lag and MS issues with that game on my previous CF! And that was only game I had issues with! All other games were fine or very little MS.

[grimREEFER]

performs just like crossfire and sli, but much worse compatibility, as drivers will always lag behind nvidia/ati i suspect.

[trinibwoy]

It's alive!!!!