View Full Version : Lucid "Hydra" Graphics Tech
Xion X2
07-27-08, 01:22 PM
Has anyone heard of this product yet?
http://www.lucidlogix.com/technology/index.html
The HYDRA Engine is the first solution that "plays well with others." Unlike other technologies, it is completely compatible with all gaming applications, chipsets and GPUs from any vendor, so you can develop a totally customizable PC solution. Mix and match elements into your gaming system to achieve the price and performance level that's just perfect for you. And developers no longer have to write games and applications specific to a chip. Whether the API is OpenGL or Direct3D, the HYDRA Engine can tackle both.
Hmm, this is interesting. I wonder if something like this would minimalize the advantage Nvidia or ATI would have with a certain development group and level the playing field.
slaWter
07-27-08, 05:53 PM
Has anyone heard of this product yet?
Yep, this is the third thread about this stuff :o
Xion X2
07-27-08, 07:29 PM
Sorry, hadn't seen it mentioned.
Sorry, hadn't seen it mentioned.
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=116255&
Umm isn't this like any other graphics engine?
Badboy_12345
07-28-08, 04:26 AM
Umm isn't this like any other graphics engine?
this is a hardware solution.. it isnt an graphic engine
walterman
08-19-08, 11:13 AM
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=607
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=607&type=expert
This is really interesting.
It's a 'smart' chip that works between Direct3D & the GPU vendor driver.
Really interesting.
CaptNKILL
08-19-08, 12:01 PM
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=607
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=607&type=expert
This is really interesting.
It's a 'smart' chip that works between Direct3D & the GPU vendor driver.
Really interesting.
Wow, this is big.
I hope this technology is reliable because it sounds amazing.
Can HYDRA support multiple monitors while in rendering mode? YES! This was one of the cooler parts of the demo; while playing Crysis at over 60 FPS on a pair of 9800 GTs we had a web browser window open on the second monitor. Even more impressive was that Lucid claimed we could be playing 1080p video back on that other monitor and the HYDRA system would adapt easily. With one GPU doing HD decoding it would simply end up with less "tasks" assigned to it as its load would be higher than the other GPU(s) inside the system. Scaling would be lower of course, but the transition would be completely transparent to the end user.
What DirectX versions are supported or will be supported and what about OpenGL? Right now, only DX9 is working though DX10.1 will be ready by the end of the year. With DX10 and DX11's implementations of multi-GPU data improving and adding to the HYDRA Engine technology will only get easier for team compared to the work they had to do on DX9. OpenGL is supported by the HYDRA Engine as well.
Could this technology be applied to GPGPU work as well? Yes, though that is still far into the future. One area the team did say would be easily taken advantage of by their technology is ray tracing with its incredibly task-oriented workflow.
Can HYDRA really be used with ANY graphics technology? Yep, Lucid said you could even setup some VIA S3 Chrome cards if you really wanted too...
:eek:
This is what multi-GPU has been lacking over the past 4 years...
CaptNKILL
08-19-08, 12:23 PM
What I find amazing is that this is all done with a single chip that runs cool and barely uses any power (5w).
This sounds like something that'd be extremely processing intensive, to the point of being damned near impossible to do in real time... but some little company has managed to do it efficiently.
It just sounds too good to be true.
I almost wish AMD or nvidia would buy them out to ensure that this technology is used and developed fully... but I'd also rather have it work with any graphics card, which definitely wouldn't happen if one company owned it.
Either way, unless this is complete BS or its extremely buggy, this could be the future of graphics cards.
Finally i can watch movies and play crysis at the same time...
walterman
08-19-08, 09:21 PM
This technology might work, but, i guess that a big company will end buying this 'little' company, due to own interests.
Maybe it could be possible to use 2 nVidia cards with an AIB hydra card in any mobo. Of course, this is something that nVidia would never allow.
walterman
08-21-08, 10:45 AM
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=3379
So why is Intel interested in this? Well, they could offer a platform solution through motherboards with this chip on them that delivers better multi-GPU scaling than either NVIDIA or AMD are capable of offering natively on their own platforms. With the issues in getting NVIDIA SLI on Intel systems, this will really be a slap in the face for them.
:)
slaWter
08-21-08, 11:03 AM
Go Intel :D
Quick420
08-21-08, 12:55 PM
From what I understand from the article,it works like sli but with 100% gpu usage from each gpu added.Makes me wonder why Nvidia hasnt harnessed the power yet,friggin nubs.
Well 1 8800GTX can run Crysis at most settings Very High @ 1920X1200 at 36 FPS, so 2 would be 72FPS, and 3 would be 108FPS... SWEETTTTTT!!!!!
Even if this allows Crysis to get to 60FPS minimum with 3 8800GTX Cards, this is an amazing piece of technology.... HELL YEAH!!!
We could get developers to develop games with real Photorealistic Graphics easy...
Imagine 4 R700's with this thing. 8 GPU's running at full speed!!!
Crysis at 320FPS 16 AA / 16 AF.
We could get games 4 times the detail level of Crysis at 60+ FPS. :)
walterman
08-23-08, 07:18 PM
A good reading here:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3385
imagine 4870 w/ GTX 280 haha would be badass
imagine 4870 w/ GTX 280 haha would be badass
I wonder how aa/af would be handled between the two cards.
Lfctony
08-24-08, 01:53 AM
Well 1 8800GTX can run Crysis at most settings Very High @ 1920X1200 at 36 FPS, so 2 would be 72FPS, and 3 would be 108FPS... SWEETTTTTT!!!!!
Even if this allows Crysis to get to 60FPS minimum with 3 8800GTX Cards, this is an amazing piece of technology.... HELL YEAH!!!
I'm sorry, WHAT? A single 8800GTX cannot run the game smoothly at DX9 everything High, 1680x1050. The final battle is a crawl-fest... The snow maps are very slow as well... This is from personal experience... A GTX280 with everything on V.High can't run the game at 1680x1050 smooth... Let alone 1920x1200...
I disagree strongly with your post... The 8800GTX performs nowhere near what you claim in Crysis...
Irrelevant to above info...
Techreport Article:
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/15367
As for the first question, we got a demo of Crysis running at 1920x1200 at the highest quality levels available in DirectX 9. The test system was using a pair of GeForce 9800 GTX cards, and performance ranged between 40 and 60 FPS on the game's built-in frame rate counter. The game played very, very smoothly, and I didn't perceive any latency between mouse inputs and on-screen responses. That seemed very promising, but we'll have to get one of these things into Damage Labs for a true test of Lucid's scaling claims before we can draw any real conclusions about performance.
CaptNKILL
08-24-08, 02:05 AM
imagine 4870 w/ GTX 280 haha would be badass
Graphics driver incompatibilities still prevent mixed-brand setups. So both of your cards need to work with the same drivers pretty much.
Lfctony
08-24-08, 03:22 AM
I'm surprised nobody commented on this scenario... Perfect onboard scaling, no need for two video cards! :) Two years from now lets say, assuming this is widely accepted, they could just put the chip on the PCB for example. One PCIe slot required, near perfect scaling, no latency issues, no profiles required. Now that would be something. Perfect scaling means they could put four,six or even eight GPUs on one PCB to offer better performance...
CaptNKILL
08-24-08, 03:30 AM
One thing I haven't read about yet is graphics memory.
It seems like if random pieces of a scene are being processed on each card there is still going to be ton of redundant data, so you'll still need 8gigs of graphics memory to have 8 GPUs.
Yeah every GPU will need access to the same texture pool and all that, just as with SLI/Xfire atm.
Dunno if part of this solution can coordinate several GPUs to a shared memory pool if used on multiple GPUs on the same board, but I doubt it..
The bandwidth of for example 8 high end GPU would be pretty staggering, and the shared bus to the memory pool would have to be 8x as fast as the bus to one GPU, to be equivalent, wouldnt it?
Its one thing to sit between the system and GPU on PCI-E 16x, but quite another to sit between GPU and memory.
vBulletin® v3.7.1, Copyright ©2000-2012, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.