Widescreen Gaming Forum

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=785

I'm still skeptical but the motherboards are supposed to be out in 30 days. We'll see then.

Yeah this interested me as well, it sounds alot like going back to the roots of SLI with 3dfx etc.

IIRC SLI just worked back then, and you got a 95% increase in FPS, none of this profile bullshit or anything, and games ranging from a 40% increase to 90% increase because of it.

Yeah this interested me as well, it sounds alot like going back to the roots of SLI with 3dfx etc.

IIRC SLI just worked back then, and you got a 95% increase in FPS, none of this profile bullshit or anything, and games ranging from a negative % increase to 90% increase because of it.

Fixed.

Quite a few games show negative scaling when profiles aren't accurate.

...

And yeah, I loved that about 3dfx SLI, too - nearly perfect scaling going from one card to two. Pity 3dfx went belly up, really. :( Their FSAA routines were ahead of the game, too - ATi has just gone back to using the same methods as 3dfx used to, as it's better quality... but with a hell of a performance drop if the card doesn't have spare shaders to burn.

[quote]Yeah this interested me as well, it sounds alot like going back to the roots of SLI with 3dfx etc.

IIRC SLI just worked back then, and you got a 95% increase in FPS, none of this profile bullshit or anything, and games ranging from a negative % increase to 90% increase because of it.

Fixed.

Quite a few games show negative scaling when profiles aren't accurate.

...

And yeah, I loved that about 3dfx SLI, too - nearly perfect scaling going from one card to two. Pity 3dfx went belly up, really. :( Their FSAA routines were ahead of the game, too - ATi has just gone back to using the same methods as 3dfx used to, as it's better quality... but with a hell of a performance drop if the card doesn't have spare shaders to burn.
still at first I was impressed but later in several games the difference in the fact that each line was calculated by a different GPU was pretty obvious with an easy to see kind of blur caused by lines not being synchronous !!

This looks to be both promising and cause for skepticism. While I do acknowledge that much of what they're saying about SLI or Crossfire methods being inefficient is true, especially since AF is the most common method and some have speculated it's latency may in fact be the cause of microstutter in dual GPU cards, I don't know if I like that another (3rd party mind you) chip/driver/engine has to be used to do it. Isn't this going to rile the GPU manufacturers, esp Nvidia, whom have always been hard to work with concerning SLI? What's to keep them from borking their GPU drivers so Hydra tech doesn't work reliably with them, esp if multi-vendor GPU setups are possible?

I also don't get why this sentence...

"Lucid is offering up scaling between GPUs of any KIND within a brand (only ATI with ATI, NVIDIA with NVIDIA)"

...is followed by this...

"This is the most important system running both an AMD Radeon HD 4890 and GeForce GTX 260 and scaling!"

...does not one contradict the other?

(EDITED)
Never mind, found a better article that explains it.

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/17636

"Initially, Lucid's driver will only support multiple GPUs from a single vendor. However, the firm plans to introduce multi-vendor capability in a driver update early in the first quarter of 2010. (A beta version of that driver will roll out before then.) At that point, folks running Windows 7 will be able to pair up Radeons and GeForces to their heart's content."

And shortly after release these chips will join aegia physx in obscur designs that never match the hardware potential due to software pitfalls.

Then nVidia will buy them. ;)

And looked how that turned out, instead of making a standard both sides can use, they tried to use it as yet another proprietary standard that's only good for tech. demos and utterly useless in actual games.

Interesting, guess I'm waiting a bit longer before upgrading my new PC to take advantage of EyeFinity.

I am wondering if it'll actually be better than either CF or SLI in the super high (e.g. 3x1680x1050 and higher) scenarios. Otherwise there's not much point in buying that is there? ATI/Nvidia cards typically have performance equivalents, and ATI already lets you mix and match cards for CF (not sure about Nvidia).

On the one hand Lucid makes good points in that SLI can be a problem in some games, with FPS plummeting in spots even on GTX295, not to mention some games just not working at all in SLI. On the other, it will no doubt be very difficult to keep the drivers functioning well with a myriad of ATI and Nvidia GPUs.

Personally I think dynamic multi GPU scaling has more potential than the existing fixed profile scaling of AF. The load balancing and efficiency would no doubt be better. It's just a shame that Nvidia, ATI or Intel haven't implemented it in their MB chipsets so a 3rd party chip/engine/driver isn't needed to run it.

I think it's safe to say though that if a big name MB manufacturer like MSI is willing to incorporate it into their flagship gaming MB, it must have been tested fairly thoroughly for game compatibility and multi GPU rendering effectiveness.

Through two articles I've read on this and Lucid's demo video, I don't recall once them saying games have to be written for Hydra like SLI and Crossfire do. Instead they refer to Hydra as "intercepting" the data sent to the DirectX API and then assigning tasks to the GPUs.

If the games don't have to be written for it, that eliminates a huge stumbling block that is no doubt the primary cause of some games not handling SLI properly. All Hydra does is act as an intermediary between DX and the GPU drivers. It has nothing to do with the actual GPU, game, or OS.

Conversely, Aegia's PhysX that one likened this to is redundant by comparison because what the CPU did before to handle physics, DX11 will on the GPU. This tech goes a direction no one else has before and I think will be a boon to simple upgrades for many, which could make it a big seller out of the gate.