Widescreen Gaming Forum

Let's hope this 'interception' by the Hydra chip doesn't impact display lag or response. Wouldn't be much use for gaming if it introduced more than a couple of ms lag... maximum.

Let's hope this 'interception' by the Hydra chip doesn't impact display lag or response. Wouldn't be much use for gaming if it introduced more than a couple of ms lag... maximum.

Keep in mind though it doesn't have to intercept, analyze and assign on top of SLI/Crossfire, it's doing it in place of it. I've seen some numbers on AF latency in SLI and it isn't as fast as you might think.

[quote]Let's hope this 'interception' by the Hydra chip doesn't impact display lag or response. Wouldn't be much use for gaming if it introduced more than a couple of ms lag... maximum.

Keep in mind though it doesn't have to intercept, analyze and assign on top of SLI/Crossfire, it's doing it in place of it. I've seen some numbers on AF latency in SLI and it isn't as fast as you might think.
I agree on this one
and I'll add that if that solution is mostly hardware based (that is with a majority of the workload on hardware)
in this case it could :
-free more some processor usage in multiGPU scenario
-get less latency because of it

however that's possibilities, it all comes down to how robust the solution is ...

I think the main thing is keeping up on GPU driver compatibility. One may think that means only ATI and Nvidia drivers when released, but with ATI coming out with drivers on a monthly basis and Nvidia slinging out all these beta drivers, it's a lot to keep up on.

CPU load wise, DirectX 11 in itself will take quite a load off the CPU because with it multi threading, physics, etc on the GPU will be possible. So the timing couldn't be better for this kind of product because all things considered, CPUs will get a bit of a rest and more will be done on the GPU itself. In fact I'm thinking DX11 may require less of a need to OC CPUs even with multi GPU setups.

I suspect that nVidia will update their drivers soon which breaks something for this. I can't see them being happy at vendor-agnostic multicard working. Of course, I can't see AMD being particularly chuffed either, but they've not got the record of driver disabling that nVidia currently sports.

Someone on one forum said ATI helped Lucid develop this tech, but the above article through it's Q&A with Nvidia seems to indicate it was in fact Intel, which makes more sense. The last question posed to Nvidia was even more curious, asking if they might be interested in buying out Lucid like they did Aegia. One has to wonder at this point if it would be a better business venture than the Aegia acquisition was. Of course if they did they'd no doubt halt the possibility of cross vendor GPU mixing, even though the vast majority of users stick within one GPU camp.

The Q&A with Lucid was a bit troubling. A speculative price of $1.50 per Pci-Ex lane for Hydra equipped MBs does not sound good at all. Assuming the MSI Big Bang is designed for use of at least 32 simultaneous Pci-Ex lanes like the X58s are, that means an MSRP of at least $480. If that's the case, it will be very hard for Lucid to get other MB manufacturers to jump on the Hydra bandwagon, and that could very well mean a startup company that has trouble kicking over the engine like Aegia experienced.

However, it would appear from the games demoed (Project Origin and Bioshock), which have been out for some time now, the Hydra tech may not have to have games written for it like SLI and Crossfire. This in itself would mean more consistency out of Hydra vs the competition I would think. I also in fairness to Nvidia find what they're saying about sticking with same GPU model matches in SLI, makes sense since AF is still the primary means of multi GPU scaling.

ATI allowing non matching GPU models may be why Crossfire doesn't scale quite as well as SLI for those whom use non matched GPUs. In AF scaling each GPU is handling the same content onscreen and just alternating frames back and forth. To allow non matching GPU models in such a scaling profile would mean to some degree being limited by the slower card.

The latest round of previews seem to indicate that the technology seems to be working. The downside is that dual GPUs on a single card like the GTX295 are detected as a single GPU and only half of the card's power is used. I find the delay to Q1 2010 annoying because i was planning to build my new computer soon.

it would be interesting to know if this would work along with EyeFinity

A review is out:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-big-bang-fuzion-lucid-hydra-review-test/

389$ is a little too rich for my blood.