Lucid Hydra GPU Load Balancer

Soldier4Real

Soldier4Real

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Basically a company by the name of Lucid is making a chip for motherboards that will enable multi-vendor/multi-chipset graphics cards to work together similar to SLI or Crossfire. For instance you could mix a Nvidia GTX295 and a Radeon 5870 on the same motherboard and the load balancing would be shared between the two video cards even though they're different manufacturers. You could also mix say a 7900GS and a GTS240 and get the advantage of multi GPU scaling. This is a pretty big deal as far as GPU technologies go.

Original article here:


http://techreport.com/articles.x/17934
 
That's huge! I wonder if a lawsuit will be raised from this. Hopefully not. Looking forward to seeing this in action :D.
 
I'm extremely skeptical about this.

Things are getting so complicated with PC graphics that the manufacturers themselves can't fix everything in time in their drivers it seems - and even balance their own multi-gpu solutions well, nevermind something that would possibly try to balance rendering between GPUs.

The idea definitely sounds interesting, but I won't believe it until I see something in practicality which in fact increases performance in something mainstream like a game (my guess is that if it works, it will be slower than a single video card).

If it's meant to increase some kind of rendering performance (although I'm not sure if it's GPU accelerated at all these days) like in 3DMAX or Maya or something, I'd think it's more feasible.

If they pull this shit off though - and it works transparently with games and such... hats off. Don't think it's going to happen though.
 
Well, evidently it works; just not as well as they would like for now. Here's a quote from PC perspective on Hydra's testing abilities, deficiencies.

[blockquote]
Starting with the 3DMark Vantage results, you will see that the HYDRA scaling method with the pair of GTX 260+ cards pushed performance up by 83% - definitely a competitive solution to SLI! (they paired a GTX 260 with a Radeon 4890)

Now that we have looked at performance we have to note our experience during the whole testing process. In general, the HYDRA Engine software and tool was a breeze to work with and enabling/disabling the software worked seamlessly and without a hitch. I could switch modes without a need to reboot and if you wanted to disable HYDRA and enable CrossFire instead in the ATI control panel, you could do that as well. Overall I think the software is fairly mature and should be ready to find its way into the hands of enthusiasts.

As of this writing, dual GPU graphics cards like the GeForce GTX 295 are not going to work with Lucid’s HYDRA technology in the way you want it to. Essentially, because the two GPUs behind the PCI Express bridge chips on the graphics boards (both NVIDIA and ATI) are “hidden†to the system, the HYDRA driver will only be able access one of them. This is a bit of a letdown for us as the idea of having a single GTX 295 and then throwing in an HD 5870 sounded very appealing, it doesn’t appear Lucid will be able to get that working.

What my theory is, and I hope to test soon, is that you might be able to enable SLI on the GTX 295 and then enable HYDRA on the “two†graphics cards in the computer then. (The SLI’d GTX 295 being ONE card and the HD 5870 being the second.) Sounds like a recipe for awesome or disaster. [/blockquote]
 
Wow - I looked at it and I'm honestly impressed.

How the hell can an outside small company provide seemingly better performance than SLI/CF itself?

I mean... I guess the driver divisions at both AMD and Nvidia really suck some epic balls in regards to CF/SLI?

Well... that this actually works is simply outstanding, and I can definitely see the potential. Like they mentioned in the article, this technology - if it they can make it work well and bug-free for most A titles - can easily become huge very very rapidly.

Anyone know if Lucid is public? :-D I don't have any money to invest anyway though :-/
 
Um... because I'm upgrading to an ATI 5870, but I have a GTX 260 core 216 which is quite a good card really, so I can just add the 5870 and enjoy not double, but triple the performance of what I currently get. (I'm not really upgrading - just painting the picture for you)

I just hope that if this ever sees the light of day, that nVidia or AMD don't buy Lucid out and make it proprietary to their cards only, or just make it disappear like Creative did to Aureal.

Edit: OMGZ apparently the driver does NOT work using profiles!!! If this is true and eventually made to work bug-free, this thing would rock some serious ballsacks.

That it's actually successfully load-balancing geometry in a single scene with current titles and mostly without visible glitches (in "approved" games for the preview though :-/ ) is just amazing.

I wonder if there's a big CPU hit, as the driver is supposedly constantly computing what parts of the picture should be rendered by what GPU.

This thing could well be the death of SLI/CF a year or two in the future, if all goes well.
 
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