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HYDRA System Lets 'Vastly Different' Video Cards Work, Play Together
Posted by Gizmodo US Edition at 11:15 AM on August 20, 2008
Lucid's HYDRA GPU pairing technology could soon allow PC builders to incorporate multiple video cards that - hear this, ATI and Nvidia - don't have to be identical. What this potentially means, among other things, is that gamers could leverage old hardware instead of just sadly setting it aside, though paired cards must be of the same brand. HYDRA differs functionally from Nvidia's SLI and ATI's Crossfire solutions, which split rendering by sectioning off the screen and alternating frames between cards, respectively, by intelligently distributing highly specific rendering tasks between the GPUs. Instead of divvying up all the tasks equally, HYDRA will only send as many polygons or shader calls as each constituent card can handle (see right of the above pic for an example of what one of two cards might be rendering).
The most irritating aspects of current twin-card configurations (well, aside from the fact that you had to buy two cards in the first place) are the high cost and disappointingly low performance gains. HYDRA, which Lucid claims could scale to up to handle four unique GPUs, could remedy both of these issues if it ever comes to market. The company says it'll be soon, but that's as specific as they're getting for now. Visual learners can check out a detailed diagram of the system below. [PcPer via Slashdot]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
godwhacker
Posted 1:01 PM 20/8/08
@Ad-hominem:
nope, have to use same brand cards because of OS limitations, and driver conflicts.
however, with a motherboard that accepts quad sli, my two 8600gt's could live with a couple of 9800's
there are lots of older cards that could find new life that way
godwhacker
bandit
Posted 12:57 PM 20/8/08
Now, at last, the gaming world is ready for Duke Nukem Forever.
bandit
UTnick
Posted 12:47 PM 20/8/08
can i string together a bunch of old voodoo cards and a dust collecting all-in-wonder and then run duke nukem at 160 FPS?
UTnick
Ad-hominem
Posted 12:37 PM 20/8/08
So...wait? Maybe I'm misunderstanding this, but not only can you use Dual Video Cards with better outputs, you could use ATI and Nvidia cards together?
If that's true, that's awesome.
Ad-hominem
Griffehpoo
Posted 1:33 PM 20/8/08
@UTnick: Such a high framerate... It'stimetokickassandchewbubblegumandI'malloutofgum!!!
Griffehpoo
CYST!
Posted 1:07 PM 20/8/08
@godwhacker: that sucks.
CYST!
Con Seannery
Posted 1:36 PM 20/8/08
@godwhacker: But are the 9800s better neighbors than the Apple Store?
Con Seannery
godwhacker
Posted 2:17 PM 20/8/08
@SScorpio:
hmmmm, will have to do more research on that. i installed the physx drivers on my rig, and wasn't pleased with the results when it came to playing some older games. warmonger was awesome, but i am more of a racing sim guy.
this was also on vista, and i haven't had the chance to load them on my xp drive where all i do is game.
i went thru and read the article, and while it has some smoke and mirrors feel to it, i think it would be very cool to be able to not just have old cards waiting around to be recycled into a lower horsepower machine.
i like the 9800/8600 setup idea though, i think it would work on my crosshair.
godwhacker
godwhacker
Posted 2:07 PM 20/8/08
@Con Seannery:
that would depend whether they scream like a bunch of little girls!
love the handle by the by
godwhacker
SScorpio
Posted 1:59 PM 20/8/08
@Ad-hominem:
It says the brand needs to be the same so only either Nvidia or ATI cards. I know from experience in Vista that you can not run ATI and Nvidia drivers together at the same time; however, you can run them side by side in XP without issue. We'll have to see how this takes off and if Vista is a requirement.
@godwhacker:
I wish you luck finding a motherboard that supports four 16x PCI-E slots. Currently we are limited to 3. Current Quad-SLI is limited to the 9800GX2 cards which are two cards on a single card. So only two slots are taken.
I am running SLI'd 9800GTX on a 680i motherboard with a 8600GT allowing dual monitor output with SLI enabled. The new PhysX drivers are also defaulting processing on the 8600GT allowing that to do Physics while my SLI card are processing the graphics as fast as possible.
I have two concerns with this new system. Cards will be different speeds so syncing everything will be a pain and I'm sure it will be a major thing killing performance. Secondly, I'm concerned with the speed of read memory from the video cards and then combining it to a single output display. Using DMA should make this a non issue but we'll have to see what happens. I know the PS3 doesn't like doing GPU->Main memory transfers so I'm curious to see how a PC would handle it.
SScorpio
ijuleguy
Posted 2:41 PM 20/8/08
@Con Seannery:
Wow, that was VERY cheap.
ijuleguy
Knirfie
Posted 10:14 PM 20/8/08
@godwhacker - Garbage, I have no problem running my nVidia card on my AMD (with integrated graphics) mobo. And I use my nVidia card for my main screen and the IGP for the 2nd screen.
Knirfie
DisposableInterloper
Posted 10:23 PM 20/8/08
This is genuinely exciting. Near-linear performance scaling? Count me in!
DisposableInterloper
Knirfie
Posted 10:15 PM 20/8/08
The big problem with combining the two brands would be the slightly different render result. You will probably get artifacts because of this when you use an ATi and nVidia card to render a screen. But you could even get these artifacts when using a geforce 7 and geforce 8 card.
Knirfie
stryker1800
Posted 10:59 PM 20/8/08
so wouldnt it be troublesome if the two card werent rendering the same thing.
stryker1800
Mr_LaZy
Posted 10:49 PM 20/8/08
=)
Time to dig up my old GeForce3 Ti200 and hook it up with my 8800GTS 512 to get a 1 Frame boost! YEAH!
Mr_LaZy
spededdler
Posted 11:06 PM 20/8/08
I've got an older ASrock mobo with the AGP and PCIexpress slots. Make those two work together nicely and I'll be impressed.
spededdler
boobox
Posted 12:50 AM 21/8/08
The more important question is will this setup allow you to use dual monitors, which current sli solutions do not.
boobox
aec007
Posted 1:48 AM 21/8/08
So how do I plug my rusty old ISA Trident-VGA card into my PCI-E mobo?
aec007
man in gauze is king ramses II, silly.
Posted 4:24 AM 21/8/08
If this works with shitty integrated cards, consider me sold.
man in gauze is king ramses II, silly.