Lucid's Multi-GPU Wonder: More Information on the Hydra 100
by Derek Wilson on August 22, 2008 4:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Barriers to Entry and Final Words
Depending on the patents Lucid has, neither NVIDIA nor ATI may be able to build a competing bit of hardware / software for use in their own solutions. And then there is the quesetion: what will NVIDIA and ATI attempt to do in order to be anticompetitive (err, I mean to continue to promote their own solutions to or platforms surrounding multi-GPU).
Because of the fact that both NVIDIA and ATI already participate in anti-competitive practices by artificially limiting the functionality of their hardware on competing platforms, it doesn't seem like a stretch to think they'll try something here as well. But can they break it?
Maybe and maybe not. At a really crappy level they could detect whether or not the hardware is in the system and refuse to do anything 3D. If they're a little nicer they could detect whether the Hydra driver is running and refuse to play 3D while it is active. Beyond that it doesn't seem like there is really much room to do anything like they've been doing. The Lucid software and hardware is completely transparent to the game, the graphics driver and the hardware. None of those components need to know anything for this to work.
As AMD and NVIDIA have to work closely with graphics card and motherboard vendors, they could try and strong arm Lucid out of the market by threatening either (overtly or not) the supply of their silicon to certain OEMs. This could be devastating to Lucid, as we've already see what the fear of an implication can do to software companies in the situation with Assassin's Creed (when faced with the option of applying an already available fix or pulling support for DX10.1 which only AMD supports, they pulled it). This type of thing seems the largest unknown to us.
Of course, while it seems like an all or nothing situation that would serve no purpose but to destroy the experience of end users, NVIDIA and ATI have lots of resources to work on this sort of "problem" and I'm sure they'll try their best to come up with something. Maybe one day they'll wake up and realize (especially if one starts to dominate over the other other) that Microsoft and Intel got slammed with antitrust suits for very similar practices.
Beyond this, they do still need to get motherboard OEMs to place the Hydra 100 on their boards. Or they need to get graphics hardware vendors to build boards with the hardware on them. This increases cost, and OEMs are really sensitive to cost increases. At the same time, a platform that can run both AMD and NVIDIA solutions in multi-GPU configurations has added value. As does a single card multi-GPU solution that gets better performance than even the ones from AMD and NVIDIA.
The parts these guys sell will still have to compete in the retail market, so they can't price themselves out of competition. More performance is great, but they have to worry about price/performance and their own cost. We think this will be more attractive to high end motherboard vendors than anyone else. And we really hope Intel adopts it and uses instead of nForce 100 or nForce 200 chips to enable flexible multi-GPU. Assuming it works of course.
Anyway, Lucid's Hyrda 100 is a really cool idea. And we really hope it works like Lucid says it will. Most of the theory seems sound, and while we've seen it in action, we need to put it to the test and look hard at latency and scaling. And we really really want to get excited. So we really really need hardware.
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GTVic - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
This company is not making graphics cards, and to use their product you have to buy more graphics cards. Seems like a win-win situation. AMD and nVidia can dump development on crossfire/sli and sales go up.DerekWilson - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - link
if nvidia dumps sli then there is zero reason for them to be in the chipset business right now.they are no longer needed for AMD because AMD isn't making horrid chipsets anymore. they aren't needed for Intel because Intel builds awesome motherboards.
the only value add nvidia has on the platform side is sli. period.
they do not want to see it become irrelevant.
shin0bi272 - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
This is a gamers dream (assuming it works as advertised) and a video card makers nightmare.If they really wanted to demo it they probably should have been running 2 systems side by side, one with 1 card and one with the hydra running 2 cards to show the actual difference. Maybe also not run crysis since crysis has issues with framerate on any system... maybe run 3dmark vantage (I know its not an actual game but its a standardized program) especially if its transparent to the game and hardware.
Personally if AMD and Nvidia have a problem with this technology and they disable it (or force me to so I can play any game) there's still Intel's Larabee on the horizon and I'm sure Intel wouldnt disable the hydra so Id just dump AMD and Nvidia all together to get linear performance increases (again assuming it works).
On top of that AMD and Nvidia have their own performance issues and competition to worry about especially now that the physx war has begun (AMD hooking up with havoc and Nvidia buying Ageia).
I think both AMD and Nvidia should embrace this technology and abandon their approaches so that they can concentrate more on individual card performance. Since the performance gains with both SLi and crossfire arent linear and this promises to be. Even if its not 100% linear but its a 90% speed gain thats still better than either of the other solutions.
The game designers would also love this technology because they wouldnt have to worry about enabling SLi or crossfire in their games they could concentrate on the actual game play and making the game fun and cool looking.
shin0bi272 - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
Oh also I forgot to mention that the article did say that you would have to have 2 of the same brand of card so youd still be locked into one manufacturer. So its not like youd be mixing an nvidia 280 with an amd 4870x2. So amd and nvidia really shouldnt have a huge problem with it.Diesel Donkey - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
That is false. The article states that any combination of two, three, or four cards from either AMD or Nvidia can be used. That's one reason this technology would be so amazing if it actually works and is implemented successfully.The Preacher - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - link
I don't think you would like some portions of the same screen rendered by nvidia and others by ATI since they will look different and could create some discontinuities in the final image.DerekWilson - Saturday, August 23, 2008 - link
they try really hard to render nearly the same image ... but if you played half-life 2 then this would be an issue.also, to enable this they would have to wait for vista to allow it (i think) ... thing is they are building a wddm driver ... so ... nvidia's display driver wouldn't be "running" either? I don't really know how that works.
jordanclock - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
No, he is right. You can't have an nVidia card with an AMD card. As it stands, Windows won't allow two graphics drivers to run in 3D mode. This was addressed in the first article featuring this technology.prophet001 - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
how amazing would this be. nice article with what you were given.MrHanson - Friday, August 22, 2008 - link
I thing having a separete box with it's own power supply(s) is ideal for something like this. That way if you want to add 2 or more gpu's to your hydra system, you don't have to rip apart your computer and put in a different motherboard and power supply. I imagine this system will probably come with it's own mainboard and power supply with several separate pcie x16 slots for scalablity. Also if you were to upgrade your motherboard and cpu, you don't have to worry about getting a motherboard with enough pcie x16 slots or if the motherboard supports the hydra engine. Any ol' motherboard with one pci express slot will do.