HYDRA!!!

[xtkxhom3r]

Discuss :) :beer:

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

[nd4spdbh2]

read up on this when hydra 100 came out, looks like it should be pretty cool

btw why is this in the ati section, shouldnt it be in the general gpu?

[xtkxhom3r]

dunno i figured it would get more viewers here...

mods please move :)

[jgv115]

Can't wait to see this in action!

[xtkxhom3r]

man i cant wait to try this i wonder if we will see higher fps from hybrid setups like a 5870 and a gtx200 series compared to dual 5870's or dual nvidia cards..

[Aztroth]

I really hope this isn't only for the 1156 socket boards...

[jason4207]

man i cant wait to try this i wonder if we will see higher fps from hybrid setups like a 5870 and a gtx200 series compared to dual 5870's or dual nvidia cards..

My guess is that hybrid setups like this won't scale as well as an all ATI or all nVidia solution.

[xtkxhom3r]

I really hope this isn't only for the 1156 socket boards...

i doubt they would limit themselves like that

[Brando]

I don't get how this will make it possible to use ati and nvidia together. i thought you couldn't have drivers from both at the same time? the main thing that i like is the thought of having no wasted power from the cards you are using. No more getting only 40% more performance from and extra card. dual hd5870's with 100% perfect scaling would be great.

[jobrien2001]

I don't get how this will make it possible to use ati and nvidia together. i thought you couldn't have drivers from both at the same time?

Apparently in windows 7 (not previous versions) and linux you can

[xtkxhom3r]

the guy in the video was explaining that all the commands go through the chip (hydra) and then hydra gives each gpu a certain job

my guess is since everything is going through the chip thats how you can have a ati and nvidia gpu together

[Brando]

Remember "reverse hyperthreading" (lol). This sounds kind of like that but for graphics. How cool would it be if they did this for cpu's so your quad would be like one big 16ghz core? How cool would it be if they could put these on dual\triple gpu video cards somehow?

[Badbonji]

I want :D
GTX295 + HD5870X2 = win

[Shiggity]

Unfortunately, don't expect to see Hydra on AMD boards anytime soon.

[xtkxhom3r]

Unfortunately, don't expect to see Hydra on AMD boards anytime soon.

AMD whats that? :D :beer:

[vixro]

What would the image look like with an nvidia card and an ati card though? They have different levels of image quality, and no matter how small, wouldn't that be noticable in the render of objects? Like using a black ballpoint pen and a black fountain pen...

[xtkxhom3r]

i guess we will find out when its released.... i dont think its going to be a major issue though im sure it will look fine

[jiggerman]

Dual GPU's setups are so hit and miss performance wise that its always put off them. Its somthing ATI and nvida have never really solved and arguably got worse, as games developers got encouraged to work solely on one setup and neglect everything else.

This could be just what's needed to finally get the promised Dual card performance. Its like having a industry standard agreement for dual card systems.

I was hopfull the the Lucid Hydra 100 would make it, but Nvidia's unwillingness to licence SLI to Intel kind of made it a non starter.

[Shiggity]

What would the image look like with an nvidia card and an ati card though? They have different levels of image quality, and no matter how small, wouldn't that be noticable in the render of objects? Like using a black ballpoint pen and a black fountain pen...


I believe the first iteration of Hydra will only be able to do one brand at a time, but any model of that brand.

But looking ahead, if they find an efficient way to overlay multiple drivers on top of one another, we could actually see increased benefits from an ATI / Nvidia hybrid setup. From what I've read the Hydra engine tracks performance statistics incredibly well. So if the ATI card is better at something and an Nvidia card is better at something else, you could possibly get the best of both architectures. Same goes for a hybrid Larrabee setup, which would be really cool because Larrabee does things quite differently from ATI and Nvidia.

[Niku-Sama]

mabe this will be our truly hybrid set up.
imagine using a 4870 and a 5850 on the same board.
i wonder if its able to add some instruction to get onboard to work with a dedicated card
i know onboard is weak but if you could get it to do solely AF or AA that would be good and help out the dedicated card alot

[xtkxhom3r]

mabe this will be our truly hybrid set up.
imagine using a 4870 and a 5850 on the same board.
i wonder if its able to add some instruction to get onboard to work with a dedicated card
i know onboard is weak but if you could get it to do solely AF or AA that would be good and help out the dedicated card alot

onboard video will not improve anything..it will most likely slow the faster gpu down

[Neural Net]

I believe the first iteration of Hydra will only be able to do one brand at a time, but any model of that brand.

But looking ahead, if they find an efficient way to overlay multiple drivers on top of one another, we could actually see increased benefits from an ATI / Nvidia hybrid setup. From what I've read the Hydra engine tracks performance statistics incredibly well. So if the ATI card is better at something and an Nvidia card is better at something else, you could possibly get the best of both architectures. Same goes for a hybrid Larrabee setup, which would be really cool because Larrabee does things quite differently from ATI and Nvidia.

The Hydra 200 chip which will ship on MSI mobos first and later be available as a separate PCI-E card will be able to use Nvidia and ATI cards at the same time, just not a launch. Lucid has said that it will make this feature available in a couple of months with a driver update.

Now my wonder is if it will work on dual GPU graphics cards, because if it does, the GTX295 and 4870X2 will suddenly have a new lease of life.

[Dapman02]

AMD whats that? :D :beer:

:(

[Niku-Sama]

onboard video will not improve anything..it will most likely slow the faster gpu down

ok can you not read?
it seems like any post i make your always against me.

AF OR AA only on the onboard would not slow any thing down, especially with 790 boards that have 128 megs of dedicated memory, that would be perfect for aa or af

[Dapman02]

ok can you not read?
it seems like any post i make your always against me.

AF OR AA only on the onboard would not slow any thing down, especially with 790 boards that have 128 megs of dedicated memory, that would be perfect for aa or af

Hmmm...but would it be enough to handle high amounts of AA.

[Shiggity]

The Hydra 200 chip which will ship on MSI mobos first and later be available as a separate PCI-E card will be able to use Nvidia and ATI cards at the same time, just not a launch. Lucid has said that it will make this feature available in a couple of months with a driver update.

Oh Lucid is coming out with a discrete version of their chip? Source? :)

[jobrien2001]

The Hydra 200 chip which will ship on MSI mobos first and later be available as a separate PCI-E card will be able to use Nvidia and ATI cards at the same time, just not a launch.

If they release the PCIe card im buying it so I never have to buy another hydra again. 4890 + 5870 = madness

[Niku-Sama]

Hmmm...but would it be enough to handle high amounts of AA.

i'm not talking about 16x no but at a high res i would imagine alot of people are using 2x or 4x and probally not much more because of that high res

[MonkeyMhz]

i doubt they would limit themselves like that

Yea, this was first adapted by AMD a while ago. I remember them having it on a road map. I think it will make its appearance on the AMD platform with the AM3 890FX/800 series chipsets and G34 socket.

Probably looking beggining to mid 2010' before we see it on AMD, it will probably be right around the time they release the AMD II X6.

[xtkxhom3r]

ok can you not read?
it seems like any post i make your always against me.

AF OR AA only on the onboard would not slow any thing down, especially with 790 boards that have 128 megs of dedicated memory, that would be perfect for aa or af

lmao im not against you nuku sama...

i just really dont think on board video would help even if it was just for aa...

i think the gpu would be waiting on the on board video to finish the whole time...

[MonkeyMhz]

lmao im not against you nuku sama...

i just really dont think on board video would help even if it was just for aa...

i think the gpu would be waiting on the on board video to finish the whole time...

Ditto, why complicate things AA AF on GPU or no go.

[exe163]

From what I heard this chip cost near 100 to make alone. With the extra cost might as well get a better video card. But then for those with unlimited money and want octa-SLI/CF, this might be the the best thing to get!

[Aztroth]

so, what, a 200% markup makes it $300? thats pretty damn good considering that Xfire with dual 5870's and one of these would give you better performance than getting 3 5870's in Xfire (theoretically).

[Ekko]

yes that makes since,
it would be nice even to run crossfire via the hydra system and get 100 % out of both cards,
it makes the cash worth it, not to mention tri fire for those who think they will really need it,
at peak with 2 4870x2 or 2 5870x2 have you at 100%, that is more gpu that will ever be needed, i think gta4, crysis tests will be in the 80 to 90 fps range wow,
i know the point is to mix cards, but at the same time id be willing to bet a lot of people buy this just for the performance since there is less of a hit compared to sli or crossfire...
AWOSME!!!!

[exe163]

so, what, a 200% markup makes it $300? thats pretty damn good considering that Xfire with dual 5870's and one of these would give you better performance than getting 3 5870's in Xfire (theoretically).

That's only because CF doesn't scale well (read: horribly) with more than 2 cards, same with SLI. Of course if someone could afford 3 high end cards there's no point talking about cost of this chip. In order for this to be cost effective at the mainstream level, it has to be cheaper. Even at $100 is a little bit too high (close to the cost of stock mobo btw). If this chip hits the mass market, upgrading video card would be a lot easier. Think about instead of one monster card that screams at your face and barely fits the case, we can use 4 passively cooled lower-end cards to achieve the same performance. Also, 100% sounds too good to be true. If it can pull off 90%, it's pretty impressive from my point of view, especially using GPUs of different architect.

[Angry]

What about Physx? If your using an all Nvidia setup, will you loose Physx since the hydra chip is dedicating both to rendering.

Or possibly gain it Physx when using an Ati and Nvidia card together?

Hmm...

[xtkxhom3r]

What about Physx? If your using an all Nvidia setup, will you loose Physx since the hydra chip is dedicating both to rendering.

Or possibly gain it Physx when using an Ati and Nvidia card together?

Hmm...

hmm i didnt think about that... my guess is we will be able to use physx if we use a ati card and a nvidia card together

but were gonna have to wait and see

[MonkeyMhz]

I wouldent worry about physx, thats a good question. But really, Physx wil be gone soon (at least in games, it will stick around for other stuff).

[petteyg359]

hmm i didnt think about that... my guess is we will be able to use physx if we use a ati card and a nvidia card together

but were gonna have to wait and see

A Legit Reviews article from 9/30 has Q/A from nVidia. They say they've added a "feature" to their driver that will prevent it from working if ATI drivers are installed at the same time, because they can't provide "quality assurance" for such systems. Seems like they're trying to squash Hydra before they get a foot in the door. I hope Intel steps in (since they have a financial stake in it) and sues the pants off nVidia.

[xtkxhom3r]

A Legit Reviews article from 9/30 has Q/A from nVidia. They say they've added a "feature" to their driver that will prevent it from working if ATI drivers are installed at the same time, because they can't provide "quality assurance" for such systems. Seems like they're trying to squash Hydra before they get a foot in the door. I hope Intel steps in (since they have a financial stake in it) and sues the pants off nVidia.

oh wow ****ing ******** man thats some bull **** this is why i hate nvidia.....

[petteyg359]

oh wow ****ing ******** man thats some bull **** this is why i hate nvidia.....

I agree with your opinion, but I would add a few more expletives :)

[xtkxhom3r]

lmao...

[clubber_lang]

Just bumping this thread up.....interesting topic for sure!

[Badbonji]

How hydra works, would it be possible that it won't need nvidia or ati drivers but use it's own generic ones to get past nvidia's block?

[jobrien2001]

How hydra works, would it be possible that it won't need nvidia or ati drivers but use it's own generic ones to get past nvidia's block?

I heard somewhere they will be removing the block... there is a H4X out anyway so who cares :beer:


Hmmm its almost 30 days! :drool:

[Hardin]

What about Physx? If your using an all Nvidia setup, will you loose Physx since the hydra chip is dedicating both to rendering.

Or possibly gain it Physx when using an Ati and Nvidia card together?

Hmm...

Honestly what game uses physx anyway? You will have better performance using the cards like they should, as video cards.

[Badbonji]

I think it could be useful, if only games used physx more. Obviously much more power for physics would be nice, making games much more realistic in handling it...

[Hardin]

It could be useful, but right now it isn't and it doesn't look like it will be anytime soon. And Microsoft and AMD look like they are moving in a more open source direction. Right now it's nothing more than a bullet point on a box.

[Shiggity]

Physx was a bust imo. The next generation game engines will just have physics capability built into them with GPU acceleration.