Friday, November 6th 2009
NVIDIA Shuns Lucid Hydra
A promising new technology from LucidLogix, the Hydra, has perhaps hit its biggest roadblock. The Hydra multi-GPU engine allows vendor-neutral and model-neutral GPU performance upscaling, without adhering to proprietary technologies such as NVIDIA SLI or ATI CrossfireX. NVIDIA, which is staring at a bleak future for its chipset division, is licensing the SLI technology to motherboard vendors who want to use it on socket LGA-1366 and LGA-1156 motherboards, since Intel is the only chipset vendor. On other sockets such as LGA-775 and AM3, however, NVIDIA continues to have chipsets that bring with them the incentive of SLI technology support. NVIDIA's licensing deals with motherboard vendors are particularly noteworthy. For socket LGA-1366 motherboards that are based on Intel's X58 Express chipset, NVIDIA charges a fee of US $5 per unit sold, to let it support SLI. Alternatively, motherboard vendors can opt for NVIDIA's nForce 200 bridge chip, which allows vendors to offer full-bandwidth 3-way SLI on some high-end models. For the socket LGA-1156 platform currently driven by Intel's P55 Express chipset, the fee is lower, at US $3 per unit sold.
The Lucid Hydra engine by design is vendor-neutral. It provides a sort of abstraction-layer between the OS and the GPUs, and uses the available graphics processing resources to upscale resulting performance. This effectively kills NVIDIA's cut, as motherboard vendors needn't have the SLI license, and that users of Hydra won't be using SLI or Crossfire anymore. Perhaps fearing a loss of revenue, NVIDIA is working on its drivers to ensure that its GeForce GPUs don't work on platforms that use Hydra. Perhaps this also ensures "quality control, and compatibility", since if the customer isn't satisfied with the quality and performance of Hydra, NVIDIA for one, could end up in the bad books. This could then also kick up warranty issues, and product returns.
MSI has the industry's first release-grade motherboard, the Big Bang Fuzion P55 that uses Hydra to power multiple GPUs, while also allowing users to mix and match various PCI-Express GPUs to suit their needs, something new particularly for NVIDIA users. Earlier expected to be announced around this time, MSI's Big Bang Fuzion, as it is called by its maker, has been indefinitely delayed up to Q1 2010. Apparently to fill the void created by months of hype, MSI rushed in its cousin, a similar-looking motherboard, that uses the nForce 200 chip, to provide 3-way SLI support, called the Big Bang Trinergy P55, which will stay on as the company's top offering for the P55 platform. One can only hope that Hydra doesn't end up stillborn because of corporate strategy by much larger companies.
Source:
Overclock3D.Net
The Lucid Hydra engine by design is vendor-neutral. It provides a sort of abstraction-layer between the OS and the GPUs, and uses the available graphics processing resources to upscale resulting performance. This effectively kills NVIDIA's cut, as motherboard vendors needn't have the SLI license, and that users of Hydra won't be using SLI or Crossfire anymore. Perhaps fearing a loss of revenue, NVIDIA is working on its drivers to ensure that its GeForce GPUs don't work on platforms that use Hydra. Perhaps this also ensures "quality control, and compatibility", since if the customer isn't satisfied with the quality and performance of Hydra, NVIDIA for one, could end up in the bad books. This could then also kick up warranty issues, and product returns.
MSI has the industry's first release-grade motherboard, the Big Bang Fuzion P55 that uses Hydra to power multiple GPUs, while also allowing users to mix and match various PCI-Express GPUs to suit their needs, something new particularly for NVIDIA users. Earlier expected to be announced around this time, MSI's Big Bang Fuzion, as it is called by its maker, has been indefinitely delayed up to Q1 2010. Apparently to fill the void created by months of hype, MSI rushed in its cousin, a similar-looking motherboard, that uses the nForce 200 chip, to provide 3-way SLI support, called the Big Bang Trinergy P55, which will stay on as the company's top offering for the P55 platform. One can only hope that Hydra doesn't end up stillborn because of corporate strategy by much larger companies.
230 Comments on NVIDIA Shuns Lucid Hydra
Not the other way round.
( Not that I am, I prefer ATI due to lower cost)
AND all this is if Nvidia is really bloking anything at all, because all I have seen about the issue so far comes from Lucid themselves. It could be just someone in Lucid being pissed off and /or having hallucinations because the only MB using their piece of hardware has been delayed.
What a missed opportunity.
I dont have a classical education, or the "vidia" would be easy to explain with all the Latin grammar forms:
"Veni, vidi, vici" (I hope you ALL know what that means) comes from the three Latin verbs "venire", "videre", and "vincere". If you are good with grammar, you can start conjugaing here: www.fact-archive.com/dictionary/Videre
Satan kicks ass!
I was thinking about this song and how they both are chanting this lol.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn4FOKY6ebE
Infinity ward have taken a step towards dumbery tho imo, anyway I'm getting waaaaay off topic :laugh:
seriously talking, this is anti-competitive play. it should be illegal. :shadedshu nvidia
I'm not saying I agree with that decission (if it has happened at all), because I don't agree actually, but Nvidia has many reasons to not allow something like Hydra in the way that Lucid is probably doing it and profit is only one of them.
PD: AMD didn't have to pay licensing fees for PhysX it's absolutely free. In the future, maybe, Nvidia could decide to charge, but so can Lucid if it becomes widely used.
If someone can come up with a more general purpose method of implementing it, that's all fine and good. And it's not their call, it's the consumers call, if they choose to buy it, it's their right to do so. it doesn't change the way the gpu works, it changes the calls a given gpu gets calls from the cpu.
Where do you get the idea that AMD wouldn't have to pay licensing fees for the use of physx? I recall invidia saying they would allow it to be implemented on AMD cards, but the idea that physx being available free of charge sounds ludicrous.
Arrgh.
nVidia is the one that shuts down GPU Physx when an ATi GPU is used in the same system.
I bet its ATi that commands nV to change their drivers right? :respect:
What this really shows that is nVidia have always wanted to keep Physx to themselves.
We might never know why ATi decline to allow Physx on their hardware, but nV most liekly demands a royality and we don't know if its reasonable at all.
I will like to see an offical document of that kind.
the whole thing is one biiiiiiiig prick waving dick fight over technologies they either don't want to share, or are each too stubborn to accept they were beaten to. (at least I think Nvidia were the first to do on GPU physics?)
I know I would have done the same, I do belive they offered to help ATI with it, but they said no, so they got what they deserve IMO.
Now as for Hydra sounds cool, I hope it works, maybe Lucid needs to have a talk with NV and ATI/AMD and say hey we can play together and all make some money on this deal.
Most times stuff like Hydra will end up getting bought out by NV/AMD/Intel, thats what alot of them want any way.
I can see NV buying this simple to put a stop to it, if the whole driver deal goes south.
I think the real winner would be for Intel to buy it, that way you can run any card on their board.
Speaking of which whatever happen to the ATI/Nvidia "price fixing" thing a few years ago?
Given they did pay for that technology, and as I remember it, threw Ageia a bone at the same time (as they were slowly going under) I think it was an olive branch of peace from Nvidia to offer it for free.