Lucid Hydra - mix any graphics cards with excellent scaling

Andreas G · Guest

Israeli start-up company Lucid Logix has outlined a breakthrough in parallel graphics technology that allows for a mix and match of any graphics cards, no matter the GPU, and still have a performance scaling beyond the current multi-GPU technologies from ATI and NVIDIA. The solution is called Hydra, the beast with many heads, and will work with any CPU or chipset. It combines a system-on-a-chip (SoC) with exclusive software that balances the workload among the graphics processors.

"We're currently focusing our HYDRA engine on improving everyday PC performance, but our vision is to bring more scalability, flexibility and power to all visual processing markets including graphics professionals, power gamers, design/engineering professionals and others," says Offir Remez, Lucid co-founder and president. "With strong venture backing, a superior patent portfolio and experienced leaders in all aspects of semiconductor and 3D computing graphics, we're a nimble team passionate about working with our partners to realize our vision of universally amazing graphics for all."

Lucid says it is working with leading OEMs, ODMs and PC builders to bring the Hydra technology to the market in Q1 2009. The Hydra engine requires no modification of existing software and already supports DirectX, alas there is no mention of OpenGL. The performance scaling is supposed to be in the range of 100% and more in optimal situations. The company described its Hydra creation as a "real-time distributed processing engine".

Lucid is backed by leading venture capitalists Giza Venture Capital, Genesis Partners and Intel Capital.

magicman · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:07 am Post subject:

Mean Machine · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:00 am Post subject:

Probably a physical chip.
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Delph1 · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 7:36 pm Post subject:

CPU <-> chipset <-> Hydra <-> GPUs -> Monitor

//Andreas
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magicman · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 4:40 pm Post subject:

Delph1 · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:43 pm Post subject:

Yupp.

//Andreas
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Forget everything, knowledge is your enemy, it's only going to make you second-guess yourself."

magicman · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:22 pm Post subject:

Delph1 · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:25 pm Post subject:

I wonder what the SLI patent looks like. If it would be an infringement to run two GeForce cards together on a different chipset?
I don't think AMD cares the least to be honest.

//Andreas
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"I'm sort of a postmodern vegetarian, I eat meat ironically"
"You are our Swedish superhero Wink

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Forget everything, knowledge is your enemy, it's only going to make you second-guess yourself."

magicman · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:30 pm Post subject:

Precisely why I didn't mention AMD...

As for the SLI, I imagine that since it's almost entirely drivers, this chip may be a work around... Especially if it doesn't modify the NV drivers to work.
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Delph1 · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 7:22 pm Post subject:

True, and maybe this will enable better scaling at lower resolutions?

//Andreas
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"I'm sort of a postmodern vegetarian, I eat meat ironically"
"You are our Swedish superhero Wink

"

Forget everything, knowledge is your enemy, it's only going to make you second-guess yourself."