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
Whoever said that AMD would shun HYDRA as well was dead on. Intel would probably be next in line because their chipset division would be butthurt over this. I just hope an antitrust suit forces them to open up the market, unlikely, but it would be the only thing that would work.
A lot has been discussed about AA in Batman and the same arguments have been used. The same happened with PhysX and it's always people judging before knowing facts. It wouldn't be bad if they only judged, but people tend to blame and insult and that is something that I simply can't stand anywhere. I've always been like that, i.e. when I was 14 a mother was screaming at her kids, in a bad manner and from what I could tell for no good reasons, so I stepped up. She went mute when I started reprehending her and she promised she would never do it again. She was shocked at the fact that a 14 year old "kid" could have told her she was abusing her children and she was unable to see it. Since then I've been always that way, and I don't regret it. It has put me in troubles many times, I don't care.
Yeahhh... They do have shady business practices. Facts are great, but the fact is they could have embraced it, instead they squash it to prevent it from competing with their solutions. They could have gone about this a number of different ways but they chose the most anti-competitive.
I apologize to any children I abused, or puppies that I might have kicked in the making of that post.
EDIT: Yeah, in fact this all comes from Semiaccurate and only OC3D has linked it. Then TPU has linked to OC3D. Semiaccurate is the source = FUD and Nvidia bashing. It wouldn't surprise me that everything is false, since the whole Demerjian's article is based on the delay of the Hydra board and the rush of the one with NF200 and he even admits at the end he saw several months ago the same board he is saying it has been rushed. That is no rush at all and the delay has been explained. The rest... look an UFO...
We've all become so used to nVidia's hard-ball tactics and policies, it just comes across the wrong way . . . and then, looking at ATI, who behave completely opposite, it makes nVidia look even worse.
Take this situation for example - something new comes out and nVidia immediately stout "we're not supporting that!" Then they go on to set their hardware up to block compatiblity with their hardware. Honestly, that's general business practice in the PC market - look at how things have panned out between other vendors in other aspects of the market . . .
But, then you have ATI who stays quiet about this new news - and when someone finally goes to them to ask their opinion, it's vauge and overly cryptic, or runs along the lines of "no comment." Then, ATI may or may-not block support with their hardware . . . but, thing is, they don't typically come out and say so (if they do) - they wait for everyone to find out later . . . or, they throw in some hack & slash support, just so they can say they do support it (even though it may be nowhere near effcient or effective). Their passiveness makes nVidia look agressive and brash . . .
It's funny how the dynamic between the duo actually works - and it's been this way for the better part of the last decade . . . these actions are really nothing new.
So instead of fixing things like the d*mn stutter in Fallout 3 with the 19x.x drivers and the fact that the second card doesn't clock down in SLI... they're focusing on peeing in someone else's cheerios. It just seems like their strategy has complete disregard for the customer in general.
This is not bashing or anything, I'm just showing that AMD is far from being the good company that pretends to be. It's just like any other company.
EDIT: Also what about Eyefinity. I don't see they have made it an open standard before using it and it's not as if they have not promoted it. I don't see them working to make it an open standard either. All I see is a very nice feature that only works on their hardware and very little chances of that being different in the future. So where did it go the mantra of open standards?
Never going to buy another nvidia card as long as i live.
The difference is that there are proofs against Intel. Intel is guilty about all that I have "attacked" them for. Against the supposed and most of the times confirmed as false, Nvidia's malparactices there's usually no proof and everybody jumps the gun, even whe the proofs of inocence show up, people are more willing to believe that ALL developers lie, rather than accept Nvidia is not evil, not in that thing they thought it was at least. Examples: TWIMTBP bribing, DX10.1, PhysX, Batman AA...
Apology from the writer in OC3D for his misinformed claims:
www.overclock3d.net/news.php?/cpu_mainboard/nvidia_quash_msi_s_lucid_powered_big_bang_board/1Will anyone be able to do the same as him (and learn something in the process) if it happens that not only that, but also the bits* about the drivers turn out to be false too?
* This is all that has been said regarding the drivers:That's Charlie Demerjian... (I'll make a stop here, so that the info is processed) saying through the grapevine, not even mentioning the usual "sources have told me" no, through the grapevine. :laugh: That's as accurate info as it gets. Come on...
And at IDF on top of that, like there is place with more Nvidia haters nowadays you know, a very truthful information...
It's obvious that what generated that CD article was the motherboard delay and the rush of the NF200 one and not the thing about the driver that is just mildly mentioned. The motherboard portion has been confirmed as false and the other thing just doesn't hold water anymore, until true proofs are brought. But we will still hear from this for years to come.
Anyway, tbh 3DFx was almost dead by then, just like Ageia and they did support it a bit more, maybe more than if 3Dfx had gone bankrupt.
Anyway, I'm not making the point that Ati/AMD is evil, I'm making the point that Nvidia is not as evil as some people are devoted to believe and make others believe. And if they are, they are definately not doing the things they say Nvidia is doing, they might be evil, but not for those things that have been proved wrong. Maybe of something like the price fixing thing, if they are doing something "evil" we definately don't know it and probably will never know. And at the end of the day what I am complaining about is that, that people in forums accuse without proofs and that things spread and become an effect similar to the most stupid myths that are tested in Mythbusters, but are myths that people strongly believe in, like if it was true, because they have heard a lot about, because of word of mouth. IMO that's pathetic.