News - HYDRA Engine vows to free us of multi-GPU restrictions

[HEXUS]

Ever wanted to make completely different GPUs work together? Lucid's HYDRA Engine promises to do just that when it lands in 2009.

Read more.

[shaithis]

If that works efficiently, it could be huge.

I fully expect it to end up putting heavy loads on 1 gpu and lesser loads on others though, especially in games like Crysis which seem to be written in an odd manor.

It will be very interesting to follow the news on this one though.

[Nikumba]

Sounds good to me, so if it works as advertised, devs can just write the game for DirectX and let this chip do the work.

Of course it could be good if they could get Microsoft to write support directly into the DirectX API though, somthing that I think Aeiga should have done with physix card of theirs

Kimbie

[EnglishLion]

At last, the final piece of the picture to make multi GPU technology really useful.

1. Multi Nvidia GPUs without being tied to an Nvidia chipset!
2. Buy a GPU to run single and then upgrade to multi GPU later without having to search for an overpriced last gen card! Just add the latest bang for buck card!

Just think how complicated review sites will be: here's the benchmark for the 4870, 4850, 280GX, 260GX combo with AA and AF and at 1650 x 1080, then we have the bencmark for 4870, 4870, 280GX, 260GX combo with AA and AF and at 1650 x 1080... It'll be graphs galore!

[DR]

What would be interesting is to know the performance between SLI / CrossFire and the same GPUs running with this Engine instead

[Tidus]

Sounds like a good idea, It'll be interesting to see if it is as simple as they are making it out to be.

[Tidus]

What would be interesting is to know the performance between SLI / CrossFire and the same GPUs running with this Engine instead

An ATI / Nvidia combo would be a interesting idea aswell, if a ATI and Nvidia combo would work better than a Dual ATI or Dual Nvidia that would be an interesting change in the market, but will this chip idea take off?

[Tarinder]

You can't run cards from different vendors, not in Vista at least, as the driver model prohibits it.

[Biscuit]

You can't run cards from different vendors, not in Vista at least, as the driver model prohibits it.

erm...

The huge advantage here is that it's platform independent. Your graphics drivers are pretty much irrelevant, bang any selection of up to four graphics cards into a HYRDA-powered system, and they'll work together seamlessly.

im confused?

[dangel]

HYDRA works outside of the OS/driver level - you still have the problem that Windows won't allow ATI and nVIDIA drivers to co-exist (apparently) so whilst HYDRA won't stop you doing it, Windows will.

[Funkstar]

I've not read it yet, but here is an in depth article on Hydra:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=607

Found it on Engadget this morning.

A key point that hasn't been highlighted in other news posts I've read on this technology:

Lucid is offering up scaling between GPUs of any KIND within a brand (only ATI with ATI, NVIDIA with NVIDIA)

I think that answers Dangels point. And as both AMD and nvidia have integrated common driver packs, installing cards from different generations shouldn't be too dificult.