- Jun 30, 2004
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It's been about 30 months since they released the SB-K cores with Intel HD 3000 gfx, and the motherboards that allowed configuration to use Lucid's software pairing the iGPU with a dGPU.
The responses to Lucid were luke-warm -- not so "lucid" warm. Some people avoided it, others experimented; reviewers somehow proved that there was little performance improvement and possibly a small performance hit.
So I recently thought I discovered something, and the "something" should have been uncovered in choosing "iGPU mode" and "dGPU mode" when those reviews were published.
I had set up my system in dGPU mode, meaning that my monitors were connected to the dGPU (in my case, a GTX 570 card with only 1,284 MB of VRAM). In troubleshooting an occasional instability problem, I decided to rethink how I run my AVR and HDTV with my desktop monitor off my GTX 570 -- with or without Lucid. Some advice suggested that I use the Intel HD audio for my audio stack and take it off the NVidia card. And I began to contemplate possible advantages of running at least one monitor (my desktop) from the motherboard and HD3000 while running one or two (either including the HDTV) from the GTX 570.
So I swapped over to iGPU mode, making my HD 3000 iGPU the preferred boot display and monitor. So I plugged my desktop monitor directly into the mobo.
Suddenly, all my games are running faster on the desktop with Virtu "ON" than when the desktop monitor was connected to the GTX 570 with Virtu "ON." These two observations of performance are different from an experience of using the HD 3000 alone using 512MB of RAM for graphics. In that latter case, the resolution was crude and grainy, the games way too much slower. Of the three configurations, with or without Lucid, the configuration with the gaming monitor connected to the motherboard and Lucid "turned on" wins out.
I'm wondering if the reviewers had overlooked this. But I can contemplate running not just two -- but three monitors off this system, where I could only run two from the GTX 570 -- with or without Lucid.
I'm getting a new graphics card -- maybe a GTX 770 or 780. Sure -- I'll get extra performance, but I'd like to have more VRAM than 1.3 GB. And I'm wondering if others had this experience with iGPU versus dGPU mode while running Lucid.
The responses to Lucid were luke-warm -- not so "lucid" warm. Some people avoided it, others experimented; reviewers somehow proved that there was little performance improvement and possibly a small performance hit.
So I recently thought I discovered something, and the "something" should have been uncovered in choosing "iGPU mode" and "dGPU mode" when those reviews were published.
I had set up my system in dGPU mode, meaning that my monitors were connected to the dGPU (in my case, a GTX 570 card with only 1,284 MB of VRAM). In troubleshooting an occasional instability problem, I decided to rethink how I run my AVR and HDTV with my desktop monitor off my GTX 570 -- with or without Lucid. Some advice suggested that I use the Intel HD audio for my audio stack and take it off the NVidia card. And I began to contemplate possible advantages of running at least one monitor (my desktop) from the motherboard and HD3000 while running one or two (either including the HDTV) from the GTX 570.
So I swapped over to iGPU mode, making my HD 3000 iGPU the preferred boot display and monitor. So I plugged my desktop monitor directly into the mobo.
Suddenly, all my games are running faster on the desktop with Virtu "ON" than when the desktop monitor was connected to the GTX 570 with Virtu "ON." These two observations of performance are different from an experience of using the HD 3000 alone using 512MB of RAM for graphics. In that latter case, the resolution was crude and grainy, the games way too much slower. Of the three configurations, with or without Lucid, the configuration with the gaming monitor connected to the motherboard and Lucid "turned on" wins out.
I'm wondering if the reviewers had overlooked this. But I can contemplate running not just two -- but three monitors off this system, where I could only run two from the GTX 570 -- with or without Lucid.
I'm getting a new graphics card -- maybe a GTX 770 or 780. Sure -- I'll get extra performance, but I'd like to have more VRAM than 1.3 GB. And I'm wondering if others had this experience with iGPU versus dGPU mode while running Lucid.
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