Nvidia blocks Lucid Hydra at driver level

[Sylvanas]

Yep, they're at it again. http://www.overclock3d.net/news.php?/cpu_mainboard/nvidia_quash_msi_s_lucid_powered_big_bang_board/1

The jolly green giant, NVIDIA really don’t like that. With little to show their investors and even more delays to their GT300 ‘Fermi’ cards, any losses in their ‘SLI tax’ racket would really sting. Because of that they have claimed they will break support for Lucid’s chip at the driver level, and by unknown means coerced board makers Micro-Star International (MSI) into postponing their ‘Big Bang’ motherboard, which features a Lucid Hydra 200 processor taking care of the PCI-Express graphics subsystem. You can see the chip between the CPU socket and the first PCI-E slot in the picture.

That 5870 is looking very tempting.

 

[zmatt]

Figures they would. I don't think they understand that hydra would increase Nvidia sales. Having a 5870 and a GTX295 at the same time would be killer. I would jump on that technology in a heart beat. And I imagine a lot of fellow enthusiasts would too.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Source: SemiAccurate

This was posted in a different thread, this is really a rehash of the same story... still waiting for more non-Charlie sources.

 

[smoothvirus]

That 5870 is looking very tempting.

Good luck finding one.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Its already proven that this story is false.

From XS:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4098345&postcount=155

I told you guys I know somebody who works for LucidLogix.
He's also a member of this very extreme forum, but he doesn't seem to want to post anything himself ( I wouldn't too, if I was working for them and was bound by NDA and risk losing my job ).

Now if you guys are so eager to hear that it was nVIDIA who stopped MSI then I guess there's nothing that can be done.
Even if an MSI rep. posted something I'm quite sure lots of people wouldn't believe his words...

Anyway... keep it up...

 

[HurleyBird]

I wouldn't be surprised if Nvidia does do this in the future, but for now this rumor has no substance.

 

[Barfo]

Its already proven that this story is false.

From XS:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4098345&postcount=155

So a post in some forum from someone who knows the friend of a cousin of a janitor at Nvidia's headquarters proves the story (which didn't provide any proof whatsoever it was true in the first place) is false?

 

[Cookie Monster]

So a post in some forum from someone who knows the friend of a cousin of a janitor at Nvidia's headquarters proves the story (which didn't provide any proof whatsoever it was true in the first place) is false?

Well its your decision to believe it or not obviously.

To me, BenchZowner has enough credibility for his statement to hold substance.

 

[Barfo]

Well its your decision to believe it or not obviously.

To me, BenchZowner has enough credibility for his statement to hold substance.

I didn't believe the story to be true in the first place so...

 

[thilanliyan]

Here's more:
http://vr-zone.com/articles/nvidia/the-nvidia-lucid-controversy/8004.html?doc=8004

 

[TemjinGold]

nVidia would be digging their own grave if this IS true and Hydra delivers as promised as, even if Fermi beats 5xxx, SLI will have a much harder time beating 5xxx Hydra...

 

[bryanW1995]

sorry, but lucid has overhyped themselves. I read claims of 100% scaling in the AT article several months back. That is a pretty strong statement when you look at how poorly xfire and sli scale currently. I think that lucid is just a bunch of hotair hoping to get bought out by intel, samsung, asus, nvidia, etc. They don't have the resources that ati/nvidia do, they don't design the cards so they'll always be behind on driver support, so how do they expect to do a BETTER job of it???

edit: looks like alex myers will never work for fudzilla/bsn/semiaccurate; he's got too much integrity.

 

[SunnyD]

Scary... I called it.

 

[alcoholbob]

BenchZowner is also on nvidia's payroll and has released benchmark spoilers before, such as G92 benchmarks during mid 2007. On XS forums he's the equivalent of Wreckage, except Wreckage (as far as we know) does not work for nvidia.

 

[Cookie Monster]

From the same article

Update: MSI's Garrett Wu responded, and while he is not the person we were talking to, his response is as follows.

“The MSI P55 Big Bang with NVIDIA NF200 was already planned in December 2008, almost one year ago. MSI showcased this board on Cebit 2009 which was reported by many media like http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?id=24935&catid=2 and there are also photos which show very clearly the NF200 chip: http://images.hardware.info/news/cebit-day2-23.jpg. MSI Big Bang Trinergy (NF200) is already announced and will go into mass production by the end of November.

The MSI Big Bang Fuzion (Hydra 200) hardware is ready. Currently Lucid is optimizing the driver for Windows 7 so that it works stable and in all configurations (Including Mix & Match mode). Because MSI is dedicated to bring high quality and stable product on the market we decided to postpone the Big Bang Fuzion (Hydra 200) pending the MSI internal qualification assurance test. The Big Bang Fuzion (Hydra 200) will be released when it’s driver is finished which is most likely Q1 2010.

 

[MarcVenice]

From the same article

I've been over this with MSI, but also Asus. Like mr Wu sais, the hardware is ready and MSI told me personally it is working in Windows 7. But they needed more time to test. It doesn't take 3/4 months to test from what I know.

Asus on the other hand, sais they will not be releasing a motherboard with a hydra-chip. Funny enough though, I heard different like a month or so ago, when someone told me they are aiming for december to release a hydra-motherboard. So either Asus PR is lieing to me, or Asus scrapped the whole thing, and that makes you wonder.

Also, to get AMD in on this little story, I simply emailed back and forth with Terry Makedon, who told me AMD doesn't see Lucid as a threat. He couldn't speculate about what they would do when Lucid comes out, but he said there was no intention of creating an artificial barrier for the Hydra chip. I also asked about Hydra-chips on AMD-mobo's, but he isn't a mobo-guy so he couldn't say anything about that.

 

[Keysplayr]

I did the same with Nvidia, Marc. They said they did not do anything to block. "This is Charlie speculating and trying to "expletive" on us. We haven't done anything to block, and have never even rec'd any hw to test!"

 

[shangshang]

I'm rooting for Lucid Hydra to something more than just a novelty on a mobo that will go away in 2 years. Let's say the Hydra becomes so popular so fast that both AMD and NV decides to block it, then what?? Lucid Hydra seems to have a good product, but they are vulnerable and needs an ally in this game. Also, Lucid doesn't enough products in the pipeline to make them a legit long term company. Makes me wonder if Lucid is doing all this with the main objective of getting Intel to buy them out. Me thinks Lucid Hydra could become Lucid Dream though.

 

[jvroig]

I had high hopes for this, not as an enthusiast who likes expensive stuff (I certainly don't), but because of the technological implications it has. How can some company (who doesn't make cards) achieve close to 100% scaling? That's fantastic, and whatever they did to achieve that (if true) might be useful in other related fields.

But then again, the kicker is, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is, right?

Still, can't help but be disappointed. They even had that countdown clock, for crying out loud

 

[TemjinGold]

I'm rooting for Lucid Hydra to something more than just a novelty on a mobo that will go away in 2 years. Let's say the Hydra becomes so popular so fast that both AMD and NV decides to block it, then what?? Lucid Hydra seems to have a good product, but they are vulnerable and needs an ally in this game. Also, Lucid doesn't enough products in the pipeline to make them a legit long term company. Makes me wonder if Lucid is doing all this with the main objective of getting Intel to buy them out. Me thinks Lucid Hydra could become Lucid Dream though.

If the Hydra is the real deal, why would nV AND amd want to block it? Wouldn't something like this sell more cards (as the "value" proposition for multiple cards is much better because of it)?

 

[shangshang]

IF Lucid scales at 100% across all games like they make it out to be... and the comminity DEMANDS that NV and AMD not temper with Lucid (by ways of artificial drivers blockage).. maybe just maybe Lucid can survive. If Lucid does not scale like its hype, and it gives game problems... then kiss it goodbye.. NV and AMD won't need to do a thing.

Lucid hype reminds me of when mobo makers use Promise "IDE RAID" chip for onboard RAID. It create quite a buzz at the time. Many tech websites ran IDE RAID tests, and guys would go around bragging "yeah I RAID'ed my system". Since then intel ICH7, 8, 9, 10 all had "RAID". But no one uses it because

1) it's slow
2) it's messy to setup

Is Lucid going to be slow? laggy? messy to setup? I just think it's too good to be true, and I don't wanna be the first guinea pigs! It would have been more comforting if both AMD and NV had been working with Lucid. But as of right now, I see this as another onboard Promise IDE RAID situation

 

[BenchZowner]

BenchZowner is also on nvidia's payroll

That is definitely not true at all ( nVIDIA if you're reading this, I wouldn't mind a 1.000.000$ check though )

Sorry for the thread revival, some birdie told me about this thread and specific post.

 

[Nemesis 1]

So Bench Zowner Why Did you revive this thread . Just to say you didn't work for NV.

Or was it that Spam link below your message

 

[BenchZowner]

So Bench Zowner Why Did you revive this thread . Just to say you didn't work for NV.

Stating the obvious, well, yes.

I'm a straightforward person and want to come clean every time.
Somebody accused me of being paid by nVIDIA for malicious or non-malicious purposes, which is not true.

Or was it that Spam link below your message

FAIL ?
Reasons why ?

1) I don't have/want to advertise my site
2) As you can see I haven't updated the site in ages, it's in "hibernation" the last 6 months or so, so no.