What happened to the Lucid Hydra Fuzion board?

[SSChevy2001]

Welcome to the video forum.

It's been mostly taken over by AMDzone.:'(

Here's some proof, right from Kyle Bennett, but I guess he's now part of the AMDzone.

NVIDIA has told me that it may very well code so that this Lucid silicon is worthless with its products and that pretty much nullifies the thing.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1034656034#post1034656034

 

[Ben90]

How long did ATI have advantage with R510 or Xbox . ATI was allowed info that NV wasn't . So MS had to Cut DX10 apart because ATI had unfair advantage. This was made public knowledge right here way back than. By me. I may not like NV but I don't like underhanded deals either. So the DX10 thing wasn't such a big deal when ya consider the unfair advantage ATI had while working on the Xbox.

wut?x2

I was under the impression they cut DX10 apart because ATI couldn't get their shit together to handle the original DX10 specifications. Maybe ur right because it was a long time ago... i tried looking for a source but i couldnt find anything.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I think Nvidia has made some moves as of late that have been very not-friendly for the consumer. And I'll add that I often think that Charlie's stories, even when not entirely correct, are often pointed in the right direction with some of the things he says. But in this case, after reading the story, I don't see anything that is remotely close to concrete. I'll wait for more sources and stories before I grab my pitchfork and torch.

*edit - Didn't see SSChevy2001's post. Maybe Charlie is correct? Maybe not. I guess we'll find out.

 

[Nemesis 1]

wut?x2

I was under the impression they cut DX10 apart because ATI couldn't get their shit together to handle the original DX10 specifications. Maybe ur right because it was a long time ago... i tried looking for a source but i couldnt find anything.

No it was NV that went to MS crying foul about DX10 because ATI had unfair advantage which was true. So MS changed the orginalDx10 so NV hardware functioned in DX10 mode. Now that DX11 is final NV has zero choice. Put up or shut up. The orginal DX10 code was closer to Dx11 than it was to Dx10 as we know it today.

 

[Denithor]

F*** Charlie

Fixed that for ya.

Wish you guys would quit posting these crap unsubstantiated stories without at least a warning in the sub heading...

 

[Ben90]

Touche' Nemesis

 

[yh125d]

There's no solid info that nvidia has done anything at all as of yet regarding hydra. Probably some internal MSI/Lucid issue noone wants to talk about.




Although I do think nvidia will at some point take steps towards limiting or prohibiting use of nvidia cards with lucid boards (or maybe just prohibiting SLI + lucid, or ati/nv + lucid)

 

[bryanW1995]

Welcome to the video forum.

It's been mostly taken over by AMDzone.:'(

don't worry, as long as you're here you are biased enough to take care of a LOT of zoners. I'm surprised that you haven't accused keys or ben skywalker of being a "zoner" yet b/c they don't trash amd enough.

Thilan, the charlie story might be a little bit plausible if Lucid's hardware hadn't been total and utter vapor-ware to date including the entire lacking of leaked anything and everything.

If Lucid really had something capable of making NV quake in their boots then you can bet some hothead somewhere with the hardware already in hand would not have been able to resist the urge to brag about their hands being on said hardware and some HWBot scores or leaked benches would have shown up somewhere by now.

With Lucid being a total no-show to date I give far more credence to anyone who posits the theory that Lucid themselves are the source of the "NV is holding us back, bro!" rumors being fed to the likes of Charlie and other bloggers.

agreed. AMD and nvidia spend a LOT of time and money getting identical cards to work relatively well together, and they built the things! Hydra has been a pipe dream imho since inception and will probably just disappear now. You can't blame this one on nvidia.


@yh125d: nvidia could certainly at some take some steps to limit lucid, but there claims make me question their sanity. The much-hyped hydra is supposedly going to have 100% scaling when neither nvidia nor amd can get that on their own cards (strike 1). They are ALWAYS going to be behind in writing drivers on newer cards because they won't have access to them until they come out (strike 2). The whole point of the hydra is for the guy who wants to go from gt200 to 5xxx or 4850 to gtx 285 and doesn't want to go through the hassle of selling his old card, but honestly it's looking to be so expensive anyway that if they don't get better scaling than xfire/sli then most people will just stick with x58/p55 mobos or their future equivalent and double up on cards in some instances as prices drop.

 

[thilanliyan]

Here's a post at XS from Linus @ NCIX (he's heavily involved at NCIX which would be carrying the boards if they had any):
"I haven't read the whole thread, but I do know that MSI never intended to launch the Big Bang FuZion at the end of the countdown.

It is (and was) scheduled for a later date, AFTER the NF200 based board"

So were all those hardware sites deceived? Even AT had said it was coming out at the end of October didn't they? And actually where are the Trinergy boards to buy anyway?

 

[alcoholbob]

Nvidia has already disabled the BFG/ASUS Ageia PhysX PPU boards from working with ATI hardware, I hardly see disabling Hydra particularly out of character for Nvidia.

 

[T2k]

Thilan, the charlie story might be a little bit plausible if Lucid's hardware hadn't been total and utter vapor-ware to date including the entire lacking of leaked anything and everything.

If Lucid really had something capable of making NV quake in their boots then you can bet some hothead somewhere with the hardware already in hand would not have been able to resist the urge to brag about their hands being on said hardware and some HWBot scores or leaked benches would have shown up somewhere by now.

With Lucid being a total no-show to date I give far more credence to anyone who posits the theory that Lucid themselves are the source of the "NV is holding us back, bro!" rumors being fed to the likes of Charlie and other bloggers.

Just WTF are you smoing, seriously?

It's been documented all around the web as a working setup.

Where have you been...?

 

[T2k]

Here's a post at XS from Linus @ NCIX (he's heavily involved at NCIX which would be carrying the boards if they had any):
"I haven't read the whole thread, but I do know that MSI never intended to launch the Big Bang FuZion at the end of the countdown.

It is (and was) scheduled for a later date, AFTER the NF200 based board"

So were all those hardware sites deceived? Even AT had said it was coming out at the end of October didn't they? And actually where are the Trinergy boards to buy anyway?

He's a sales guy - don't even get me started on a sales guy's credibility.

 

[T2k]

Here's some proof, right from Kyle Bennett, but I guess he's now part of the AMDzone.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1034656034#post1034656034

Well, Nvidia is WELL-KNOWN for its anti-competitive, unscrupulous, shady 'end justifies the means' tactics so this story DOES SOUND RIGHT, even if eventually truth will be different.

Nvidia brand = a no hold barred, immoral, broken brand

 

[thilanliyan]

He's a sales guy - don't even get me started on a sales guy's credibility.

I know he's a sales guy (definitely an enthusiast though) but he gets to play with the hardware and knows when stuff hits the shelves.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Just WTF are you smoing, seriously?

It's been documented all around the web as a working setup.

Where have you been...?

-I've always been suspicious of the fact that the two games Lucid decided to show off were FEAR 2 and Bioshock... two games that either the 4890 or GTX 260 could chew through alone with ease.

Pile onto that fact many of the people that saw this working set-up without seeing any frame-rates or any really meaningful indicator of the Lucid chip actually doing something and you have a very shady situation.

I mean, FEAR 2 and Bioshock?! You have linear performance scaling and you're demoing two games that would be bouncing off of the 60 FPS mark on EITHER of those cards by themselves?! This is when you pull out the big guns and throw down Crysis or something.

No doubt the hardware is there and they've convinced everyone that this is the hottest **** since T&L, but something on the software level could have hit a real brick wall or who knows what.

Devil's Advocate: However, I could see why ATI would love this and Nvidia would hate this. The Lucid chip plays right into ATI's game plan of making affordable and relatively powerful mainstream processors and simply doubling them up to high end. Hell, the Hydra supposedly does it better than even ATI does. This and other factors would result in NVIDIA's high end parts being further pressed to justify their existence (not meant as a dig at NVIDIA, they would have competition from their own mainstream parts, eating into their own profit margins).

Just sayin'

 

[Hauk]

Anand, any info on this? An update to your article would be in order, and much appreciated.

 

[Hauk]

Here's some proof, right from Kyle Bennett, but I guess he's now part of the AMDzone.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1034656034#post1034656034

More credible than Charlie, but this one's important enough to wait for multiple credible sources. Anand?

 

[dflynchimp]

I'm nagging again, and partly it is due to the forum server glitching right now (new forum engine probably) but please don't get click-happy with the post button. Just because the screen hangs doesn't mean your post wasn't recorded. Clicking the button more than once will cause your posts to be logged as many times as you click.

 

[Creig]

Just WTF are you smoing, seriously?

It's been documented all around the web as a working setup.

Where have you been...?

Ease up, T2K. Not everybody is totally up to date on every piece of hardware in existence. IDC may simply not have known about the working samples shown to a few reviewers.

 

[BFG10K]

Duplicate posts have been deleted.

Video Mod BFG10K.

 

[Idontcare]

Just WTF are you smoing, seriously?

It's been documented all around the web as a working setup.

Where have you been...?

What has been documented is this:

If for any reason Lucid can't run a game in multi-GPU mode, it will always fall back to working on a single GPU without any interaction from the end user.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3646

So until there is some kind of performance numbers generated to actually do anything to prove that Lucid is doing what they claim to be doing when it comes to ganging up multiple video cards to actually accelerate graphics rendering and fps then all we can say is that we have been shown pictures of two examples of setups that had just two cards in them which for all we know were merely playing games rendered on just one of the cards completely transparent to the viewer because the software is designed to do just that.

I am quite aware of what everyone has been led to believe, and I am quite aware of how little proof has actually been offered which is why I call it vapor-ware.

How many of you are old enough to remember the Infinium gaming console vapor-ware and HardOCP lawsuit debacle in 2003?

Behind the Infinium Phantom Console

Infinium also had a "unit" that they would show around as well. I'm just saying I see very deep parallels between Infinium and Lucid at the moment, we've been pumped with hype over the prospects of Hydra for more than a year now and the only evidence that has been offered to say it will actually do anything as hyped is these static photos of two setups in which we already know that if nothing is working to plan the game will still continue to function on one of the cards anyways unbeknownst to the viewer.

I'm not asking you guys to open your eyes and think critically about anything here, I intend to pose no threat to whatever view of the world you choose to live in...I am merely voicing my opinion and letting it be known that I am beyond suspicious of Lucid/Hydra at this point. (an opinion which I naturally reserve the right to change should data ever come along to support a change in opinion)

Hype without follow-thru is a red flag and I don't need to invoke mysterious sinister forces (charlie/NV) as being the progenitor of the outcome for it to be plausibly explainable just by knowing a little history.

 

[BFG10K]

I tend to agree with Idontcare.

This product is essentially promising the silver bullet of multi-GPU scaling, and also indirectly claims its engineers are somehow smarter than ATis and nVidia’s for their own technology.

If something sounds too good to be true it usually is, so until we see proper benchmarks in multiple games, I’m of the opinion that this product will fail.

 

[v8envy]

Lucid's engineers don't have to be smarter than ATI or NV ones. They have a whole new batch of resources to draw from. Remember that Lucid's solution would add about $80 to the price of a motherboard -- this is far more than mainstream products from NV and ATI cost retail!

With that kind of budget you can definitely throw resources at silicon and software to do things differently. Where ATI and NV engineers are given direction to cut costs the Lucid ones can take a completely different track.

Not saying that's what is happening, but in theory their approach is possible. It may not be practical for all existing hardware out there though.

 

[yh125d]

Remember that Lucid's solution would add about $80 to the price of a motherboard -- this is far more than mainstream products from NV and ATI cost retail!

I don't know where you got that number, but it's way higher than what I read on AT (~4 months ago), and I very much doubt it. Hell, the P55 chipset only costs like 35-45 I think

 

[Idontcare]

I don't know where you got that number, but it's way higher than what I read on AT (~4 months ago), and I very much doubt it. Hell, the P55 chipset only costs like 35-45 I think

Lucid wouldn't tell us the added cost on a motherboard but Lucid gave us the guidance of around $1.50 per PCIe lane. The high end chip has 48 total PCIe lanes, which puts the premium at $72. The low end chip has 24 lanes, translating into a $36 cost for the Hydra 200 chip.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3646

And since I can't just add a post to this forum that solely adds nothing but value by quoting the relevant source, I find myself writing this value-less sentence as well.