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August 20, 2008 9:30 AM PDT

Lucid's Hydra 100 shows its stuff

by Eric Franklin
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The Hydra chip

(Credit: LucidLogix Technologies)

Last month, LucidLogix Technologies announced Hydra, a new take on multi-GPU implementation for desktops and notebooks. Monday, I got a chance to see a live demo of the technology, and get some clarity on what exactly this thing is expected to do.

Before we get into the demo, allow me to provide some context in case the previous link did not do its job (very likely, as looking back on it, it's kinda thin; anyway...). The Hydra 100 is a Silicon on Chip (SoC) solution to scaling 3D graphics. Basically, it allows you to, for example, insert up to four graphics cards from any one vendor (ATI or Nvidia) and receive linear performance from each card. That's the promise at least.

Now you may be asking, "Doesn't this already exist?" Well kinda. Each graphics card vendor has its own solution that allows you to place multiple GPUs into one system to achieve increased performance--ATI with Crossfire and Nvidia with SLI. What separates the Lucid method is the techniques involved in achieving this.

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July 14, 2008 3:09 PM PDT

Lucid's Hydra to revolutionize PC graphic upgrades

by Eric Franklin
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Hydra allows you to harness the power of multiple graphic cards.

(Credit: LucidLogix Technologies)

LucidLogix Technologies seeks to make your video card's processing more efficient. The Israel-based company claims that its new Hydra technology will direct graphic processing traffic between multiple GPUs, using several "intelligent parallelization algorithms." This is a system-on-a-chip solution that will be embedded into video cards and motherboards. LucidLogix claims this will result in the following:


1. "Cost-effective graphic performance with a near-linear to above-linear performance."
2. "Eliminate bottlenecks that exist in typical 3D graphic applications."
3. "Provide interoperability with all GPUs and chipsets."
4. "Work with the latest versions of DirectX and OpenGL."

The key things that stand out to me are the "above-linear performance" claim and the "all GPUs and chipsets" detail. The current video card in my PC is the ATI Radeon X1950. So, supposedly with Hydra I'll be able to add a Nvidia GeForce 8800 card to get better performance than the two cards are normally capable of. Whether or not the technology will actually work remains to be seen. LucidLogix claims this will improve the performance of any 3D application dynamically without developers having to write specific code. The trick here will be getting all of this to work seamlessly. I hope they can pull it off, as I'm in need of a "cheap" upgrade and I don't want to deal with any headaches. Hydra is set to be available starting in the first half of 2009.

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