Lucid showed off a simple but beautiful product solution at IDF 2008.

It's this simple. How do you use two video cards on one system? How do you support a two monitor display? How do you use an older card and a newer card thereby keeping your investment working? Lucid demonstrated a brilliant method. System on a chip that sits between the CPU and the GPU and allocates the workload based upon the ability of each card.

The Hydra doesn't care what the work is nor what the ability of the card is - it just allocates the processing load as the cards can handle. It can take ATI/AMD cards as well as Nvidia cards but you cannot mix an Nvidia card with an ATI/AMD card although it will handle up to four GPUs. It is compatible with Windows XP and Vista currently.

What does it deliver? According to their press release it offers cost-effective graphics performance scaling with a linear performance increase, adaptation of distribution methods dynamically, on a per frame basis, resolution of multiple bottlenecks that exist in 3D graphics applications, and it's compatible with the latest standards of DirectX and OpenGL, requiring no special support from game developers. See green arrow in the picture for the chip. (insert picture: lucid chip)

What does this mean? If you have two different graphics cards it will use both of them to their fullest extent and has native dual monitor output. It is, in a general sense, air traffic control for graphics on your system. It uses the runways to the closest scheduling possible without caring how long it takes a large plane to land or a smaller plane to take off.

This means that it requires less memory and less bandwidth to provide a better graphics experience and allowing a gamer to play their game on one screen while using the other screen to surf the net or run other programs or their music interface without interrupting the game. Available in the first half of 2009 without a price given, even after asking, they said that the chip is likely to be available onboard through partners that are currently testing the Hydra chip.

The Hydra system uses an additional five watts of power which is pretty efficient in the power department so it doesn't need an extra fan to disperse the heat. As a special treat we got to see the competition cavorting with Offir Remez, President and VP BD of Lucid. He also seems to be one of the inventors working on this technology and quite excited (justified in this Examiner's opinion) about its new product. X