Lucid Virtu

paradisiac · 22 Jun 2011 at 20:34

ok, i have been doing a bit of reading about this and this is my conclusions. please let me know if im right.

i setup my machine as normal, i plug my monitor(s) into the onboard sockets and not the graphics card. the computer then decides which card (onboard or HD6850) is best suited for the task its asked to do and runs off of that.
so say i run a film, it would run off the onboard gfx, disabling the graphics card. then i launch a game and it switches.
ok hope this is right so far.
so, now for my confusion.
will this still work with crossfired cards?
does it kill power to the graphics cards whilst onboard is in use or just reduce the fans down to idle speeds?
and, is there anything im missing, or is this essentially only for video encoding?

cheers, sorry if this is the wrong section but it kind of covers motherboard, cpu, graphics cards and software.

d_brennen · 22 Jun 2011 at 20:43

From the little I've read it's a software layer - it intercepts DX, Direct Draw, OpenGL etc calls and processes them off to an appropriate device. Technically it can utilise any gpu from any manufacturer in any configuration.

I haven't seen any benches but I can't see it being better than hardware CF/SLI, just like their Hydra rubbish

Edit: just thinking about it, your GPU can't be fully "shut down" as such. Even at 0% usage it will be drawing power in idle mode. In a world of GTX590s and 6990s I can see the point, but normal GPUs do quite a good job of idle power reduction anyway

paradisiac · 22 Jun 2011 at 22:12

well its not great according to 3dmark11. i normally get around P5000, with lucid virtu i got P535. quite a lot less

suitheist · 22 Jun 2011 at 22:26

As I understand it, Lucid Virtu is a software layer which works with sandybridge processors on the H and Z boards. It, as you say, allows for intelligent switching between the i3/5/7 processors' intel HD2000/3000 graphics and the main graphics card. It is supposed to save power by only using the graphics card when necessary (most useful for mobile graphics), but I don't think it turns it off: it probably leaves it idle. You can plug your monitor into the graphics card and it should still work. I see no reason why it shouldn't work with crossfire.

The video encoding advantage of sandybridge comes from quick sync, which in applications which are programmed to take advantage of it, does massively increase encoding speed. This also requires an H or Z motherboard.

IPAddis · 23 Jun 2011 at 08:38

I really don't see the point of this feature on a desktop PC. If you're using Windows Explorer, your discrete GPU will not be stressed, will have it's fan spun down to minimum and will be sitting at around idle, drawing relatively little power.

Virtu allows you to use the integrated GPU instead of the discrete GPU in such cases. The discrete GPU will sitting at around idle. It's not likely to turn itself off completely.

Most overclockers have disabled most of the power saving features of their mobo (Speedstep, etc.) and have ramped up the voltage. Where's the benefit?

Same goes for the other Z68 feature of SSD caching. If you've got your entire OS on a large SSD, what's the point of the Z68 chipset over the P68?

paradisiac · 23 Jun 2011 at 08:48

IPAddis said:
I really don't see the point of this feature on a desktop PC. If you're using Windows Explorer, your discrete GPU will not be stressed, will have it's fan spun down to minimum and will be sitting at around idle, drawing relatively little power.

Virtu allows you to use the integrated GPU instead of the discrete GPU in such cases. The discrete GPU will sitting at around idle. It's not likely to turn itself off completely.

Most overclockers have disabled most of the power saving features of their mobo (Speedstep, etc.) and have ramped up the voltage. Where's the benefit?

Same goes for the other Z68 feature of SSD caching. If you've got your entire OS on a large SSD, what's the point of the Z68 chipset over the P68?

the thing is, my graphics cards dont seem to have any power saving features. the fans run at 70%+ at idle, so thought this would be an ideal way to stop that. but it didnt. MSI AB however is with a custom fan profile so that will do for me.
i found that although lucid kicked in, it didnt actually utilise the gfx cards at all for gaming, it was the same pretty much as just using the onboard chip itself.

Admiral Huddy · 23 Jun 2011 at 09:14

IPAddis said:
...snip ..

From what I've been reading, I have to share your point. The first thing I thought that nearly all cards reduce power when not in call with DX or OpenGL.. so it's nothing new.. Unless the discreet card is fully powered off, then it's a waste feeding it power when graphics is being produced from the PU.. unless I've missed something,

paradisiac · 23 Jun 2011 at 09:51

Admiral Huddy said:
IPAddis said:

...snip ..QUOTE]

From what I've been reading, I have to share your point. The first thing I thought that nearly all cards reduce power when not in call with DX or OpenGL.. so it's nothing new.. Unless the discreet card is fully powered off, then it's a waste feeding it power when graphics is being produced from the PU.. unless I've missed something,

Click to expand...

this is the thing, i cant work out what it does exactly, other than make gaming worse. unless i have it setup wrong.

Confused Stu · 23 Jun 2011 at 12:12

I thought the point of Lucid on desktop PC motherboards was to utilise Intel's Quicksync for video encoding while still allowing graphics cards to be used for gaming? Or have I missed the point?

d_brennen · 23 Jun 2011 at 13:44

Confused Stu said:
I thought the point of Lucid on desktop PC motherboards was to utilise Intel's Quicksync for video encoding while still allowing graphics cards to be used for gaming? Or have I missed the point?

I don't think Lucid know what it's for. They are trying to sell products that not many people need, want or have ever heard of! I suspect they want to be bought out by the likes of Intel/Nvidia. All the major players have their own solutions on the go for GPU switching. APUs make all this completely moot for the notebook sector too

paradisiac · 24 Jun 2011 at 12:08

right, well i finally set it up right. does anyone know what programs utilise this technology best?
i guess its for encoding, so i installed convertxtodvd but it didnt pick that up automatically to add it to its list, so i manually did it, but when encoding, the little lucid virtu logo doesnt appear

stulid · 24 Jun 2011 at 12:19

You just have to add them to the list and see what happens, theres a few hundred games supported but make sure you have the latest updates to get th newer titles as they are added.

Surveyor · 24 Jun 2011 at 12:23

paradisiac said:
right, well i finally set it up right. does anyone know what programs utilise this technology best?
i guess its for encoding, so i installed convertxtodvd but it didnt pick that up automatically to add it to its list, so i manually did it, but when encoding, the little lucid virtu logo doesnt appear

To answer you question regarding video encoding Quick Sync only works with certain programs:

Intel Quick Sync

paradisiac · 24 Jun 2011 at 12:27

Surveyor said:
To answer you question regarding video encoding Quick Sync only works with certain programs:

Intel Quick Sync

thanks for that, i have roxio so will give that a bash later, see if it makes any difference.

stulid : what benfits would it have for gaming? surely the card would be better :confused:

stulid · 24 Jun 2011 at 12:30

You want the software to switch correctly to the graphics card when it detects the game, otherwise it will just try and do its own thing.

paradisiac · 24 Jun 2011 at 12:34

stulid said:
You want the software to switch correctly to the graphics card when it detects the game, otherwise it will just try and do its own thing.

i have everything connected to the gfx card so it uses that as default, and then any software i add to the list it tries to use virtu, i added SF4 benchmark to the list and it hated me, averaged about 2fps

paradisiac · 29 Jun 2011 at 11:22

ok, so fitted my 2500k last night and gave Arcsoft MediaConverter 7 trial version a bash. i small 6min video took 30secs to convert to H.264 with lucid virtu enabled, took 74secs with it disabled. so it obvs makes a difference in encoding/converting. will try a full film tonight, see how it handles that.

paradisiac · 7 Jul 2011 at 11:18

ok, so i did a film this morning (12GB file converted to 600mb file) and it took around 15mins. which i dont think is bad for an approx 90min film. thing that is bugging me is, my cpu doesnt go over 26%. is there anyway to make it use more power to decrease times, or is it going at full speed just the cpu has got more power than the program needs?

stulid · 7 Jul 2011 at 11:22

It uses the graphics core to do the processing and not the CPU cores, so be careful what your measuring as it can be misleading, task manager only shows the CPU usage.

paradisiac · 7 Jul 2011 at 11:24

stulid said:
It uses the graphics core to do the processing and not the CPU cores, so be careful what your measuring as it can be misleading, task manager only shows the CPU usage.

the cpu reading in arcosft media converter 7 itself. didnt think of opening task manager though