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Triedout the "Lucid Virtu" feature on the gigabyte UD4, and.......

Phil2008

Phil2008

Phil2008

Soldato
Joined
17 Dec 2004
Posts
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I thought I would see if this really works,, and yes it does (but)

First I downloaded and installed the intel display drivers and the virtu software, then I unplugged the dvi cable out of my 6950 and plugged in a hdmi cable between the onboard graphics and the monitor. I tried crysis benchmark and shift2, with crysis I lost about 2-3fps and with shift2 I lost 10-15 fps.

So yeah It works but you loose a bit of speed even tho its using the correct gpu and its clever how it outputs your main graphics gpu through the onboard gpu socket.

So basically if there wasn't any fps lost, I would use the feature, as its really good on paper, but not all that great in practice yet. also the mountain on the benchmark of crysis wasn't very detailed:(
 
Is that how it works? Embarrassed to say that I had no clue what virtu did or how to work it :confused:
 
seemingly my current gigabyte mobo has this.

no idea how to implement it or what its supposed to do mind you
 
I know the idea is that for when you are just in Windows surfing, emailing or whatever it can power off your GPU and use the integrated Intel HDx000 on the CPU. Once you launch something graphics intensive it then switches back on the GPU and uses that.

Great idea for saving power, but as I said above just never knew how to make it work!
 
AFAIK you can do it two ways, connect displays to the IGP(not sure how more than one display works if you need certain types of output), then you can use the IGP in desktop, use quicksync, but some games suffer in performance. Or you can connect to the GPU but still have access to quicksync, but I think that is about the only feature you gain and this shouldn't hurt performance in games, in theory, but I've not really seen or read enough on it to be sure either way.

Basically it doesn't seem to work perfectly, or seamlessly, and is a good start but isn't quite "there" yet.

Would be more critical I think if quicksync was more widely supported with software that lets you improve output quality and if just general IGP acceleration was more widely used than it is.
 
From the installation guide on my board

3 Hardware installation
3.1 i-Mode
i-Mode provides user with Intel Sandy special features and power saving options when no 3D gaming is used.

To use Lucid VIRTU solution in i-Mode, display must be always connected to Sandy Bridge motherboard video
output.
Note: Display can be also connected to IPG VGA output instead of IPG DVI output.

3.2 d-Mode
d-Mode is provided for demanding 3D gamers to achieve uncompromised 3D performance of discrete GPU
installed in the system. In this mode, Virtu allows user to utilize Intel special features such as trascoding, while
display is connected to discrete GPU.

Note: We recommend you use d-Mode for better 3D performance unless you use Intel Insider feature or the
power saving i-Mode.
If you use Lucid VIRTU solution with SLI / Crossfire feature, please select d-Mode.
We recommend you use d-Mode for Lucid VIRTU solution if your graphics card is equipped with dual
GPUs.
To use Lucid VIRTU solution in d-Mode, display must be connected to discrete GPU installed in the system.
 
Yeah I tried connecting it from 6950 to monitor, but it was using the 6950 while browsing the net, and the whole idea of it, is to only use your main gpu for gamming. But connecting it this way, didnt use the onboard gpu at all.
 
I brought a cheap Hdmi Switcher and connected the motherboard's DVI and the graphics card;s HDMI to it. If I want to play games I just hit the button on the switcher and it goes to my 6970 graphics card and when I'm done I hit the aitch again and it goes back to the on-board graphics.
 
You need a wall socket showing you how much power you are taking from the wall to get a real feel for how much less power you are drawing when using LV. From there you can decide if the overheads that cause the slight fps loss are really worth it. That said when you are gaming, it does not take much effort to turn LV off.
 
shadesofgrey said:
You need a wall socket showing you how much power you are taking from the wall to get a real feel for how much less power you are drawing when using LV. From there you can decide if the overheads that cause the slight fps loss are really worth it. That said when you are gaming, it does not take much effort to turn LV off.
Click to expand...

But it will be connected to the onboard gpu,, so its not that easy as just turning the LU on and off
 
Phil2008 said:
But it will be connected to the onboard gpu,, so its not that easy as just turning the LU on and off
Click to expand...
Phil2008 said:
Also when you turn off the LV it disables the main gpu from working, as I tried and was getting about 10fps in games.
Click to expand...

Why are you not plugging it into your graphics card? If you have a gpx card in your system it will always be turned on, to an extent.

When LV has decided to use the igp on the cpu to do the work it simply sends the video via the graphics card, it doesn't use the graphics card to do any of the work.
 
By plugging the cable into the graphics card, the onboard gfx helps with decoding or something like that anyway. So to make it work so your main graphics card only works with demanding stuff, you have to be connected to the onboard graphics.
 
Wingz said:
I brought a cheap Hdmi Switcher and connected the motherboard's DVI and the graphics card;s HDMI to it. If I want to play games I just hit the button on the switcher and it goes to my 6970 graphics card and when I'm done I hit the aitch again and it goes back to the on-board graphics.
Click to expand...

Surely that's not actually going to do anything for you though since the 6970 is still sat there idling and consuming power? The idea of the Lucid tech in i-mode at least is basically to shut down the external card when it's not in use so it's actually reducing power consumption somewhat. When you're just not using the display attached to it, it's not doing any power saving.
 
Phemo said:
Surely that's not actually going to do anything for you though since the 6970 is still sat there idling and consuming power? The idea of the Lucid tech in i-mode at least is basically to shut down the external card when it's not in use so it's actually reducing power consumption somewhat. When you're just not using the display attached to it, it's not doing any power saving.
Click to expand...

it doesn't shut down the card and also tests shows that the power consumption in idle is roughly the same in I or D mode. The good thing about I mode is that for example, if your watching a mp4 file it will use the processor gpu rather than the graphics card so it uses less power.
 
Plus the 3d kicks in for firefox with my 6950, so I mode would be handy for that too, letting the processor's gpu work firefox instead of the 6950.

Like I said, if it wasn't for the performance loss in games I would use LV
 
I thought Lucid was for using Quicksync with discrete graphics cards because Quicksync will only output to the onboard graphics.
Therefore it saves you the hassle of having to enable and disable drivers and outputs manually and rebooting.
So if you are encoding, enable virtu, get your fast encoding done (whilst viewing what ever display is connected to your onboard vga). When encoding finished switch back to normal mode using the discrete gpu (on whatever display is plugged into your card).
I didnt think it actually used your discrete card's power and pushed it through to your onboard vga output?
 
TheJackal said:
I thought Lucid was for using Quicksync with discrete graphics cards because Quicksync will only output to the onboard graphics.
Therefore it saves you the hassle of having to enable and disable drivers and outputs manually and rebooting.
So if you are encoding, enable virtu, get your fast encoding done (whilst viewing what ever display is connected to your onboard vga). When encoding finished switch back to normal mode using the discrete gpu (on whatever display is plugged into your card).
I didnt think it actually used your discrete card's power and pushed it through to your onboard vga output?
Click to expand...

the fast encoding feature works if your connected up to your main gpu and not the onboard's gpu
 
Im about to order a Z68 itx board that has both intels onboard video and a onboard nvidia GT430. It says it has lucid virtu. Would this mean if I ran my screen off one of the video outs that normally handles the intel video then it might actually use both depending on the application been used and load?

I understand fps may or may not take a hit which is something that would need to be tested.
 
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