Routing GPU output through the motherboard ports

[Shahmatt]

Some years back when Sandybridge was all the rage the Z87 boards came with a feature called Lucid Virtu. This allowed routing the GPU graphics output through the motherboard ports.

The reason for this was to take advantage of Intel Quicksync - i.e. where Quicksync was required the Virtu software would work with the iGPU, but for games it would switch to the dGPU. There was a small performance hit to the dGPU of around 5%.

I looked up Lucid Virtu but it does not seem to be updated or available for modern boards. I do not know if there is any modern other equivalent.

It occurred to me that, should this feature be possible now SFF builds could take advantage. For example it would be possible to plug in a dGPU with a riser and store it in a location without having the need to access its ports.

But I can't find a modern equivalent of the feature - so I guess this is a pointless post really. Anyway, just a thought.

 

[Choidebu]

If modern mobos have such feature that would indeed be awesome. Ryzen's mobo offering all comes with graphics port which is only usable when used with the upcoming ryzen APUs...

One solution is to mount an extension (male-female) to mobo's i/o backplate (most of them are very sparse), but it wouldn't be strong..

 

[Chrizz]

This feature would save me $40 on this cable for my next project (yes, the connector really needs to be that low profile). After some searching it really doesn't look like this is possible anymore though =/

 

[Phuncz]

You can find those cables a little cheaper though and it's even possible to make them custom length if you can find the connectors and flatcable for a reasonable price. I've been looking into these myself for another project.

 

[Teddy]

Possibly http://www.softth.net can do it but I haven't tried it.

 

[Vittra]

Some years back when Sandybridge was all the rage the Z87 boards came with a feature called Lucid Virtu. This allowed routing the GPU graphics output through the motherboard ports.

The reason for this was to take advantage of Intel Quicksync - i.e. where Quicksync was required the Virtu software would work with the iGPU, but for games it would switch to the dGPU. There was a small performance hit to the dGPU of around 5%.

I looked up Lucid Virtu but it does not seem to be updated or available for modern boards. I do not know if there is any modern other equivalent.

It occurred to me that, should this feature be possible now SFF builds could take advantage. For example it would be possible to plug in a dGPU with a riser and store it in a location without having the need to access its ports.

But I can't find a modern equivalent of the feature - so I guess this is a pointless post really. Anyway, just a thought.

Quicksync actually wasn't the reason for this technologies existence, though it could be used for that purpose. You can trick Quicksync into being enabled with the "fake display" trick, despite having a discreet GPU, so that option is always available.

The main selling point was to act as a desktop alternative to Nvidia Optimus/AMD Enduro. You had to choose to "virtualize" either your iGPU or Discreet GPU - essentially running it in a software mode. The reason why it utterly failed is because it required software profiles for games (reminiscent of Nvidia/AMD gaming profiles) which Lucidlogix had to keep up to date on - which they never did, as they couldn't keep up. It was also a much more significant hit than 5% in most cases, even with the profiles.

The last board to have it that I am aware of was the EVGA Z97 Stinger.