VR-Zone

In addition to its XLR8 software, LucidLogix also announced VGWare or Virtual Graphics Ware which is a cloud graphics software according to the company that will allow for cloud gaming and remote graphics rendering. Beyond enabling remote gaming on just about any device away from your desktop PC it's also targeting any other application that would need high-end graphics performance on a platform that lacks it.

Lucid's usage scenario seems to be based around a "server" which in reality could be a high-end PC with a graphics card in it. VGWare supports AMD and Nvidia GPUs, multiple ones at that, as well as CUDA, OpenGL and OpenCL. In other words it's possible to use it for a lot more than gaming, especially as GPU computing starts to really take off. Lucid claims low latency for fetching and transmitting frame buggers and even suggests that it's possible to run multiple, concurrent games on a single GPU, although we're not quite sure how that would work.

That said, Lucid doesn't tend to use a GPU as intended with its software and we have a feeling this has something to do with it. On the client side Lucid claims less than to frames lag over Wi-Fi, something that sounds quite impressive. Apparently any DirectX or OpenGL program should work, be it a game or a professional 3D application and it should be possible to run them on another desktop, a laptop, a tablet, a smartphone or even an internet TV. We would expect that Lucid would have to provide some kind of client software on this end, unless its relying on a web browser based solution.

Interesting stuff, although in some parts not entire revolutionary as OnLive is offering a remote gaming service in the US that does the same, just over much greater distances. That said, Lucid's press release seems to suggest that VGWare is capable of doing something similar as it talks about running remote servers in the cloud or data center (aren't they the same?). This is another tricky one, but something that doesn't seem quite as farfetched as Lucid's XLR8 claims. The question is how much of a demand there will be for VGWare, as in as much as it sounds like a useful solution in some cases such as shuffling your PC games onto your TV, we'd rather not play them on a smartphone or tablet.

Source: LucidLogix