VOGONS


First post, by Slaventus86

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As I mentioned previously I've got Intel Larrabee prototype, "Aubrey Isle" Card:

LRB1-front-150x150.jpg LRB1-back1-150x150.jpg LRB1-nude-150x150.jpg LRB1-cooling-system-150x150.jpg
LRB1-close-view-150x150.jpg LRB1-connectors-150x150.jpg LRB1-fan-150x150.jpg

The main problem is to get software for that card. I tried it to power on, but got no output, though fan was working at full speed and the wind blowing out was warm. As I know the card runs an instance of FreeBSD inside itself, for DirectX calls it launches DirectXGfx programm. I contacted Intel ex-worker, one of developers of original Larrabee project, he told me, that card needs special software to initialize it. Without this software the card is visible in system as a coprocessor, but current software for Xeon Phi doesn't support this card as well. One other guy from Intel told me that Larrabee project was send to archive, regular programmers do not have access to it. Intel's support also couldn't help (it was predictable).

The card may be also known as Knights Ferry, the main difference is that normally Knights Ferry cards didn't have video outputs and were oriented as coprocessor cards.

Do not know is there any chance to get this special hardware for that piece of history, but may be some of you guys work at Intel or may be know someone from Intel who can help? Also such cards were send to some software developers and some chosen organizations such as CERN etc.

Videocard Virtual Museum

Reply 2 of 11, by Stiletto

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Used to know a guy who went off to work for Intel, but he was never helpful with questions like this. 🙁

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 3 of 11, by Ozzuneoj

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Wow, I'll be honest, I had no idea these cards even existed.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/1549/aubrey-isle

The reported specs there are really really strange (probably not accurate).

Would be very interesting to see it working. Though obviously it probably doesn't work very well, otherwise they would have finished and sold them. 😀

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 4 of 11, by nforce4max

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I remember hunting around for info on this card years back and yes there are driver for it that will allow it to run as a graphics card but I think that you are sol unless someone helps you out. A dev even ran GTA IV on it with poor performance and I believe that it was the drivers being hell to the point where that may have been the reason why Intel had given up besides the cost of making the cards.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 6 of 11, by Ozzuneoj

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Davros wrote:

maybe someone on beyond 3d could help you
https://forum.beyond3d.com

Oh, good idea. They get pretty technical there. 😊

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 7 of 11, by Slaventus86

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I've tried to do it this summer, but with no success:

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/intel-larr … software.60287/

Videocard Virtual Museum

Reply 8 of 11, by Ozzuneoj

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I would suggest maybe contacting some of the larger hardware review sites to see if they have any contacts from that era, or even if they had ever gotten one for testing. Check with game developers too.

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 10 of 11, by Stiletto

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0xCats wrote on 2020-08-24, 18:14:

Old thread - I don't know what the vogons policy is on thread necromancy.

Officially there is none at this time. Unofficially according to my point of view, if you've replied after much more than 3.5 years since the last reply in the thread, you're better off making a new thread and linking back to the old one. Just my point of view as a long-time moderator though.

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 11 of 11, by darry

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Stiletto wrote on 2020-08-24, 21:17:
0xCats wrote on 2020-08-24, 18:14:

Old thread - I don't know what the vogons policy is on thread necromancy.

Officially there is none at this time. Unofficially according to my point of view, if you've replied after much more than 3.5 years since the last reply in the thread, you're better off making a new thread and linking back to the old one. Just my point of view as a long-time moderator though.

Thank you for that. I was asking myself the same question .