Alienware Video Array??

From what I understand they had a PCI card with an onboard compositing chip (the thing that now sits on the Xfire master cards) and some custom drivers to do a crude version of AFR, but I may be wrong  

I understand that, but what I was actually wondering about was what ever happened with it? If you look at the alienware site and build a computer they have certain systems with options for mostly SLI and a couple with crossfire. There is no mention about the alienware video array anymore. I was just kind of curious to see how it would compare with both SLI and Crossfire...

CT

One of two things, or a combination of them:

1. It worked like crap compared to SLI/Xfire so they didn't release it, or

2. The IP was bought by someone else who didn't want it out there (Nvidia or Ati maybe)

ALX X2 Video Array as it was known never came to an Alienware retail product, however they did demo it at E3 in 2004.



Likely would've sucked for only one reason, they don't have the resources to devot to a driver team to fix all the bugs. Look at ATi and nV, they have experienced driver people and it's still a rats nest solution even though Alienware did promise;

Alienware has developed Video Array to be as simple to use as possible. Video Array can use off-the-shelf video cards and almost any kind of graphics chipset. No special graphics drivers are required, either, which will be handy for gamers who often need to swap video card drivers.

Little Blubs from CPU;
http://www.computerpoweruser.com/editorial/article.asp?...

http://www.computerpoweruser.com/articles/archive/C0408...

There was a merger hub as they called it, but it did SFR not AFR.

Alienware bought Metabyte in order to devlop this technology thinking that they needed to own the IP before developingit, but since nV uses both AFR and SFR neither of which they developed, I guess that's not the case.

Metabyte's SFR from ATi's Rage Fury demos;




I think that's the biggest reason, they saw what nV was doing (nV revealed what those mystery connectors on their card were around the E3 demo) and said, "To H3LL with this, why waste our resources if someone else is doing it, we don't wanna compete with them". Cause really at first SLi and Xfire both sucked too.



Well the IP was Metabyte's, so I don't know if nV bought the SFR from Alienware, but AFAIK it's still in DELL's hands when they bought Alienware.