ViDock 4G for Light Peak (Z21) - POSSIBLE.

Pre-ban absinthe. Pernod Fils circa 1914 to be precise.

 

I was going to guess absinthe!

 

Here we go again.

 

I hadn't intended the contents to be a secret. I thought my name was a giveaway.

The PF1914 is quite extraordinarily good. Other than that, I should probably stop going so very far OT. If anyone has any questions, I would be glad to discuss via PM.

 

Hey Crystal, could you please post this on facebook for me. TIA.

1) 375w
2) Sony Vaio Z2
3) Gaming
4) Yes
5) Finished product

May I also ask how everything is going? Does it still seem possible and if so, is the speed going to be <>= Thunderbolt? Obviously I am not as technically savy as many others here but still feel the need to state it.

 

OK here's 3dmark vantage:

External HDMI ony, default settings - p4092
Internal only, default settings = P3987

Interestingly enough, when I tested the internal and did not specify "computer only" via the FN+F7 switch, it ran off the intel GPU and I scored under 2000!

 

Oh come now, Louche, Crystal and Cowboy. You cannot deprive those among us who aspire to your knowledge. I do think it is OnT to retain the interest of those who are not at the upper end of this tech discussion with a little taste of la dolce vita. Besides it will allow me to feel as vicarious as General Sternwood in The Big Sleep. Better yet, you should start a thread entitled Best Vaio Z Accessories (Cigars, Cognacs, Absinthe and other addictions).

 

Speed it's like thunderbolt. As it seems SONY decided to use only one laser per PCI-E connection.. so only one channel in TB chip (like Apple) (or more lasers at lower power drain/velocity of decoding/ncoding). To do an external eGPU we have two problem now: recreate the fiber cable and use TB chips. As for TB chips no problem (there's no exclusive license...) but for LP cable... who knows.

.. little strange.

 

For the cable
Corning Bringing High-Speed Fiber Connections To PCs, Tablets - Forbes
most likely this
Corning Optical Fiber | Corning® ClearCurve® single-mode optical fiber

Good news: seems to be a standard cable, can be ordered in some shops.

Now for the optical LP transceiver:
Ensphere-Products-short-reach

No idea if this can be ordered.

Still missing:
- Optical connector compatible to the Z
- TB controller specs (Intel announced a TB dev kit a while ago)

If the optical to electrical stuff can be built it might be possible to build an adaptor LP->Apple TB.
Then this Sonnet - Thunderbolt Storage & Adapters
could be used as a basis for an eGPU.

 

Both 3dmark11 and vantage only run low res. Please run the other benchmarks as well, particularly the gaming ones like FFXIV that run FHD. FHD puts more load on the LP link and would show a performance difference b/w internal and PMD-connected external LCD if the Z2 is running a muxless setup. If it's got a Light Ridge controller in there somewhere then would make sense for Sony to pump the x4 pci-e lanes and DP lanes across the LP link.

The confirmation of a x4 1.0 link also means the HD6650M-to-pcie+DP-adapter would be easier to do as getting a pci-e 2.0 spec link over passive cable is continuing to be a problem for the VT and DIY eGPU hardware.

 

^I can't do any more benchmarks until at least tomorrow.

Is there no way to tell what type of link it is via the resources in device manager either for the PCI bridge or for the GPU?

 

gpu-z/AIDA64/hwinfo32 might be able to tell you something. Though the 100% certain way is to run BarEdit, look at PCI device 0:1.0, register B2-B3 (x16 port link status):

bit 9:4 = negotiated width
00h: Reserved
01h: X1
02h: X2
04h: X4
08h: X8
10h: X16
All other encodings

bit 3:0 = Current Link Speed (CLS)
0001b 2.5 GT/s PCI Express Link
0010b 5.0 GT/s PCI Express link

 

YOU ARE ASTONISHING!

As for USB Light Peak it's the easiest task: we have only two optical fiber to plug in.. and the usb port it's only an extension.
And for Thunderbolt documentation there's no exclusive for Apple.. Sonnet Tech is already developing Thunderbolt connections, Village Tronic is already developing Thunderbolt module.. so no problem for that

 

So just plug in ?
Fiber Optic Termination- How to terminate fiber optic cable using Giganet Fibre Optic connectors - YouTube

 

For what I've barely seen in light peak image... yeah, I think.

 

Does anyone knows how expensive the LP Vidock finished will be ?

 

Look at aida64 report here - looks like 2.0 x4 link.

 

^ uhm... that 2.0 it's referred to the GPU support.. what we want to know it's what's near 4X. Here there's noting since energy efficient system.. but when there's nothing near it, it means 1.0

 

^I'm sorry I don't understand what you are saying.

 

What is on the left of "@" is the maximum bus supported by ATI card.. but the real bus activated is on the right. And you expect to see 2.0 or 1.0 near that 4x.. but there's no 1.0 or 2.0 due to energy efficiency measures. When these are activated they switch bus to 1.0 in any case (in idle)

 

Better use one of this:
http://www.foci.com.tw/download/cio-jumper.pdf
(scroll down to the end)

 

....... :O

You found them..... you're better of Columbus. You find the impossible. And the impossible is what you want!

 

Can you download baredit, install it. Then with the PMD attached, set the settings as marked in RED on the right, then take a screenshot and post it here? I'll be able to tell the negotiated link width and speed is by the 0xB2-0xB3 register as shown in RED on the left.

 

Hey Nando4, since we found also the company that produces the entire cable ( 2 optical fibers into USB plug )... the only problem is the pin out of TB controller.. any hint for that?

 

I received the following response from Gennum, the makers of the active chip used on Apple's Thunderbolt controlller when enquiring for TB pinout:

 

Since I can't help more then with my 5 cents, as I'm awaiting build of my Z2 with PMD, I have looked at Ati XGP technology brief, and I cannot notice much differences between amilo graphics booster and PMD, except added disc drive and change of connector from ATI propriety one for LightPeak, ->



And this is ATI proposed configuraiton:


but I can't find anything on Cross display, if it drives directly internal display, or uses internal card. But since someone told, that Intel drivers can control output, I can't guess, what was easier, if using one fibre for DP as proposed sooner in this thread and tweaking Intel drivers to somehow interact with the Ati drivers to control output indirectly, or modify Intel hw to accept input and just redirect it.

but the amilo external GPU looked like this :


I tried to find some mention of it, but couldn't find any, so I better said it then keep it for myself

sources : http://www.x-drivers.com/articles/devices/7/3.html
http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/ati-xgp/Pages/ati-xgp.aspx

 

My assumption is that it is utilizing the newer PowerExpress 4.0 muxless design rather than XGP. ATIs muxless design is very similar to Nvidias Optimus in that it uses the framebuffer approach to output to the display(s). This approach would allow it to also show the external gpu on the notebooks lcd.

Rage3Ds PowerExpress 4.0 interview

Now that I know a little more what it may be I guess it is time to look around the drivers some. See if we can achive something similar to Optimus.

 

Hey guys,

I know you are working hard and are very busy - but as there was no update in the last days, I was wondering if there is this project still ongoing?

Could we still hope for getting a decent GPU expansion ability for our Z2 notebooks?

 

At the moment we're still waiting for somebody to hack the PMD and news from Village Tronic. As far as I know, the CEO of Village Tronic had some health problem so he has not been online for a while.. when he'll get better, we'll receive news (since we found out every component we would need to make a DIY light peak compatible and the only problem is about TB specification.. but since they're already developing TB module, they must have it).

 

Here are a couple of links for review to determine what kind of system is in place for the Z2:
AMD Dynamic Switchable Graphics (B.A.C.O. - Bus Alive Chip Off Now!)
- MUXless-PX.4.0-BACO slide show.
- AMD Dynamic Switchable Graphics (PowerXPress 4.0 / BACON) vs. Nvidia Optimus

AMD XGP
- AMD XGP Technology Brief

 

Any news? This is a deal-breaker for me. Thanks in advance.

 

if you need to run a High res display... this has already been done. Without the PMD I might add.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/602724-success-2560x1440-support-new-vpc-z2-dell-u2711.html

In theory this should work all the way up to WQXGA (2560x1600)... the bandwidth is there.
The only downside is it will only offer a very low refresh rate, 35Hz IIRC. This should be fine for Office apps and web browsing.

If you are looking for enhanced game performance you will have to wait and see.

 

UPDATE:

Village Tronic is developing its dock in a modular way, where it will be possible to chose the connection simpli by changing the cable.. a modular way.

They're still waiting for Intel specification, they say that Intel is busy due to IDF, so we'll have to wait after IDF to know something more.

Here Village Tronic posts about:

"Update on ViDock for Sony Light Peak:

I will write about the new concept of ViDock G4 shortly in more detail. Bottom line is that the host connection interface is provided by the ViDock host cable and is no longer contained within ViDock. So one ViDock could be connected to different hosts just by changing that cable. We have now enough information to continue development and start shipping the first ViDock G4 and make sure that these units can be connected to Sony Z models by the use of the appropriate ViDock - Sony cable.

This leaves now several options to make that ViDock G4 Sony Light Peak compatible:
1) Whenever Sony releases to us the necessary information / parts to build a Sony Light Peak interface, we will develop such cable and thus any ViDock G4 model will be Sony Light Peal compatible.
2) We will publish the new connector standard as public domain and Sony could choose to develop and sell such cable themselves
3) A third party with good connections to Sony could develop such cable"

"I saw that. Core problem remains for Thunderbolt to obtain developer information. Latest news from intel is that everybody is too busy now to prepare IDF in middle of September. They expect more information about a Thunderbolt development kit will be available after IDF.

Important is now that we can continue the ViDock G4 development and that with the new modular connection concept we can add Thunderbolt, Sony Light Peak at any time, once those company feel comfortable to release information and parts. Meantime we will develop our own Docking connection standard and will publish it as public domain.

Minimum benefit is that
a) we can get feedback from the community to improve this interface.
b) we need a x4 PCIe cable system to test the new modular approach

Best case, we will get other Notebook companies to adapt this new connector standard. Since it is low cost, high performance, compatible with many other standards and last but not least public domain, I see there is some chance."

 

They should separate the adapter from the cable. Use the kind of fiber cables commonly found in data-centers. Cables are supposed to be cheap, since they break more often.

 

Odd, I thought cables are supposed to be expensive because they break more often.

 

Cables are cheap, just look at Monoprice's prices.

 

If I understood right, the module for Thunderbolt will have 2 port (one for TB and one for LP) or something similar.

By the way, remember that these cables go @ 10 Gb/s .. so they must have a very low loss factor per signal. Practically, they're not cheap.

 

Blah, they can be made very cheap. Fiber was cheap 10 years ago and today... it is still cheap.

 

In any case, they'll use these: http://www.foci.com.tw/download/cio-jumper.pdf

 

The modular connection is a good idea.

One thing I am curious to see is if they intend on making it function like the PMD. Functionality like the PMD using an ATI card or Optimus using an Nvidia card should be possible but drivers would have to configured for it. I somehow doubt Villagetronics will be hiring a driver development team but then again there are always us modders who seem to like to work for free.

 

^ That's just crazy talk.

 

Sorry guys, I haven't been following this thread for a while now. How are things going? Any (good) news?

 

Little resume.

No real big news at the moment:

- at IDF some companies will announce new external dock for PCI-E devices usin THUNDERBOLT.

- VillageTronic has already a sample of their new ViDock and they'll bring it at IDF. This new ViDock is made by real ViDock and a WeDock B.. this WeDock B is the core of their "new" connections standard which would support multiple standard. This module will be compatible with ExpressCard, Thunderbolt and Light Peak. The only change will be the difference in cable. Take a look here Hubert, I hope... | Facebook.

- About timings after IDF they'll tell us something new.

- In the next hours VIllage Tronic will announce something.

- Village Tronic seems at the moment the only one to push for Light Peak.

 

That would be great if we could have one dock for everything

 

Hi,

I am interested and would definitely get a ViDock for the new Sony Z.

I was going to register just to respond to this thread, but it turns out I registered years ago! I don't even remember why.../

I do not have a facebook, so please post this if you still need people to state interest.

1) Graphics Card Power: as much as possible. Are the power supplies easily switched? If so, I could buy my own power supply to meet any requirements

2) What Notebook do you own: I just ordered the new Sony Vaio Z (2011)

3) Purpose: all of the above, but the ViDock would be for gaming.

4) Modular I/O is useful? Yes

5) Do you want to buy the ViDock PCB only or finished product -finished product, but a modular design would be fine.

I would also prefer if the ViDock would work the the internal display, but it's not strictly necessary -maximum performance would be the priority

Edit: If I understand correctly, expresscard is limited to 2.5Gb/s, so is it correct to say that this could be much faster than the setup used in this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/598920-z1-vidock-gtx-570-ftw-z2-pmd-killer.html

 

the integrated Light Peak in the Z21 should be arround 10gb/s

edit : I've added your wishes on facebook

 

I and my friend would definitely get this. Once we upgrade from our X's

 

Sorry, I'm late XD

If I'm not wrong ExpressCard 1.0 goes @ 2.5 Gb/s per each direction, each channel has bidirection, so you obtain 5.0 Gb/s overall.
ExpressCard 2.0 goes @ 5.0 Gb/s per each direction, so 10 Gb/s overall.
Light Peak goes 10 Gb/s per each direction, so 20 Gb/s overall, but it uses a normal PCI-E bus so it goes 8 Gb/s per each direction and 16 Gb/s overall.

On avarage, a 1x 1.0 (express card 1.0) it's 40% slower then Light Peak devices.. a 1x 1.0 with compression it works like a 2.0 and it's 20% slower then Light Peak devices. This highly depends on which application is in use.

 

^ in theory if we get an nVidia card running on lightpeak we will still get the Optimus compression right?