GPUs and VST Process Card Support

This is something I’ve been wondering for a while. As some of you may know, video cards from nVidia and ATI are able to be connected, and used typically in a mode called SLI (Scalable Link Interface), basically, two cards are able to be linked together, and two cards do the job of one, vastly improving 3d rendering capability.

Anyway, because these cards are essentially programmable chips, there’s nothing that ties them specifically to 3d rendering. As demonstrated by nVidia’s support for the extra SLI video card to be used to process advanced physics, instead of 3d rendering.

Now, my question is, why hasn’t a company like Steinberg thought of contacting nVidia and using an extra SLI video card to be used as a process card for VST plugins, under an ASIO environment? These graphics cards are significantly cheaper than HD Accel cards, leaps and bounds faster, and have upwards of 768mb of very fast RAM onboard. Imagine the vast performance increase you could get with support like that.

Think about adding a plug like Altiverb. Not only is all of the CPU load dropped onto the GPU, but also the IR files are loaded onto the graphics cards RAM.

Let me know what you think, and if you need more explaination, just ask.