[Official] HYDRA (and HYDRA PRO) Thread

TimeDrapery · Feb 8, 2022

"Official Documentation / "How-to"...s / Tutorials"

Attached to this post is a ".pdf" copy of the most recently released version ("HYDRA 1.0D PRO", as of 81737Feb2022) of the official documentation for HYDRA (and HYDRA PRO)

This document is also available via @1usmus' PROJECT HYDRA Patreon (linked in the intro post)

Also attached to this post is a ".pdf" copy of the "slides" that comprise @1usmus' YouTube presentation/video found at the second entry within the "Tutorial Links" unordered list below, just in case it's as tough for you to fast forward and rewind to catch all the free chicken @1usmus is giving out as it is for me 😂😂😂😂😂

Tutorial Links:

TimeDrapery · Feb 8, 2022

"Hall of Fame...s"

TimeDrapery · Feb 8, 2022

"Best Practices"

What follows is intended to be a "quick reference" of sorts for learning about "best" / "recommended" practices to employ when using HYDRA (and HYDRA PRO)

I'll do my best to maintain the unordered lists found below... If you see something that you feel could stand to change, please... say something 😁😁😁😁😁

"INSTALLATION / SETUP":

"BIOS / UEFI CONFIGURATION":
- "Precision Boost Overdrive ('PBO')": Settings (power limits ["Package Power Tracking (PPT), Thermal Design Current (TDC), and Electric Design Current (EDC)"], FIT scalar values, etc.) shouldn't negatively impact your usage of HYDRA (or HYDRA PRO) and therefore you may configure them as you wish (although I've seen no reason to set them to anything other than "AUTO") with the exception of...
- "Curve Optimizer ('CO')": Settings should be configured so as to ensure there's no offset (regardless of "Sign" ["Positive" or "Negative"]) being applied to your Zen 3 CPU's "factory" or "fused" voltage/frequency (or "V/F") curve while you're using HYDRA (or HYDRA PRO)... this means you should either:
  - Clear your Windows Event Logs, fully shut down (that means flip the off/on switch on your PSU to "Off", unplug the power cable from your PSU, and hold your power switch in the closed position for approximately ten (10) seconds in order to discharge any residual power remaining within all those circuits that are your PC) your system, clear CMOS, power on your system, enter the BIOS / UEFI, load "Optimized Defaults", and then save your configuration and exit the BIOS / UEFI (this "nuclear option" should make damned sure that any existing CO "count" values are wiped from the registers and that the "Curve Optimizer" feature itself is set to "Disabled")
  - Navigate to the section(s) of the BIOS / UEFI that contain CO settings (some BIOS / UEFI contain these settings in more than one location), set "Curve Optimizer" to "Per Core", overwrite all existing "Curve Optimizer Magnitude" values with "0", and then set all "Curve Optimizer Sign" fields to "Positive" before saving your configuration and exiting the BIOS / UEFI
- CPU VCORE:
  - Set it to "AUTO", not "NORMAL", not "1.300V"... Just... "AUTO"
  - Do not configure any CPU VCORE offsets
- "CPU VCORE LLC":
  - In the official documentation @1usmus recommends the following load line calibration configurations be set when using HYDRA (or HYDRA PRO):
    - "ASRock": "2"
    - "ASUS": "3"
    - "Gigabyte": "HIGH"
    - "MSI": "4"
  - Although these recommendations remain within the pages of the official documentation, @1usmus states that he himself tends to use the "AUTO" "CPU VCORE LLC" setting in his YouTube video regarding boost behaviors and tuning
Aaa

"HYBRID OC":

Aaa
Aaa

"SETTINGS":

Aaa
"DIAGNOSTIC SETTINGS":
- "CORE CO testing VID (mV)": Set this to the same value as the VID you plan to use with your "1T-2T" profile
- "CCD CO testing VID (mV)": Set this to the same value as the VID you plan to use with your "ALL (AVX2)" profile

"LOGGING":

Aaa
Aaa

"DIAGNOSTIC":

Aaa
"FIND BEST VOLTAGES":
- Aaa
- Aaa

"BOOST TEST":

Aaa
Aaa

"COMPARE":

Aaa
Aaa

Here's to hoping this helps (at least a lil' bit)! Enjoy!!!

TimeDrapery · Feb 8, 2022

So I see there's plenty of talk throughout the forums regarding @1usmus' HYDRA (and HYDRA PRO) software yet I've not seen a thread dedicated to sharing knowledge gained through conversations / documentation / usage...

So, let's start sharing the goods with each other here and now (and if this thread is a no-go for whatever reasons, let's hear why and go from there 😂😂😂😂😂)

I'll start us off by attaching my latest logs from my most recent diag runs using the latest HYDRA PRO release, HYDRA 1.1C PRO

@domdtxdissar where you at? I know you've got some good knowledge on the topic, I'd love for you to come in and share some of it

Audioboxer · Feb 9, 2022

Been disappointed in Hydra (some of this is just me not spending more time learning it).

Firstly, curve values for 1.2.0.3c

Curve values for 1.2.0.5

Neither of these end up being stable. 2, 5, 11 and 14 are my best cores, 2 and 11 the best. This is the 0-15 naming convention the BIOS uses, so add +1 for the Hydra equivalent. Core 11 and 14 (Hydra 12 and 15) tend to cause issues in Corecycler. My own curve on 1.2.0.3c had 2 at like -15 and 5 at like -5. But I have 11/14 (12/15 in Hydra) a bit lower.

So I'm not sure how Hydra calculates a curve, but first impressions are doing it yourself is best, even if it's very time consuming. Unfortunately, my 1.2.0.3c curve like many people's needs changing for 1.2.0.5. For the past month I had a quick and dirty few changes to stabilise my old curve on 1.2.0.5, but I've now been meaning to re-do the whole thing because of the AGESA changes. But right out the gate the values Hydra gives me above are not "GUARANTEED CO"...

Anyway, I can live with a piece of software trying to automate a curve you should really do yourself and getting it a bit wrong, it's the post-stability run performance that is just... poor. If I use PBO and telemetry it performs quite a bit better than the profile Hydra creates. This is where I assume I have to play with the sliders or something to ask Hydra to push for more performance?

Font Terrestrial plant Circle Number Photo caption

GOLDEN/SILVER is what I've received on both the stability runs I've now done, on AGESA 1.2.0.3c and 1.2.0.5, so I know my B0 5950x isn't the best, but as I said above so far I've had much better performance just doing my own curve, using my own PBO values and playing with telemetry. I do notice the Hydra profile runs temps lower, even though I am watercooled, so I guess for those on aircooling out of the box it might result in better thermals so better sustained performance.

But I've got a custom loop so I really need it pushing for performance with all the thermal overhead I have to match PBO/telemetry. The only thing I haven't tried yet is the find best voltage setting. I guess I might need to do that for better performance???

TimeDrapery · Feb 9, 2022

Audioboxer said:
Been disappointed in Hydra (some of this is just me not spending more time learning it).

Firstly, curve values for 1.2.0.3c

View attachment 2547667

Curve values for 1.2.0.5

View attachment 2547668

Neither of these end up being stable. 2, 5, 11 and 14 are my best cores, 2 and 11 the best. This is the 0-15 naming convention the BIOS uses, so add +1 for the Hydra equivalent. Core 11 and 14 (Hydra 12 and 15) tend to cause issues in Corecycler. My own curve on 1.2.0.3c had 2 at like -15 and 5 at like -5. But I have 11/14 (12/15 in Hydra) a bit lower.

So I'm not sure how Hydra calculates a curve, but first impressions are doing it yourself is best, even if it's very time consuming. Unfortunately, my 1.2.0.3c curve like many people's needs changing for 1.2.0.5. For the past month I had a quick and dirty few changes to stabilise my old curve on 1.2.0.5, but I've now been meaning to re-do the whole thing because of the AGESA changes. But right out the gate the values Hydra gives me above are not "GUARANTEED CO"...

Anyway, I can live with a piece of software trying to automate a curve you should really do yourself and getting it a bit wrong, it's the post-stability run performance that is just... poor. If I use PBO and telemetry it performs quite a bit better than the profile Hydra creates. This is where I assume I have to play with the sliders or something to ask Hydra to push for more performance?

View attachment 2547670

GOLDEN/SILVER is what I've received on both the stability runs I've now done, on AGESA 1.2.0.3c and 1.2.0.5, so I know my B0 5950x isn't the best, but as I said above so far I've had much better performance just doing my own curve, using my own PBO values and playing with telemetry. I do notice the Hydra profile runs temps lower, even though I am watercooled, so I guess for those on aircooling out of the box it might result in better thermals so better sustained performance.

But I've got a custom loop so I really need it pushing for performance with all the thermal overhead I have to match PBO/telemetry. The only thing I haven't tried yet is the find best voltage setting. I guess I might need to do that for better performance???

@Audioboxer

Righteous post with a lot of great info, thanks for sharing!

So, and I've gotta take a closer look at your screenshots still to see if this is the case, the thing I've found is that the more granular level of control over the V/F curve that HYDRA offers means that (even though I'd really really like them to) the Curve Optimizer values it offers up during diagnostics often hit different due to one thing or another (like preferred cores) or they're woefully unstable and perform inadequately

I like the "translated" values print out following the completion of CORE CO testing during diagnostics as I like to compare them to the HYDRA CO values (× and/or ÷ by -6 to move em back and forth between BIOS / UEFI and HYDRA) and, especially now that the more recent versions push the HYDRA CO values deeper and deeper, I like to see how far past "-30" the software would elect to offset that core

"Find best voltages" is a really cool and interesting feature that I really want to gain a better understanding of... I know that having a good grasp on what to set for "Target AVX1 / AVX2 PPT (W)" and "Target AVX1 / AVX2 temp (°C)" plays a large role in attaining favorable results from its inclusion in the diagnostics process and I'm still learning on how to best determine what to input in those fields

Crank the voltages up on your main profiles and adjust the diag voltages within the settings accordingly, I'll bet you'll see better results

Audioboxer · Feb 9, 2022

TimeDrapery said:
@Audioboxer

Righteous post with a lot of great info, thanks for sharing!

So, and I've gotta take a closer look at your screenshots still to see if this is the case, the thing I've found is that the more granular level of control over the V/F curve that HYDRA offers means that (even though I'd really really like them to) the Curve Optimizer values it offers up during diagnostics often hit different due to one thing or another (like preferred cores) or they're woefully unstable and perform inadequately

I like the "translated" values print out following the completion of CORE CO testing during diagnostics as I like to compare them to the HYDRA CO values (× and/or ÷ by -6 to move em back and forth between BIOS / UEFI and HYDRA) and, especially now that the more recent versions push the HYDRA CO values deeper and deeper, I like to see how far past "-30" the software would elect to offset that core

"Find best voltages" is a really cool and interesting feature that I really want to gain a better understanding of... I know that having a good grasp on what to set for "Target AVX1 / AVX2 PPT (W)" and "Target AVX1 / AVX2 temp (°C)" plays a large role in attaining favorable results from its inclusion in the diagnostics process and I'm still learning on how to best determine what to input in those fields

Crank the voltages up on your main profiles and adjust the diag voltages within the settings accordingly, I'll bet you'll see better results

The bulk of the curve values seem fine, maybe a few not as low as I had them (some of the weaker cores at -27~-29 can go to -30) so I'm not knocking the automated process completely. I'd just advise if anyone is going to use the Hydra CO values at least test your 4 best main cores in Corecycler for a few hours. Preferrably, test all your cores overnight, it's the least you can do trying to automate the slow process of doing cores one by one. Corecycler is normally quite quick at finding instability, but if you have a 5950x with 16 cores to test, 6 minute a cycle, it obviously needs some time lol.

I've seen dom on this forum get really good performance out of Hydra on a 5950x, so I think it's just down to me to take a stability run with its auto created profiles and tweak them, or as you said learning how to use "find best voltages". I guess I just come away questioning if I will be able to crank out any more performance over using PBO/telemetry. The way Hydra looks to switch profiles depending on the task in use is what attracts me to it, that seems like an incredibly useful way to handle things under normal Windows operations. But I can't find myself switching to Hydra until I learn how to at least match my general singe core/multicore performance of PBO.

I'm spoiled by being on a custom loop with really good temps for a 5950x, so that obviously negates a huge benefit some may have from Hydra out of the box which is better thermals for the same level of performance which leads to less throttling/more boosting. So it's about tweaking Hydra for myself for it to understand I'm on a custom loop and it doesn't need to be as conservative. It seems the default stability profiles don't quite automatically take that into account. Which is why I wondered if "find best voltages" might be a way to try and automate that, urging Hydra to use higher voltages if there is thermal overhead?

Throw AGESA 1.2.0.5 into the mix which IMO has been a disaster from AMD. Changing the way boosting works, limiting voltage because of EDC and as usual no public communication or changelog from them to explain what they're doing/trying. So we don't know if it's bugs.

TimeDrapery · Feb 9, 2022

Audioboxer said:
The bulk of the curve values seem fine, maybe a few not as low as I had them (some of the weaker cores at -27~-29 can go to -30) so I'm not knocking the automated process completely. I'd just advise if anyone is going to use the Hydra CO values at least test your 4 best main cores in Corecycler for a few hours. Preferrably, test all your cores overnight, it's the least you can do trying to automate the slow process of doing cores one by one. Corecycler is normally quite quick at finding instability, but if you have a 5950x with 16 cores to test, 6 minute a cycle, it obviously needs some time lol.

I've seen dom on this forum get really good performance out of Hydra on a 5950x, so I think it's just down to me to take a stability run with its auto created profiles and tweak them, or as you said learning how to use "find best voltages". I guess I just come away questioning if I will be able to crank out any more performance over using PBO/telemetry. The way Hydra looks to switch profiles depending on the task in use is what attracts me to it, that seems like an incredibly useful way to handle things under normal Windows operations. But I can't find myself switching to Hydra until I learn how to at least match my general singe core/multicore performance of PBO.

I'm spoiled by being on a custom loop with really good temps for a 5950x, so that obviously negates a huge benefit some may have from Hydra out of the box which is better thermals for the same level of performance which leads to less throttling/more boosting. So it's about tweaking Hydra for myself for it to understand I'm on a custom loop and it doesn't need to be as conservative. It seems the default stability profiles don't quite automatically take that into account. Which is why I wondered if "find best voltages" might be a way to try and automate that, urging Hydra to use higher voltages if there is thermal overhead?

@Audioboxer

I can understand the hesitancy, I'm still investigating myself as to whether it's something I'm interested in running 24/7

Here's some comparisons I've made so far ...

Rectangle Font Screenshot Electronic device Multimedia

Colorfulness Rectangle Font Screenshot Software

Audioboxer · Feb 9, 2022

TimeDrapery said:
@Audioboxer

I can understand the hesitancy, I'm still investigating myself as to whether it's something I'm interested in running 24/7

Here's some comparisons I've made so far ...

View attachment 2547677
View attachment 2547676
View attachment 2547679
View attachment 2547674

I'm following Hydra as it matures, it's definitely a step in the right direction from CTR, it just seems right now that the "default" way of working through your curve in the BIOS and playing with PBO values is still, ironically, the easier method for the average person to get some more performance out of their CPU.

I say ironic as it seems one of the main goals of Hydra is to try and automate some of the process. As I said above though my first impressions are if you're air cooled out the box Hydra has the potential to get you better temps. But the app itself still seems a bit complicated and/or unclear.

TimeDrapery · Feb 9, 2022

A little better...

Slope Font Rectangle Screenshot Technology

StAndrew · Feb 12, 2022

When gaming, my Hydra profile tends to be a bit choppy where my CTR 2.1 profiles are much smoother...

xenosaiyan · May 23, 2022

I'm mainly using this to undervolt my CPU for more stability. It's undervolting it too much, but was extremely stable in prime95

Resto_Ron · Jul 6, 2022

In the requirements list it says "Actual GPU drivers" what is that supposed to mean??

I use an AMD GPU (6900 XT) with AMD drivers. Is this referring to using the entire software suite that has the built in CPU OC section included? What if I use an older AMD driver that does not include this? Like the 21.8.1 or 21.8.2? I use the 21.8.1 because it gives much better performance with OBS while recording than the the newer versions. Things got jacked up when AMD added the built in CPU OC section to the GPU software it even interferes with CRT 2.1, another reason I do not use those drivers. I guess if I have to drivers with the built in CPU OC section to make Hydra work I will stick with CTR 2.1. Any feedback/insight is welcome.

NORKAPORKA · Oct 26, 2022

TimeDrapery said:
"Introduction / Basic info"

Links:

Yuri Bubliy / 1usmus' Patreon

| igor'sLAB | PROJECT HYDRA — OC Sandbox for ZEN3 CPUs | Freeware Download |

| TechSpot | Downloads | Project Hydra 1.0.0.7 |

this program supports CPU Ryzen 5 5600 I did not find this information anywhere, the official document only says about 5600x and 5600g?

Medizinmann · Oct 27, 2022

Resto_Ron said:
In the requirements list it says "Actual GPU drivers" what is that supposed to mean??

I use an AMD GPU (6900 XT) with AMD drivers. Is this referring to using the entire software suite that has the built in CPU OC section included? What if I use an older AMD driver that does not include this? Like the 21.8.1 or 21.8.2? I use the 21.8.1 because it gives much better performance with OBS while recording than the the newer versions. Things got jacked up when AMD added the built in CPU OC section to the GPU software it even interferes with CRT 2.1, another reason I do not use those drivers. I guess if I have to drivers with the built in CPU OC section to make Hydra work I will stick with CTR 2.1. Any feedback/insight is welcome.

I would say lost in translation..."actual" (or i.e. aktuell in German) here meaning recent or current.
I would take a guess and say he means a recent/current drivers - not a very old one - maybe not the most recent as these seem to give performance issues...but I could also be totally wrong here.
But I am pretty sure there is a post somewhere which one would be the best to use.
User ManniX-ITA wrote that Yuri reported that 22.5.1 would the last stable AMD Driver to use.

(Gigabyte X570 AORUS Owners Thread)

I use GDM off, first thing I turned off when I got those sticks 6 mnths ago. So, stick are 100% stable at f.ex. 14-14-14, no boot at 15-15-15 all other timings or settings are identical.. I know this is a late reply but are you changing tCWL? On my Ryzen system it always needs to be even...

www.overclock.net

Best regards,
Medizinmann

[Official] HYDRA (and HYDRA PRO) Thread

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