If GPU coprocessors are going to go mainstream as adjuncts to CPUs in workstations and servers, the programming has to get easier and developers have to be able to exploit the languages, libraries, and development tools they have traditionally been using to create applications for PCs and servers. With the launch of the CUDA 3. …

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Thursday 22nd July 2010 11:27 GMT ThomH

Proprietary; not interested

Though the CUDA approach is quite a lot better than Microsoft's brilliant idea of making GPGPU a 'game' feature by putting it in DirectX. Still though, it'd be OpenCL for me were I anything more than an armchair pundit. It seems to be supported by Intel, NVidia and ATI and available on all three of the name recognition operating systems.

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Thursday 22nd July 2010 12:24 GMT JDX

Proprietary; who cares?

It looks pretty awesome and as someone who's more interested in writing code than pretending I'll ever modify the source of someone else's compiler, it's cool to see nVidia dominating this area - I'd hope it becomes a standard ATI embrace too.

Also, nice to see us C++ people givena new lease of life on cutting-edge tech; function pointers, recursion, etc are stuff these whippersnappers can't stomach :)

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1. Thursday 22nd July 2010 13:33 GMT ThomH
  
  I didn't mean proprietary as in closed source
  
  I meant it as in the language/infrastructure standard. OpenCL is a Kronos standard, so anyone can implement it. Not me, I couldn't — and I have no intention of looking at how anyone else has. But ATI could. CUDA is something NVidia made up and propagate for the purpose of selling NVidia products. It won't be coming to ATI cards any time soon.
  
  But, as I was clear to point out, I'm just shouting ballyhoo from the sidelines without being directly affected. I just find it difficult to get excited about a technology being promoted by one manufacturer for the benefit of that manufacturer when it not only isn't the only game in town but the whole area is so nascent that no platform can be really described as dominant.
  
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Sunday 25th July 2010 08:47 GMT uninventiveheart

NVidia only loves open source to a point.

NVidia has yet to release an open-source version of their drivers to allow Linux to better operate on their cards. NVidia is the primary reason that Sony decided to disable "Other OS" support on their consoles. And CUDA as an interface will never be on ATI cards short of a merger or buyout. Yes, OpenGL/CL is on their new cards, but not the latest version.

While I think Intel/NVidia's infighting over hardware architecture and graphics implementation is ridiculous and I side with NVidia on a lot of that mess, Big Green still isn't innocuous of "industry influence" on technologies. Gaming on Linux is still largely a joke compared to Windows systems (not the fault of the progenitors of Linux gaming: Wine, Cedega, indie developers doing what they can, etc., but rather short-sightedness and backroom dealing) thanks in part to companies like NVidia.

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