http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-ATI.html declares ATI's X1900-series to be the most advanced coprocessor ever ( rumour: 375 GFLOPS as opposed to the 25 GFLOPS of the lastest conroes /rumour).

How to address this power with D?

Karen Lanrap wrote:
> http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-ATI.html declares ATI's X1900-series to be the most advanced coprocessor ever ( rumour: 375 GFLOPS as opposed to the 25 GFLOPS of the lastest conroes /rumour).
> 
> How to address this power with D?

Make it cooperate with Cg/HLSL or GLSL <g>

Karen Lanrap wrote:

> http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-ATI.html declares ATI's X1900-series to be the most advanced coprocessor ever ( rumour: 375 GFLOPS as opposed to the 25 GFLOPS of the lastest conroes /rumour).
> 
> How to address this power with D?

Have you seen Accelerator project of MS Research?

Paper:
http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?type=technical%20report&id
=1040
Video: http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=229585
Download:
http://research.microsoft.com/research/downloads/download.aspx?FUID=50ee362a-c4d
7-4fe6-9018-1b7f9c1dd5dc

Maybe it's not a bad idea to create something similar for D.

-- 

On Tue, 03 Oct 2006 19:33:25 +0000, Andrei Khropov wrote:

> Karen Lanrap wrote:
> 
>> http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-ATI.html declares ATI's X1900-series to be the most advanced coprocessor ever ( rumour: 375 GFLOPS as opposed to the 25 GFLOPS of the lastest conroes /rumour).
>> 
>> How to address this power with D?
> 
> Have you seen Accelerator project of MS Research?
> 
> Paper:
> http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?type=technical%20report&id
> =1040
> Video: http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=229585
> Download:
> http://research.microsoft.com/research/downloads/download.aspx?FUID=50ee362a-c4d
> 7-4fe6-9018-1b7f9c1dd5dc
> 
> Maybe it's not a bad idea to create something similar for D.

That is there idea with the vectorization suggestion here. http://all-technology.com/eigenpolls/dwishlist/index.php?it=10

What is a vectorized expression? Basically, loops that does not specify any order of execution. If there is no order specified, of course the compiler can choose any one that is efficient or maybe even distribute the code and execute it in parallel.

Andrei Khropov wrote:
> Karen Lanrap wrote:
> 
>> http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-ATI.html declares ATI's X1900-series to be the most advanced coprocessor ever ( rumour: 375 GFLOPS as opposed to the 25 GFLOPS of the lastest conroes /rumour).
>>
>> How to address this power with D?
> 
> Have you seen Accelerator project of MS Research?
> 
> Paper:
> http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?type=technical%20report&id
> =1040
> Video: http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=229585
> Download:
> http://research.microsoft.com/research/downloads/download.aspx?FUID=50ee362a-c4d
> 7-4fe6-9018-1b7f9c1dd5dc
> 
> Maybe it's not a bad idea to create something similar for D.
> 

Hmm.  It sounds pretty much like OpenMP.
http://www.openmp.org/drupal/

--bb

>
> Hmm.  It sounds pretty much like OpenMP. http://www.openmp.org/drupal/
>
> --bb

I might be wrong, but as far as I can see OpenMP doesn't  use the gpu.

Using the gpu as a coprocessor isn't that difficult though, just find code
which can be done faster through the gpu pipelines.
Reading through the opengl redbook might give you some clues as to which
kind of operations you should be looking.
Translate the problem 'graphically' et voila profit.

I intent to use the gpu for parts of the AI in my upcoming games(just wait another year or so :)

But yes, it would be nice to have a project going which would setup everything (in opengl) and have some basic functions which would be done by the gpu. It shouldn't even be too difficult to let opengl stay your main device for screen output :D

Ok.  I didn't get that far in watching the channel 9 video.  So it sounds like OpenMP for the GPU then.  Neat.  How's the support for double precision floating point?  Also what happens when the user has crappy built-in Intel chipset graphics?  If they're going to solve those issues for us then it will be very useful indeed.

--bb

nobody_ wrote:
>> Hmm.  It sounds pretty much like OpenMP.
>> http://www.openmp.org/drupal/
>>
>> --bb
> 
> I might be wrong, but as far as I can see OpenMP doesn't  use the gpu.
> 
> Using the gpu as a coprocessor isn't that difficult though, just find code which can be done faster through the gpu pipelines.
> Reading through the opengl redbook might give you some clues as to which kind of operations you should be looking.
> Translate the problem 'graphically' et voila profit.
> 
> I intent to use the gpu for parts of the AI in my upcoming games(just wait another year or so :)
> 
> But yes, it would be nice to have a project going which would setup everything (in opengl) and have some basic functions which would be done by the gpu. It shouldn't even be too difficult to let opengl stay your main device for screen output :D 
> 
> 

I didn't watch the whole thing either. (well just now I did :)
I was just talking about general gpu computation.
If you want to know the support for x, you should just check the specs of
OpenGl x.x or Direct3D x.x
Every card has specs which show the version they are compliant with, and if
they are cheating both the card manifacturers and OpenGl/Microsoft will sue
them.
Thus even the inbuild chips should be able to help out.
But you are right, there are probably some precision differences, but isn't
that also a problem with different cpu's?
(I remember being told not to use different cpu's for distributed rendering
for just that reason)

I think it would be very interesing to start our own gpu-co-proc module.


> Ok.  I didn't get that far in watching the channel 9 video.  So it sounds like OpenMP for the GPU then.  Neat.  How's the support for double precision floating point?  Also what happens when the user has crappy built-in Intel chipset graphics?  If they're going to solve those issues for us then it will be very useful indeed.
>
> --bb