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Idea #16362: Implement support for OpenCL API
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Written by AndrewLuecke the 9 Dec 08 at 12:11.
Category: Programming.
Related project:
Nothing/Others.
Status: Deleted
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Rationale
Now that OpenCL 1.0 is final, prioritising support would not only inspire developers to use linux, but also prove that we have the development toolkits, guts and motivation to compete against OSX Snow Leopard and Windows 7. If we don't support it rapidly, we will only fall further behind OSX, especially since it will give their developers extra time to utilise it properly (we shouldn't be waiting until its already popular). The faster we get this implemented, the quicker developers can use it, and the faster Ubuntu will be!
For those who don't know, OpenCL is a royalty-free standard for developers to program general purpose highly parallelised applications over GPU and CPU (combining their power even). Its more advanced then CUDA in that it combines CPU and GPU power and is accessible outside of Nvidia's video cards.
In summary, OpenCL is expected to become very popular with developers and users, and will make everything damned fast (especially considering we are already seeing video cards with 1600 processing threads, and Intel CPU's with 16 virtual CPU's will be out Q3 2009). If every program used OpenCL, processing power will seem almost infinite to end users.
Activision, Blizzard, AMD, Apple, ARM, Broadcom, Electronic Arts, IBM, Intel, Nokia, NVIDIA, Apple and Samsung are all on board. All major gaming companies, CPU and GPU manufacturers are on board. So yes, it will be a slaughter without support... ATI is dropping "close to metal", and as Nvidia will support OpenCL, CUDA will probably be depreciated slowly too (at the moment they are recommending CUDA only as a higher-level development platform).
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Comments
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urandom
wrote on the 9 Dec 08 at 13:08
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This idea should be promoted with full strength.
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urandom
wrote on the 9 Dec 08 at 14:10
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It would be a good idea to put OpenCL integration for the release immediately after Jaunty, since Jaunty is most likely too far into the development stage at this time.
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wow CUDA in linux would be AWESOME! No doubt it has to be 9.04. On some tasks it gives 1000% increase of speed! no overstatement.
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"If every program used OpenCL, processing power will seem almost infinite to end users."
Every program can not use OpenGL, it is not suited for all kinds of things. It is mostly suited for stuff like algorithms. Video encoding/decoding, encryption/decryption, etc.
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Craig73
wrote on the 9 Dec 08 at 18:31
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Where I can see the advantage of this processing power is supporting more natural interactions... a computer that can look at the webcam and know if you are around (change your IM status, sound profiles, power profiles), better voice recognition/voice generation, better compression/encryption algorithms for video/voice communications.
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I like all these GPGPU things. +1
Would this work for every GPU, or only those OpenCL-enabled? (my Nvidia isn't CUDA enabled, for example)
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rouge568
wrote on the 10 Dec 08 at 00:09
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@urandom
In no way is it too late to get this into jaunty if we work quickly - the developer's summit is on the 11th of December.
I fully support integrating this into Ubuntu ASAP.
+1
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tadasv
wrote on the 10 Dec 08 at 03:01
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I've been working with CUDA for a while, but OpenCL will totally revolutionize world of computing. Are there some specific people working on OpenCL toolkit for linux?
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neon
wrote on the 10 Dec 08 at 04:28
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YES. huge +1.
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AndrewLuecke none of your words argue that CUDA not awesome)
if nV associates for you with windoze, proprietarity and imperialistic invaders, for me it's only a piece of hardware, probably best in its own kind. and OpenCL is _Open_ CL, and this is good. And as i know CUDA implementation doesnt deny ability to run process on main CPU only.
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sorry i realized that i mistaken CUDA as part of OpenCL, BUT its still open, right? when is where something wrong with it?
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ubby
wrote on the 10 Dec 08 at 10:34
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It was conceived by Apple Inc. (which holds trade mark rights), and established as standard by Khronos Group in cooperation with others, and is based on C99.
OpenCL is scheduled to be introduced in Mac OS 10.6 ('Snow Leopard').
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL
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enubuntu
wrote on the 10 Dec 08 at 11:50
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+1
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vs8
wrote on the 10 Dec 08 at 11:52
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I like this!!!!! Please do it Ubuntu!!!!!
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ubby
wrote on the 10 Dec 08 at 12:01
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+1
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AndrewLuecke, yeah i got it CUDA is sucks))
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MiKom
wrote on the 12 Dec 08 at 15:53
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It's not entirely up to Ubuntu to support OpenCL. Nividia stated that their implemetation of OpenCL will be done on top of CUDA i.e. OpenCL will be translated to CUDA code or directly to internal nvidia gpgpu language (ptx). Canonical/Ubuntu should however help in development of the tools for open video drivers (xf86-video-ati/radeonhd/nouveau/intel) like OpenCL compiler (gcc wrapper probably) and video driver APIs and internals.
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I see that there will be a fee for conformance tests so that the OpenCL trademark can be used, for a particular implementation. Read this on khronos's site (page 4 of the slides)
Will this be a problem?
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Craig73
wrote on the 12 Dec 08 at 18:01
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Is it a licensing fee or royalties... the former is less bad for FOSS.
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Sort of conformance test licensing.
Quotation from site:
"OpenCL implementations must pass conformance tests to use trademark. -Khronos will license tests for nominal fee to any interested company."
Don't think its a big issue, not buying the tests means one can't officially use the OpenCL trademark.
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acidicX
wrote on the 13 Dec 08 at 17:53
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Nvidia already stated that they will support OpenCL. This makes sense because they only sell GPUs, so its one target user group more for them.
Any support of CPUs will be up to a sort of 'dispatcher' program. There is no kind of automatic CPU support in OpenCL. But neither can NV prevent it..
I would love to see OpenCL support in jaunty, but it's no priority for me...
@ AndrewLuecke: man, are you scared by apple or what ;-)
They only got 10% market share and it didn't change over the years..
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Big +1 for this.
Now NVidia and ATI have committed to OpenCL, there's no real concerns holding back Ubuntu devs from implementing it.
Obviously it has uses in scientific applications (e.g. PyMOL - especially in raytracing), but I wonder what OpenCL can do to speed up everyday applications - say, web browsing, office work, multimedia, email. Any ideas?
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CodeSourcery would certainly be interested in working on an OpenCL implementation in GCC.
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dbx
wrote on the 24 Dec 08 at 15:20
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As an old fart, who bought the Amiga 500 for its game
potential and 3D rendering, I have to agree - OpenCL
sounds like a wedge in the marketing world for more
acceptance of Linux.
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Do we have any official word on this??
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This should be priority. AndrewLuecke (first comment) say all about this...
Ubuntu developers: help us :)
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@AndrewLuecke
Multimedia would indeed be where most users see the most gain. The smooth playback of h.264 1080p content, which right now is just a pipe dream unless you lay down serious cash for high-end GPUs that support xvmc/xvba properly, or pay for the proprietary codecs like Purevideo HD and CoreAVC, could with OpenCL become a reality for everyone. A Free, Open Source reality ;)
As regards email, users often send photos and videos to each other which a modified jpg / png / etc decoder could accelerate. Not sure how much of a benefit there would be though.
For PyMOL, which is a molecular visualisation program, it would be cool if you could run all the time in raytrace mode. Right now you have to arrange the molecule exactly how you want in the low-quality preview mode, then raytrace that scene. But with OpenCL I can envisage a situation where you're manipulating a raytraced molecule all the time, in real time, which would look so much nicer and more precisely rendered. Perhaps not on today's hardware, but in the near future there should be GPUs capable of it. Especially when running on our favourite, highly efficient penguin.
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If possible Ubuntu should expand Gallium3d to support the OpenCL interface. And then graphics driver using gallium3d should be made make use of it. That the way to go imo. Thanks.
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