Will OpenCL support more cards in the future?

I'm not sure about their driver support schedule (ATI has working OpenCL drivers on Windows, so it's not like it's impossible). However, older GPUs simply don't have the facilities available to handle OpenCL (just like 2D accelerators from the 90's didn't have any physical way to deal with 3D drawing). I don't know the status of the HD2600, and whether or not it can support CL.

In other news, OpenCL should be able to work on the CPU in the event of a non-CL-capable GPU. I don't think QC does this (because then things would Just Work, and who wants that?) though, but maybe there's a hidden preferences option to enable it? The performance would be terrible, but it would at least do something...

look at the parallel computing N-body simulation stuff. there maybe a hack for qc but it is entirely possible to run cl on the cpu. i'm not sure how qc handles its run time with the cl kernels. i think a pre compiled kernel at the root level of your run time stack will work on the cpu. at least the documentation says that. it actually working with qc is another story.

From what I can tell based on mailing list response, it is supposed to fall back to CPU but they managed to break this at some point before the final build.

That's really Bad! I hate those cheap marketing techniques. ( I didn't find much valid reason)

Any infos on whether the new iMacs (if so, which ones) graphic cards support OpenCL?

I'd be really surprised if they didn't.. but no info.

a|x

21.5-inch models, one of the following: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory3 - supported ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR3 memory - waiting support

27-inch model with dual-core processor, one of the following: ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR3 memory- waiting support ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR3 memory- waiting support 27-inch model with quad-core processor: ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR3 memory- waiting support

gutsblow wrote:
Hello,

Does anybody have any idea whether Apple will support more cards in the future or I should just throw away my iMac and get a new one :( ? I really wish apple supported more cards.

from Ed Burnett's Blog http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=1323

Quote:

The final version of ATI’s SDK, with GPU support, is due out by the end of the year.

which might well mean a wait while the New Year for OS X ATI Open CL compatibility as Apple will then have to wrap up the ATI Open CL into OS X** :-(**.

Edit Having taken a closer look at the AMD Central Developer page http://developer.amd.com/GPU/ATISTREAMSDKBETAPROGRAM/Pages/default.aspx#two, only the following cards (& not the 2600 BTW) are supported and no OS X version as yet -(

Quote:

ATI Radeon™ HD

5870 5850 5770 5750 4890 4870 X2 4870 4850 X2 4850 4830 4770 4670 4650 4550 4350

ATI FirePro™

V8750 V8700 V7750 V5700 V3750

AMD FireStream™

9270 9250

ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD

4870 4860 4850X2 4850 4830 4670 4650 4500 Series 4300 Series

ATI Mobility FirePro™

M7740

ATI Radeon™ Embedded

E4690 Discrete GPU

gutsblow wrote:
Hello,

I have 2008 model iMac with ATI Radeon HD 2600. Unfortunately today I found that it's not OpenCL compatible. But, I really want to mess around with those new Mesh tools and stuff. Does anybody have any idea whether Apple will support more cards in the future or I should just throw away my iMac and get a new one :( ? I really wish apple supported more cards.

There are several of us who frequent this forum, myself included, who have the ATI Radeon HD 2600 GPU. I went on a rant in an earlier topic about this same compatibility issue and sadly, the consensus here regarding possible future compatibility for this particular card was not heartening. It would appear that while other more recent ATI cards may well gain compatibility, according to forum members more knowledgable than myself, the 2600 seems not to have what it takes.

So, throw away the iMac? I posted things like that too (sigh). Looks like we probably will indeed need to get different Macs if we want to explore OpenCL. I swore I wouldn't do that, but I'm mellowing a bit by now. For me? Maybe ... but it probably won't be for a year or two.

Just came across this:

10.6 Tech Specs

OpenCL requires one of the following graphics cards or graphics processors:

• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce 8600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130, GeForce GTX 285, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GS, Quadro FX 4800, Quadro FX5600
• ATI Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870

The GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130 were the previous GPUs for iMacs (higher rated models) - surely the new GPUs will support OpenCL. As the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M does apparently.

Also : QuickTime H.264 hardware acceleration

requires a Mac with an NVIDIA 9400M graphics processor. So looks like the cheapest new iMac is the one to get! ;-)