From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jun 25 10:51:24 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C1E2D106566B; Sat, 25 Jun 2011 10:51:24 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cbergstrom@pathscale.com) Received: from mail-pz0-f44.google.com (mail-pz0-f44.google.com [209.85.210.44]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 988FC8FC0A; Sat, 25 Jun 2011 10:51:24 +0000 (UTC) Received: by pzk5 with SMTP id 5so3217617pzk.17 for ; Sat, 25 Jun 2011 03:51:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.68.26.42 with SMTP id i10mr2185228pbg.291.1308999084012; Sat, 25 Jun 2011 03:51:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [192.168.1.33] (ppp-58-8-61-159.revip2.asianet.co.th [58.8.61.159]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id u6sm2780325pbh.16.2011.06.25.03.51.21 (version=SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Sat, 25 Jun 2011 03:51:23 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4E05BEC5.9000500@pathscale.com> Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:56:05 +0700 From: =?ISO-8859-15?Q?=22C=2E_Bergstr=F6m=22?= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS i86pc; en-US; rv:1.9.2.7) Gecko/20101031 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Alexander Best References: <20110622234336.GA94654@freebsd.org> <20110625104509.GA87358@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <20110625104509.GA87358@freebsd.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: gpu support for modern systems X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2011 10:51:24 -0000 On 06/25/11 05:45 PM, Alexander Best wrote: > On Thu Jun 23 11, Christopher Bergström wrote: >> On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 6:43 AM, Alexander Best wrote: >>> hi there, >>> >>> modern systems with their suffisticated gpus provide quite a potential for >>> moving some of the workload from cpu to gpu. for certain stuff gpus are much >>> faster than cpus, like number crunching or encoding/decoding multimedia >>> contents. >>> >>> anybody who is using mplayer(1) in combination with nvidia cards and vdpau has >>> probably experienced how much faster and less cpu intensive things can work out >>> when decoding HD video stuff e.g. >>> >>> since opencl/cuda isn't available under freebsd, it doesn't seem possible to >>> somehow hook the nvidia gpu into the every day freebsd workload that easily. >> PathScale has HMPP and partial CUDA support on FreeBSD now. Some >> caveats to this >> >> 1) Non-free (We could possibly make the tools free for FreeBSD >> community, but I'd have to get approval for it) >> 2) CUDA support isn't complete (Basic core is there and HMPP C/Fortran works) >> 3) Tesla 20xx series only >> >> We offer real support for FreeBSD and it's not using any linux emulator hacks. >> >> Let me know if anyone is interested. (If we get enough positive >> feedback I'll pursue some resolution to #1) > i'd really love to see this stuff being made available to the community. i > think this could pose a huge advantage to all kinds of audiences: home users, > servers people, etc. > > basically every modern computer comes with a gpu that performs much better at > certain tasks than the installed CPU. not making use of the gpu is a huge waste > of ressources. i think microsoft had a video on their channel 9 platform > demonstrating the huge advantages that one can get when offloading certain > tasks onto the gpu. just think of gimp being able to perform 10 times faster! > > ..or being able to compile world 10 times faster...or...or... ;) You missed the part where I said it's *Tesla* only. This is really only useful for HPC/life sciences/financial/server market. This isn't to say we're not excited about it, but I'm still unsure who if anyone is using FreeBSD in those areas.