OpenCL 1.1 Specification Released

[phoronix]

Phoronix: OpenCL 1.1 Specification Released

The OpenCL 1.0 specification was released a year and a half ago, but now it has been superseded by the OpenCL 1.1 specification...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODMzOQ

[MisterIO]

Well, it's kind of sad that the OS drivers don't have support for it, but does it really matter, at least at the moment? I mean, is there really anything that take advantage of OpenCL? With OS drivers still not supporting OpenGL 3(nor 4), without good acceleration for video playback(at least not for my r700) and with rather poor performaces for those still without a working Gallivm3D driver(in particular after the KMS switch), IMO the OpenCL support should be at the very last position on the OS drivers' TODO list.

[chaos386]

Well, it's kind of sad that the OS drivers don't have support for it, but does it really matter, at least at the moment? I mean, is there really anything that take advantage of OpenCL?

I imagine there are a lot of people who'd like to tinker around with OpenCL programming without having to use a closed-source driver.

Anyone know if there's a software fallback (i.e. OpenCL on the CPU) in case your GPU or drivers don't support it?

[bridgman]

I imagine there are a lot of people who'd like to tinker around with OpenCL programming without having to use a closed-source driver.

Anyone know if there's a software fallback (i.e. OpenCL on the CPU) in case your GPU or drivers don't support it?

Go to www.amd.com and download our Stream SDK. It provides OpenCL support for both CPU and GPU.

[Zhick]

Go to www.amd.com and download our Stream SDK. It provides OpenCL support for both CPU and GPU.

That's closed-source as well though. I'd imagine that someone who refuses to use proprietary graphic-drivers to get OpenCL would also be reluctant to use a proprietary software-implementation.

[dimko]

Strongly disagree.
Not even even everyone can take advantage of vdpau for example(my nvidia GTS 8800 cannot!!!), but anyone who has more or less descent video card could take major speed boost from implemented OpenCL, I can't wait to see implementation of it...

[deanjo]

Strongly disagree.
Not even even everyone can take advantage of vdpau for example(my nvidia GTS 8800 cannot!!!),

Can't support something that physically isn't there.

[Qaridarium]

Can't support something that physically isn't there.

nvidia just failt to dev a shader based acceleration metod..

[deanjo]

nvidia just failt to dev a shader based acceleration metod..

They had no reason to build one. If you want to use GLSL acceleration that still can be done on a 8800 GTS. XBMC has had this option available for quite some time now.

[Veerappan]

Well, it's kind of sad that the OS drivers don't have support for it, but does it really matter, at least at the moment? I mean, is there really anything that take advantage of OpenCL? With OS drivers still not supporting OpenGL 3(nor 4), without good acceleration for video playback(at least not for my r700) and with rather poor performaces for those still without a working Gallivm3D driver(in particular after the KMS switch), IMO the OpenCL support should be at the very last position on the OS drivers' TODO list.

Re: video playback acceleration.

If there were a fully working Gallium OpenCL state tracker, it would be feasible for someone to write an OpenCL version of the decoder for any video codec... and I'm about to start writing a thesis proposal to do just that (with VP8). I'm planning on targeting Nvidia+AMD's OpenCL run-times/libraries, but the moment there's a working Gallium OpenCL state tracker, it would work there too.

Of course, I'll need to actually get the proposal written up, approved, and an advisor will need to be found, but it should work.... and hopefully it'll be simpler to code/maintain than a full OpenGL+GLSL implementation (which has been partially done for h.264). Hopefully the overhead won't kill the performance too much.