Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: AMD joins LibreOffice, adds GPU grunt to free software suite

On 07/28/2013 12:09 PM, Pedro wrote:
> Hi Michael, all
>
>
> Michael Meeks-2 wrote
> >         There are very significant optimisations for the software only core
> > that will make very much faster even if you have no GPU, we hope they
> > will also make it use very much less memory too for 4.2 - but that work
> > is ongoing.
> I was kind of hoping that some of that code was already included in the
> current master :)
>
> After a brief test with the newest build (Version: 4.2.0.0.alpha0+
> Build ID: 8b96cfd6caedbad7b3b79e57421a834f18c5c511
> TinderBox: Win-x86@6-debug, Branch:master, Time: 2013-07-27_22:47:00)
> I quickly found out that it is not so.
>
> I tested on my home nettop (a Nvidia ION based system with a 2Cores x 2
> Threads Intel Atom 330 which supports OpenCL and CUDA according to
> TechPowerUp's GPU-Z v0.7.2)
>
> BTW why are there only Debug daily versions available for Windows? Was this
> a change of plans or is it just a coincidence?
>
> Are Debug builds slower (less efficient) than non-debug?
>
> Cheers,
> Pedro

I have a question about this. . .

With the "GPU" computing power concept, will there be a GPU powered 
version and non-GPU powered version or with there be one version that 
will look to see if the system has a "compatible" GPU processor and use 
it when available?

What little I have dealt with GPU-based computing, I have only seen 
packages that either use GPU "only" [or as much as possible], or CPU 
processing.  I have never seen a package that looks at the system and 
decided what type of processor to use.  As far as I was told, you must 
"compile" your code for GPU processing or for CPU processing.  Well, 
that was what I was told when I was dealing with some "number crunching" 
packages.  They offered the CPU version, the CUDA-GPU version, and the 
API-GPU version, as the different versions for their "crunching" packages.

So,it seem to me if we make LO run on the GPU, then it would be a 
different version than running it on the system's CPU.  Of course, that 
does not take into account any OS option that runs its system on a 
GPU-based system and is acting as the "shell" to allow non-GPU packages 
to run on a GPU.


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