OpenCL spec gets finalized, Snow Leopard says "purrrr"

It's just taken a relatively short six months, but it looks like the team behind the Open Computing Language (or OpenCL) have already delivered the final spec for the standard, which puts it right on track for inclusion in OS X Snow Leopard. In fact, the team credits Apple with helping them meet the "impossible deadline," with Intel's Tim Mattson saying that Apple's decision to "support it in Snow Leopard was a huge plus to us," even if it forced them to "divorce our families" and left them "almost dead." The standard itself, which allows for greater leveraging of GPUs and other hardware, isn't quite ready to be implemented just yet, however, as it still has to go through the final stage of being vetted by all 20 partner companies for patent issues and whatnot. Once that's done, which will take a "minimum" of 30 days, they'll release the actual spec and begin the usual round demos.

[Via Ars Technica]

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 21st 2008 3:57PM]

Wow, I can't believe how many people here are comparing OpenCL to DX? How many times does it take to understand that OpenCL has nothing to do whatsoever with DX. OpenCL.
-DX is used to render neat 3D stuff on your screen.
-OpenCL is used to crunch data that typically does not appear on screen at all.

Bottom line is you can't do with OpenCL what you can do with DX and vice versa.

OpenCL (for example) can be used to make Stuffit/Winzip compress files faster by using a GPU+CPU. Or to make Safari parse XHTML faster or to make compiling source code faster. Note that none of these tasks have anything to do with DX functionality, just that they are processor intensive.

Please no more misdirected comments mentioning DX or Open*GL*.

[Agrabren Posted Nov 21st 2008 4:52PM]

Actually, bringing up DX is completely valid in this discussion. Microsoft is positioning DX 11 (for Vista and Win7) to enable developers to use the GPU as a GPGPU, and not just a 3D accelerator. So OpenCL competes with DX11.

[looselycoupled Posted Nov 21st 2008 9:53PM]

The reason DX is brought up is because Microsoft is integrating GPGPU functionality into DX11 through the new concept of "computation shaders", and will definitely be positioning it as an alternative to OpenCL which is very unfortunate for developers... more of the same microsoft proprietary BS

[xxxsam Posted Nov 21st 2008 6:05PM]

So, yeah, great news.

Let's assume I don't plan to run a global climate simulation on my home computer (hint: I don't) or encode HD videos (hint: I don't) or crack complex encryption (hint: I don't)... what is this going to do for me exactly? :)

I do use photo editing software, so maybe - if the manufacturers take advantage - it could run that a bit faster? It's already pretty fast, I guess exporting pictures takes a while, maybe that could be quicker? I'm usually okay to wait though...

seriously, I get that taking advantage of GPU power is important for scientific use and certain other computationally intensive tasks; but as an 'ordinary' user, is it going to enable any new applications or something?

[Shunnabunich Posted Nov 21st 2008 8:07PM]

I don't see how it would enable new categories of apps, per se. What it would do is make existing computationally intensive apps more economical to use, as long as their respective developers are willing to do the legwork to take advantage of OpenCL. OpenCL is basically about taking horsepower that used to just sit there, and putting it to use.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 22nd 2008 1:34AM]

(hint: People don't like hints!)

[Wwhat Posted Nov 23rd 2008 3:58AM]

If you only use your computer to browse the web why would you have a capable GPU in the first place?
Just because you are a bit limited doesn't mean every computer user is you know.

[Eternal Density Posted Nov 21st 2008 6:57PM]

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
PLZ OPEN FILE "LOLCATS.TXT"?
AWSUM THX
VISIBLE FILE
O NOES
INVISIBLE "ERROR!"
KTHXBYE

[JViz Posted Nov 22nd 2008 1:44AM]

Now, if only mac's had a decent graphics card to run this on.

[Wwhat Posted Nov 23rd 2008 3:55AM]

6 month eh, why don't they listen closer to the khronos group and sit back and release things after there has been some more continental drift, in say 50000 years, why the rush?

(Little sarcasm towards the khronos people, had to done)

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 23rd 2008 12:46AM]

Fieldcar you are an idiot.

You say "@Joachim Bengtsso:
So you agree that you are getting scammed by apple, and what could be a simple driver is forced to be exclusive to the newest OS."

If he is being "scammed" by Apple, then everyone in the world by definition is being scammed by everything. Microsoft's DirectX10 non compatibility on XP. Does that make Vista a scam? Does a slightly more expensive car with a more powerful engine constitute a scam?

Ok, so now lets think about all the promises made for longhorn (I'm talkin way back in the day). Eventually we got an updated version of XP essentially with a flashy new GUI that doesnt even run on half the laptops I see running Vista. It's not really that massive leap the PC world expected. I think the guy who made the Vista-Ready is the bigger scammer. Is it a standard pc? Great put a sticker on? Will it run Vista? Does it run Aero? Guess we'll wait and see.... The same thing with MS Cairo. And how many people in the world when buying a pc opt to buy MS? The fact MS is only so popular because of a business model of selling the software first, then making it work is a scam.

At least when snow leopard was first announced they've stuck to what they said they were going to deliver, in record time, instead of a bunch of false promises from Redmond. You have problems with Vista? Well, erm, here's Seinfeld.