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What is OpenCl

Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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Hey guys please can explain me what is open cl? I tried to do a little research but the problem is i don't have a slightest idea about this. I wanted to know about CUDA, Physx and OpenCL. Now i know a little bit about CUDA and Physx because it was somewhat easy to understand but no idea about OpenCL. Just know it is related to graphic card.. :(  Thank you very much.

1. What is OpenCL and OpenGL? (just a simple explanation)
2. is it important in gaming?
3. If it is not important in gaming what are the things use openCL/openGL
4. What is the difference between OpenCL and OpenGL?

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Graphics card Expert

1- OpenGL is the non-Windows world's equivalent of Direct3D. OpenCL is a GPGPU API that enables programmers to use the GPU as a co-processor for massively parallelizable tasks such as physics and image/signal processing.
2- OpenGL is only 'important' if games you want to play don't support D3D. OpenCL is not used by many games since most people would rather put their GPU's compute power into graphics than splitting it with stuff like physics.
3- refer to #1.
4- OpenGL is for graphics, OpenCL is for GPGPU.

I am sorry i am asking lots of questions and my English is also bad.. Are there any games that use openGL? If OpenCL can be use for physics why don't AMD cards can't process physics effects in gaming? Also CUDA and OpneCL do the same thing right?
Graphics card Expert

lakshitharxx said:
I am sorry i am asking lots of questions and my English is also bad.. Are there any games that use openGL? If OpenCL can be use for physics why don't AMD cards can't process physics effects in gaming? Also CUDA and OpneCL do the same thing right?

Many cross-platform games support both OpenGL and D3D but most Windows-only games only support D3D.

As I said in #2 of my first reply, most people prefer letting their GPU focus on graphics. Few games bother using nVidia's PhysX API for more or less the same reason and people who do play PhysX-enabled games usually have a 2nd or 3rd GPU dedicated to that.

Yes, CUDA and OpenCL serve more or less the same purposes. PhysX and CUDA are nVidia-specific while OpenCL is a multi-platform multi-vendor standard.
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Graphics card Master

lakshitharxx said:
I am sorry i am asking lots of questions and my English is also bad.. Are there any games that use openGL? If OpenCL can be use for physics why don't AMD cards can't process physics effects in gaming? Also CUDA and OpneCL do the same thing right?

Another thing you should also be aware of is DirectCompute, which is the Windows specific version of OpenCl. DirectCompute is to OpenCl as DirectX is to OpenGl.

As far as games that use OpenGl, I know that any games that John Carmack is a part of, is OpenGl, such as Rage, Doom, and Quake games.

I also know that DirectCompute is used in Metro 2033.
Graphics card Master

lakshitharxx said:
Just a one more thing.. There are CUDA cores in Nvida Graphic cards. That mean their main purpose is not gaming?

Nvidia's cards call their computational units CUDA cores to be different than AMD, which calls theirs shaders. They perform the same general tasks.

I am little bit confused here.. That mean CUDA cores are just Nvidia's Computational units and CUDA means parallel computing architecture? Two difference things and they just use CUDA name in cores to be difference than AMD right? Like you said before Many cross-platform games support both OpenGL and D3D but most of the time D3D only in Windows. Then what about CUDA/OpenCL and DirectCompute? Directcompute only in windows? and Please tell me some programs which use CUDA/OpenCL and DirectCompute..

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Graphics card Master

That's a lot of questions.

Quote:
That mean CUDA cores are just Nvidia's Computational units and CUDA means parallel computing architecture?

Yes. Just look at it like this. CUDA can either mean their GPGPU API or if used as "CUDA core", it is talking about the computational unit that is used in GPGPU or Graphics calculations.

Quote:
Like you said before Many cross-platform games support both OpenGL and D3D but most of the time D3D only in Windows. Then what about CUDA/OpenCL and DirectCompute? Directcompute only in windows?


- CUDA (not CUDA cores, which is a hardware thing) is an Nvidia only API for doing GPGPU work (General Processing on the Graphics Processing Unit, or something like that). This API is for Nvidia cards using Windows only.

- OpenCl is an open standard for doing GPGPU, for any hardware or OS.
- DirectCompute is a Windows only version of GPGPU, much like OpenCl, and is open to any graphics card maker.

NOTE: the Xbox 360 uses DirectX too, and the 720 will probably include DirectCompute as well. When I say Windows, Xbox 360 may be included at times.

Now i got the idea. That was really really helpful. Sorry for asking lot of questions. :)  No idea how to thank you. I spend many hours trying to understand this but it was somewhat complicated. Thank you again..
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