On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 3:21 AM, Yasha Karant <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Am I missing something here?  Does any other production vendor supply GPU
> compute engine cards but Nvidia?      Are any GPU compute cards fully
> supported (including any additional interconnects beyond PCI) using fully
> open source drivers and compilers/application support generators/libraries?
> To use the Nvidia GPU compute cards under CUDA, it appears that the Nvidia
> proprietary driver is necessary.
>
> Yasha Karant
>
Yasha

In direct answer to your question Nvidia, AMD (Formerly ATI), Intel,
and others make GPGPU's
they all have issues and none of them were compatible with each other
in the past, but there seems to be a light stating to appear they all
seem to be standardizing on support for OpenCL so at least the code is
becoming portable but most of them need proprietary drivers to load
code into the card.
there are some notable strange exceptions Samsung is building GPGPUS
for smartphones which don't need proprietary drivers. Im not
completely sure what they intend to use them for but its at least one
vendor and i have a feeling more will follow soon.

I know there is progress on a a free AMD Radeon driver which allows
you to program in openCL
http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/GalliumCompute
I haven't tried it but it shows there is potential.
now someone just needs to write code to software render 3d graphic in
OpenCL and maybe we will finally be able to put the proprietary driver
BS to rest.


>
> On 03/25/2013 07:34 PM, Paul Robert Marino wrote:
>>
>> Um well
>> Frankly the proprietary driver is never up to date with the kernel and
>> it is well that's luck if it ever works with a new version of the kernel
>> after you have reinstalled "recompiled the module with code you can't
>> see against the new code"
>>
>>
>> If you  have a problem with the proprietary driver take it up with
>> ?Nvidia. In theory you pay them to make it work correct ?
>> If you don't pay them for support then find a card that doesn't use
>> proprietary code.
>>
>>
>>
>> -- Sent from my HP Pre3
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On Mar 25, 2013 9:59 PM, Jeff Siddall <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> On 03/25/2013 12:41 PM, Yasha Karant wrote:
>>  > We are forced to use the Nvidia proprietary driver for two reasons:
>>  >
>>  > 1. We use the switched stereoscopic 3D mode of "professional" Nvidia
>>  > video cards with the external Nvidia 3D switching emitter for the
>>  > stereoscopic 3D "shutter glass" mode of various applications that
>>  > display stereoscopic 3D images (both still and motion).
>>  >
>>  > 2. We need to load Nvidia CUDA in order to use the CUDA computational
>>  > functions of Nvidia GPU compute cards in our GPU based compute engines.
>>  > The Nvidia CUDA system appears to require the proprietary Nvidia
>> driver.
>>
>> Yup, I run the proprietary driver for VDPAU support. If anyone knows
>> how to get that from the open source driver I would like to know.
>>
>> Jeff