[gentoo-user] Mantle Open source GPU engine

[gentoo-user] Mantle Open source GPU engine

[James]

Howdy one and all,

Well I heard about about AMD's push, referred to as Mantle
to unseat DirectX as the defacto gaming platform (yawn)...


But recently, an egg_head mathematician that irritates me
from time to time, called me in the middle of the night.
He, being an eceptionally bright and difficult humnoid; would 
not shut up at what AMD is doing.

Finally it seems that an open source, raw hardware access
API is going to allow truely unfettered access to the
computational blocks inside of a GPU. (ok now I was awake).

Upon googing this am, I do see quite a buzz, particularly
since all Nvidia would have to do, is decide to implement
the open source -- open standard access to the bare metal
of the GPU. This should not be taken likely as it is akin 
to all of the FPGA hardware folks giving away the billions
of dollars in IP, software and integration tools that make
building a custom processor, possible. Those tools are locked
away, due to expense and the business approach of hardware
vendors asking for money each time they reveal the tricks,
trade secrets and heuritical methods to build low level components.

What this means is that MANTLE is a game changer and opens
up "bare metal access" to multitudes of ordinary computational
 and recreatioal computer weenies....(whoa Pee!)


If this is true, it is a GAME CHANGERS (could not resist the pun).


So:
A. it is time for me to dig into this issue.
B. Are any of the folks on this list working to get
Mantle support available on Gentoo?
C. Anyone tested one of the "Hawaii" radeon cards?
D. Anyone working on running SteamOS virtualize on (gentoo) linux?


as always, your thoughts are most welcome

James

[1]
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2049369/amd-nvidia-ramp-up-linux-driver-support-after-valves-steamos-announcement.html

[2] http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mantle-api-gcn-battlefield-4,24418.html

Re: [gentoo-user] Mantle Open source GPU engine

[Bruce Hill]

On Fri, Oct 04, 2013 at 03:02:07PM +0000, James wrote:
> Howdy one and all,
> 
> Well I heard about about AMD's push, referred to as Mantle
> to unseat DirectX as the defacto gaming platform (yawn)...
> 
> 
> But recently, an egg_head mathematician that irritates me
> from time to time, called me in the middle of the night.
> He, being an eceptionally bright and difficult humnoid; would 
> not shut up at what AMD is doing.
> 
> Finally it seems that an open source, raw hardware access
> API is going to allow truely unfettered access to the
> computational blocks inside of a GPU. (ok now I was awake).
> 
> Upon googing this am, I do see quite a buzz, particularly
> since all Nvidia would have to do, is decide to implement
> the open source -- open standard access to the bare metal
> of the GPU. This should not be taken likely as it is akin 
> to all of the FPGA hardware folks giving away the billions
> of dollars in IP, software and integration tools that make
> building a custom processor, possible. Those tools are locked
> away, due to expense and the business approach of hardware
> vendors asking for money each time they reveal the tricks,
> trade secrets and heuritical methods to build low level components.
> 
> What this means is that MANTLE is a game changer and opens
> up "bare metal access" to multitudes of ordinary computational
>  and recreatioal computer weenies....(whoa Pee!)
> 
> 
> If this is true, it is a GAME CHANGERS (could not resist the pun).
> 
> 
> So:
> A. it is time for me to dig into this issue.
> B. Are any of the folks on this list working to get
> Mantle support available on Gentoo?
> C. Anyone tested one of the "Hawaii" radeon cards?
> D. Anyone working on running SteamOS virtualize on (gentoo) linux?
> 
> 
> as always, your thoughts are most welcome
> 
> James
> 
> [1]
> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2049369/amd-nvidia-ramp-up-linux-driver-support-after-valves-steamos-announcement.html
> 
> [2] http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mantle-api-gcn-battlefield-4,24418.html

computer gaming (yawn)...
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers               >')
126 Fenco Drive                       ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801                       ^^
support@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting

[gentoo-user] Re: Mantle Open source GPU engine

[James]

Bruce Hill <daddy <at> happypenguincomputers.com> writes:


> computer gaming (yawn)...

think database acceleration,
load of additional mathematically tuned
addtional hardware for both MIPS/MOPS etc etc

think: an order of magnitue more hardware campacity of the
workstation or server, now fully utilizing the GPU(s).

Think searching and sorting algorithms running at orders
of magnitude fasters.  Now use these in networked
distributed and clustered systems.

Think of the hardware assault on a range of NP Complete
problems that only a few larges systems can tackle today.

Think man think of all of the projects, where NDA's are signed
and software vendors customize solutions for DOD, Aerospace
and other massive problems, all solved with the use
of "bare metal" and lightweight alogrithms that run on
bare metal

It will eventually effect everything that is done computationally,
not just limited to graphical interfaces.

The problem is we have been lead down this path before, via
marketing hype, and denieded bare metal access. Bare metal
access for lightweight or custom algorithms, have traditionally
been extraordinarily expense to gain access to. Typically, hardware vendors
select only a few outside companies to really have access to 
these things. Every layer of the API, system calls, IPC, etc, involves
using scarce hardware resources to manage for an OS.

Bare metal access, particularly if something like GCC incorporates
this bare metal access, via a compiler, it allows GPUs to
be use as reconfigurable blocks for custom and continuouse 
searching and sorting. Searching and sorting the the most important
things in a multi-user multi-thread operating system, imho.

These secrets are worth billions to these vendors (Nvidia, AMD ....)
and as such have been locked away from routine computational
use. If access is truly opened up, a war for tight integration
amoung all hardware vendors will transpire (FPGA, ASIC, GPU, CPU
and memory).

It is a GAME CHANGER, IFF true, that is ifunadulterated bare metal 
access is being provided to the masses

Otherwise, your yawn rules the day..... and this just may turn out
to be more hype, as it is limited to NDAs between game developers
and the hardware vendor, in yet another exclusive club.


hth,
James

[gentoo-user] Re: Mantle Open source GPU engine

[James]

James <wireless <at> tampabay.rr.com> writes:


> > computer gaming (yawn)...

"The Kalman filter operates recursively on streams of noisy input data to
produce a statistically optimal estimate of the underlying system state." [1]

(sounds like a database admin's dream tool, huh?)  
clean usage from "dirty/corrupted data"   (think NSA, DOD etc etc).

You like video on the Net?  The Kalman Filter is one of the chief
mathmatical advances in the field of video and graphics, among a myriad of
other applications. The Kalman filter is unknown to most "digital
mathmaticians" and application programers, but these days they rarely
perform seraching or sorting without the benefits of Kalman Filters running
on hardware (bare metal)...... 

The Kalman Filter is but one of the "bare metal Algorithms" that will
benefit by orders of magnitude with true bare metal access to the GPU.
[2]

If you really want to learn about where hardware meets software,
read up on this man : Donald Knuth.   Most programmers has never
heard of him, let alone comprehend his "body of work".


hth,
James


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalman_filter

[2]
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6121397&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D6121397

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Mantle Open source GPU engine

[Bruce Hill]

On Fri, Oct 04, 2013 at 04:49:24PM +0000, James wrote:
> James <wireless <at> tampabay.rr.com> writes:
> 
> 
> > > computer gaming (yawn)...
> 
> "The Kalman filter operates recursively on streams of noisy input data to
> produce a statistically optimal estimate of the underlying system state." [1]
> 
> (sounds like a database admin's dream tool, huh?)  
> clean usage from "dirty/corrupted data"   (think NSA, DOD etc etc).
> 
> You like video on the Net?  The Kalman Filter is one of the chief
> mathmatical advances in the field of video and graphics, among a myriad of
> other applications. The Kalman filter is unknown to most "digital
> mathmaticians" and application programers, but these days they rarely
> perform seraching or sorting without the benefits of Kalman Filters running
> on hardware (bare metal)...... 
> 
> The Kalman Filter is but one of the "bare metal Algorithms" that will
> benefit by orders of magnitude with true bare metal access to the GPU.
> [2]
> 
> If you really want to learn about where hardware meets software,
> read up on this man : Donald Knuth.   Most programmers has never
> heard of him, let alone comprehend his "body of work".
> 
> 
> hth,
> James
> 
> 
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalman_filter
> 
> [2]
> http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6121397&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D6121397

Hi James,

Sorry for such a terse, if not rude, response. You did, however, get the
meaning and respond accordingly. ;)

I'm familiar with Donald Knuth The Art of Computer Programming, TeX, etc. And
now that you've delved into some of the better reasons, I'm all ears.

Still, I would have highly chastised someone calling me about this in the
middle of the night. Even if it were one of my friends 13 time zones away. ;)

Cheers,
Bruce
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers               >')
126 Fenco Drive                       ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801                       ^^
support@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting

Re: [gentoo-user] Mantle Open source GPU engine

[Alan McKinnon]

On 04/10/2013 18:04, Bruce Hill wrote:
>> If this is true, it is a GAME CHANGERS (could not resist the pun).
>> > 
>> > 
>> > So:
>> > A. it is time for me to dig into this issue.
>> > B. Are any of the folks on this list working to get
>> > Mantle support available on Gentoo?
>> > C. Anyone tested one of the "Hawaii" radeon cards?
>> > D. Anyone working on running SteamOS virtualize on (gentoo) linux?
>> > 
>> > 
>> > as always, your thoughts are most welcome
>> > 
>> > James
>> > 
>> > [1]
>> > http://www.pcworld.com/article/2049369/amd-nvidia-ramp-up-linux-driver-support-after-valves-steamos-announcement.html
>> > 
>> > [2] http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mantle-api-gcn-battlefield-4,24418.html
> computer gaming (yawn)...


Think again.

What is the driving force behind all the super-duper performance
hardware you have right now?

Gaming.

What is the GPU capable of achieving when parallelized? Well, graphics
rendering is highly parallelizable and nowadays you see it in render
farms and Top500 supercomputers. But those didn;t fund it, so what did?

Graphics cards sold to gamers.

Graphics cards for gamers are probably the only thing left really
keeping the pc market as such going. Yes, there are still millions of
them on corporate desktops but that is a cut-throat market and at
what-tiny-number-of-bucks a pop? Bread and butter money, it keeps things
ticking over and pays the rent. But gamers pay for the bling.

Almost ever awesome performance gain in the last 10 years at least that
you see in commercial products were driven in whole or in part by the
primary high performance market - gamers.

Personally, I don't like games much and don't play them much. OK, I
don't play them at all. But the market they make up - that's different.
Those egg-heads are very important

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Mantle Open source GPU engine

[Bruce Hill]

On Fri, Oct 04, 2013 at 09:20:43PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > computer gaming (yawn)...
> 
> 
> Think again.
> 
> What is the driving force behind all the super-duper performance
> hardware you have right now?
> 
> Gaming.
> 
> What is the GPU capable of achieving when parallelized? Well, graphics
> rendering is highly parallelizable and nowadays you see it in render
> farms and Top500 supercomputers. But those didn;t fund it, so what did?
> 
> Graphics cards sold to gamers.
> 
> Graphics cards for gamers are probably the only thing left really
> keeping the pc market as such going. Yes, there are still millions of
> them on corporate desktops but that is a cut-throat market and at
> what-tiny-number-of-bucks a pop? Bread and butter money, it keeps things
> ticking over and pays the rent. But gamers pay for the bling.
> 
> Almost ever awesome performance gain in the last 10 years at least that
> you see in commercial products were driven in whole or in part by the
> primary high performance market - gamers.
> 
> Personally, I don't like games much and don't play them much. OK, I
> don't play them at all. But the market they make up - that's different.
> Those egg-heads are very important

See previous reply in thread to James. This one was not threaded, but rather,
a reply to the OP, so it makes it look as if you haven't read the thread.

I played one computer game one day in 1990. Lost that entire day to that
stupid game, and never played again. Except...one time for a few hours with a
new friend the second year living in China. He wanted me to play NFS. After
playing a few races with him, I explained that we do this with _real_cars_ on
_real_roads_ in _real_life_ "back in America". It developed from the days of
moonshining, and your car (and you as a driver) weren't anything if you
couldn't outrun the local cops. ;)

My gaming yawn was a poor, and needless, expression of disgust.
-- 
Happy Penguin Computers               >')
126 Fenco Drive                       ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801                       ^^
support@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting

Re: [gentoo-user] Mantle Open source GPU engine

[Alan McKinnon]

On 04/10/2013 22:53, Bruce Hill wrote:
>> Almost ever awesome performance gain in the last 10 years at least that
>> > you see in commercial products were driven in whole or in part by the
>> > primary high performance market - gamers.
>> > 
>> > Personally, I don't like games much and don't play them much. OK, I
>> > don't play them at all. But the market they make up - that's different.
>> > Those egg-heads are very important
> See previous reply in thread to James. This one was not threaded, but rather,
> a reply to the OP, so it makes it look as if you haven't read the thread.
> 
> I played one computer game one day in 1990. Lost that entire day to that
> stupid game, and never played again. Except...one time for a few hours with a
> new friend the second year living in China. He wanted me to play NFS. After
> playing a few races with him, I explained that we do this with _real_cars_ on
> _real_roads_ in _real_life_ "back in America". It developed from the days of
> moonshining, and your car (and you as a driver) weren't anything if you
> couldn't outrun the local cops. ;)
> 
> My gaming yawn was a poor, and needless, expression of disgust.


The last two games I played with any seriousness were Leisure Suit Larry
and TombRaider.... that was back in the days when interactive games with
decent graphics were still new-ish

My kids OTOH, they have umbilical feeds to the XBox.
And like you, Dad prefers racing real cars and real bikes



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Mantle Open source GPU engine

[Mark David Dumlao]

On Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 4:53 AM, Bruce Hill
<daddy@happypenguincomputers.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 04, 2013 at 09:20:43PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
>> > computer gaming (yawn)...
>>
>>
>> Think again.
>>
>> What is the driving force behind all the super-duper performance
>> hardware you have right now?
>>
>> Gaming.
>>
>> What is the GPU capable of achieving when parallelized? Well, graphics
>> rendering is highly parallelizable and nowadays you see it in render
>> farms and Top500 supercomputers. But those didn;t fund it, so what did?
>>
>> Graphics cards sold to gamers.
>>
>> Graphics cards for gamers are probably the only thing left really
>> keeping the pc market as such going. Yes, there are still millions of
>> them on corporate desktops but that is a cut-throat market and at
>> what-tiny-number-of-bucks a pop? Bread and butter money, it keeps things
>> ticking over and pays the rent. But gamers pay for the bling.
>>
>> Almost ever awesome performance gain in the last 10 years at least that
>> you see in commercial products were driven in whole or in part by the
>> primary high performance market - gamers.
>>
>> Personally, I don't like games much and don't play them much. OK, I
>> don't play them at all. But the market they make up - that's different.
>> Those egg-heads are very important
>
> See previous reply in thread to James. This one was not threaded, but rather,
> a reply to the OP, so it makes it look as if you haven't read the thread.
>
> I played one computer game one day in 1990. Lost that entire day to that
> stupid game, and never played again. Except...one time for a few hours with a
> new friend the second year living in China. He wanted me to play NFS. After
> playing a few races with him, I explained that we do this with _real_cars_ on
> _real_roads_ in _real_life_ "back in America". It developed from the days of
> moonshining, and your car (and you as a driver) weren't anything if you
> couldn't outrun the local cops. ;)
>
> My gaming yawn was a poor, and needless, expression of disgust.

Next time you yawn that yawn, though, just remember

The reason Unix was written was to port a game.

Re: [gentoo-user] Mantle Open source GPU engine

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am 04.10.2013 22:53, schrieb Bruce Hill:
> On Fri, Oct 04, 2013 at 09:20:43PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
>>> computer gaming (yawn)...
>>
>> Think again.
>>
>> What is the driving force behind all the super-duper performance
>> hardware you have right now?
>>
>> Gaming.
>>
>> What is the GPU capable of achieving when parallelized? Well, graphics
>> rendering is highly parallelizable and nowadays you see it in render
>> farms and Top500 supercomputers. But those didn;t fund it, so what did?
>>
>> Graphics cards sold to gamers.
>>
>> Graphics cards for gamers are probably the only thing left really
>> keeping the pc market as such going. Yes, there are still millions of
>> them on corporate desktops but that is a cut-throat market and at
>> what-tiny-number-of-bucks a pop? Bread and butter money, it keeps things
>> ticking over and pays the rent. But gamers pay for the bling.
>>
>> Almost ever awesome performance gain in the last 10 years at least that
>> you see in commercial products were driven in whole or in part by the
>> primary high performance market - gamers.
>>
>> Personally, I don't like games much and don't play them much. OK, I
>> don't play them at all. But the market they make up - that's different.
>> Those egg-heads are very important
> See previous reply in thread to James. This one was not threaded, but rather,
> a reply to the OP, so it makes it look as if you haven't read the thread.
>
> I played one computer game one day in 1990. Lost that entire day to that
> stupid game, and never played again. Except...one time for a few hours with a
> new friend the second year living in China. He wanted me to play NFS. After
> playing a few races with him, I explained that we do this with _real_cars_ on
> _real_roads_ in _real_life_ "back in America". It developed from the days of
> moonshining, and your car (and you as a driver) weren't anything if you
> couldn't outrun the local cops. ;)
what, with your stupid 55mph speed limit?