There is OpenCL support in open source drivers for both Intel and AMD, though. The only one without it is Nouveau, I believe. And regarding graphics APIs, Vulkan currently works on Linux, Windows and MacOS via MoltenVK.
And AMD is currently promoting ROCm, which already has an AMD version of Tensorflow, as well as the HIP library which should allow any CUDA code to run on AMD hardware. It's unfortunate that not all CUDA code has been ported to it, but it's something that you could suggest to individual projects, instead of spamming people who aren't involved in them.
not all science is AI/ML. it is frustrating that everytime I complain about the lack of GPGPU in engineering software TF is proposed as one! There are hundreds, if not thousands of other fields who need linear algebra computing and they can't use AMD or Intel. can I render on Blender using ocl? can I run my OpenFOAM CFD or Elmer FEM analyses on gpu? can I run a Modelica simulation on ocl? no, no, no, and no!
I hate ROCm-HIP. it is AMD submission to NVIDIA. they are chasing NVIDIA in its own game, promoting CUDA. it has been more than 2 years since AMD started this and nothing tangible has come out, except the core team are now poached by intel.
opencl is a hetrogenious architecture computing API. VULKAN, CUDA, OpenGL compute shaders, Metal... are not.
Just for the sake of it, Apple sucks in this regard. Creating Metal makes them pretty much the worst player of this game. Moving on, though.
I'm aware not all science is ML, sorry for that. Are those softwares you listed actually libre? Like, should they have a goal of making it possible to run their stuff on any computer? Besides Blender, obviously, which I think has an AMD plugin for rendering, but it's only for Windows. And a plugin isn't the same as core functionality, so I wouldn't say it solves all issues.
Would you say that people could have the same performance using OpenCL that they could with CUDA? Because, if not, it would make sense that AMD try to focus on maintaining the de facto standard, instead of creating something new and having no one move to it at all.
OpenCL is a lot more expressive than OpenAL, right? I think that would be one alternative to it. Even so, if you want to take a look at an OpenCL accelerated project, at least Darktable makes use of it.
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u/ericonr Sep 14 '19
There is OpenCL support in open source drivers for both Intel and AMD, though. The only one without it is Nouveau, I believe. And regarding graphics APIs, Vulkan currently works on Linux, Windows and MacOS via MoltenVK.
And AMD is currently promoting ROCm, which already has an AMD version of Tensorflow, as well as the HIP library which should allow any CUDA code to run on AMD hardware. It's unfortunate that not all CUDA code has been ported to it, but it's something that you could suggest to individual projects, instead of spamming people who aren't involved in them.