Which OSX Apps can utilize the GPU?

[VirtualRain]

What apps (besides games) can currently offload processing to the GPU through OpenCL or otherwise?

Thanks!

[Zerozal]

I believe the latest versions of Photoshop, Lightroom, and Aperture all make use of the GPU for photo rendering and manipulation.

[alphaod]

Folding@home.

But you'd need to install wine.

[VirtualRain]

I believe the latest versions of Photoshop, Lightroom, and Aperture all make use of the GPU for photo rendering and manipulation.

That's interesting... do you know how they are doing this and what kind of improvements it makes? Are there any benchmarks?

Does the GPU make a lot of difference (eg. a GT120 vs. 4870 vs. GTX285)?

It's odd that Adobe claims that Flash cannot exploit GPU decode acceleration on OSX (due to lack of exposed API), yet, if you are correct, they are utilizing the GPU for some tasks with Photoshop?! :confused:

[iamcheerful]

What apps (besides games) can currently offload processing to the GPU through OpenCL or otherwise?

Thanks!
MovieGate 3.07 (see source links for more details)
Homepage - http://web.mac.com/cducommun/MG_English/Home.html
Apple Downloads - http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/moviegate.html

What’s New in this Version
- Encoding optimized with OpenCL and Grand Central under Snow Leopard

Pixelmator 1.5 (it offloads to GPU but it uses Core Image, OpenCL hasn't been officially nor unofficially mentioned yet)
Homepage - http://www.pixelmator.com/


Source Links
- http://www.hardmac.com/news/2009/09/16/positive-effects-of-grand-central-and-open-cl
- http://www.macrumors.com/2009/09/16/grand-central-dispatch-and-open-cl-bring-significant-performance-improvements-for-optimized-applications/
- http://www.pixelmator.com/weblog/2009/04/29/next-step/

[Cindori]

opencl is, as far as I know, not supported in any software yet released, besides some benchmarks.

[VirtualRain]

opencl is, as far as I know, not supported in any software yet released, besides some benchmarks.

I recall ATI cards (eg 4870) having some difficulty with OpenCL back in Sept. although there was some speculation over whether that was drivers or the benchmarks being used... has that situation improved at all? I did a search of the forums here and couldn't find any real updated info.

[Cindori]

they didnt have opencl support from 10.6.0 I believe, it came in 10.6.2

[iamcheerful]

opencl is, as far as I know, not supported in any software yet released, besides some benchmarks.

it is supported in MovieGate 3.07. see above links for more details.
other than that, like you, i have no idea what other software supports it. let's hope Apple will take the lead by Macworld 2010.

[trancepriest]

Apple Color, SpeedGrade HD, Autodesk Smoke for Mac, Aperture.