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OpenCL Support in SL for GTX285

M

Michael73

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 27, 2007
1,082
41
Don't get me wrong, the (apple-shipped) 8800GT has never given me a moment's worth of problem but it would seem that if there is OpenCL support for the GTX285 in SL next month, it may be worth it to drop the coin and get this card (I'll take it as a business expense).

Has anyone heard or seen something about officially supporting this card? When I looked on Apple's website under SL tech specs, this card isn't listed.
 
Someone posted a blurb about a month ago or less that said the 4870 was to be the ONLY card that Apple's OpenCL would work with. I dunno if it's true or if it's changed since but that's what they posted. It was restated a week or two after the GTX285 was out as well making me think that there's no change.
 
I wonder if this is another of those situations where apple doesn't officially state that it works, but it does anyhow... ex. more than 2GB RAM in older macbooks and minis, Radeon 4870 working in 2006 mac pro, etc.

the 285 isn't really even an apple card, it's EVGA. they made it work on their own, much like ati made the 3870 compatible with both windows and mac. sorry to say, but we may just have to wait and see. i wouldn't buy the card without getting confirmation that OpenCL is supported, but i don't see why it wouldn't be, even if Apple doesn't come out and say so.
 
Tell me how to find out and I will tell you.

I have one of each of those cards, I have 421a (yeah, I know, should've waited for 432...how to know such a thing?)

Oddly, the System Profiler doesn't even show QE and CI support, much less CL.
 
Indeed.

Just ran it on the GTS250:

1 OpenCL platform found!

[Platform 0]
Name: Apple
Vendor: Apple
Version: OpenCL 1.0 (Jul 15 2009 23:07:32)
Profile: FULL_PROFILE


2 OpenCL devices found!

[Device 0]
Name: GeForce GTS 250
Vendor: NVIDIA
Type: GPU
Device Version: OpenCL 1.0
Driver Version: CLH 1.0
Compute Units: 128
Work Group Size: 512
Clock: 1836 MHz
Global Memory: 512 MB
Local Memory: 16 KB
Cache Size: 0 KB
Cache Line Size: 0 Bytes
Available: Yes
Double-Precision: No
Extensions:
cl_khr_byte_addressable_store
cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics
cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics
cl_APPLE_gl_sharing
cl_APPLE_SetMemObjectDestructor
cl_APPLE_ContextLoggingFunctions

[Device 1]
Name: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 5160 @ 3.00GHz
Vendor: Intel
Type: CPU
Device Version: OpenCL 1.0
Driver Version: 1.0
Compute Units: 4
Work Group Size: 1
Clock: 3000 MHz
Global Memory (Total): 14080 MB
Global Memory (Host): 13056 MB
Global Memory (PCIe): 1024 MB
Local Memory: 16 KB
Cache Size: 4096 KB
Cache Line Size: 64 Bytes
Available: Yes
Double-Precision: Yes
Extensions:
cl_khr_fp64
cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics
cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics
cl_khr_local_int32_base_atomics
cl_khr_local_int32_extended_atomics
cl_khr_byte_addressable_store
cl_APPLE_gl_sharing
cl_APPLE_SetMemObjectDestructor
cl_APPLE_ContextLoggingFunctions

logout


Any other cards you guys curious of?

I'll check any card I have if you ask nice.
 
Yeah, Apple sales genius @work. Man, look, we can absolutely garantee you if you buy our most expensive consumer graphic option we will even support it next month.

If you buy bog standard we will also garantee you are screwed. Don't you know we do it all the time?

Poor me: But isn't that a bit questionable morally?

Genius: Fock moral, we are talking business here.
 
8800GT and GTX285 all at once !!

Tesselator said:
8800!
Click to expand...

1 OpenCL platform found!

[Platform 0]
Name: Apple
Vendor: Apple
Version: OpenCL 1.0 (Jul 15 2009 23:07:32)
Profile: FULL_PROFILE


3 OpenCL devices found!

[Device 0]
Name: GeForce 8800 GT
Vendor: NVIDIA
Type: GPU
Device Version: OpenCL 1.0
Driver Version: CLH 1.0
Compute Units: 112
Work Group Size: 512
Clock: 1500 MHz
Global Memory: 512 MB
Local Memory: 16 KB
Cache Size: 0 KB
Cache Line Size: 0 Bytes
Available: Yes
Double-Precision: No
Extensions:
cl_khr_byte_addressable_store
cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics
cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics
cl_APPLE_gl_sharing
cl_APPLE_SetMemObjectDestructor
cl_APPLE_ContextLoggingFunctions

[Device 1]
Name: GeForce GTX 285
Vendor: NVIDIA
Type: GPU
Device Version: OpenCL 1.0
Driver Version: CLH 1.0
Compute Units: 240
Work Group Size: 512
Clock: 1584 MHz
Global Memory: 2048 MB
Local Memory: 16 KB
Cache Size: 0 KB
Cache Line Size: 0 Bytes
Available: Yes
Double-Precision: No
Extensions:
cl_khr_byte_addressable_store
cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics
cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics
cl_APPLE_gl_sharing
cl_APPLE_SetMemObjectDestructor
cl_APPLE_ContextLoggingFunctions
cl_khr_local_int32_base_atomics
cl_khr_local_int32_extended_atomics

[Device 2]
Name: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 5160 @ 3.00GHz
Vendor: Intel
Type: CPU
Device Version: OpenCL 1.0
Driver Version: 1.0
Compute Units: 4
Work Group Size: 1
Clock: 3000 MHz
Global Memory (Total): 18176 MB
Global Memory (Host): 13056 MB
Global Memory (PCIe): 5120 MB
Local Memory: 16 KB
Cache Size: 4096 KB
Cache Line Size: 64 Bytes
Available: Yes
Double-Precision: Yes
Extensions:
cl_khr_fp64
cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics
cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics
cl_khr_local_int32_base_atomics
cl_khr_local_int32_extended_atomics
cl_khr_byte_addressable_store
cl_APPLE_gl_sharing
cl_APPLE_SetMemObjectDestructor
cl_APPLE_ContextLoggingFunctions

logout

[Process completed]
 
netkas said:
also check 4890 plz
Click to expand...

I will....but where is your best 4890 SL ATI2000.kext? Currently it lacks QE/CI...not in sys profile but I can see it.

On 421a now but will have 432 in a few hours.

And are you gonna help with this EFI Nvidia ROM thing? I'll send you a 9800GTX if that would help. I can do device id and RAM timings, etc in PC BIOS. Just need help with EFI part...there ARE timings and clocks in there....how to find and change?
 
MythicFrost said:
So is there support for the GTX 285 1GB in SL? and what does that mean:p?

Kind Regards
Click to expand...

This will mean different things for different users. Out of the gate it may mean very little. As I understand it, OpenCL is a basis upon which developers can build their programs to take advantage of the idle horsepower within the GPU. That said, the standard is so new I doubt there's very many existing programs which are positioned to take advantage of the standard today. Certainly, there is a pipeline of products but when they they see the light of day might not be for 6 months or more depending on the complexity of the programming. From a business standpoint, there also needs to be an analysis of the time (and money) it takes to re-write existing programs versus the improvement gain they'll see. I have no doubt that OpenCL will see wide adoption (at least in the Mac community due to the low cost of the OS upgrade). However, given the (relatively few) graphics cards that are currently officially supported by the standard, not every Mac user will see a gain even if they have SL and a program that takes advantage of OpenCL.

As someone who uses Adobe CS4 Web Premium, does photo post-production work and is a heavy user of video encoding software this is where I'll be looking to see if there are substantial benchmark improvements in the future. In my case, I could easily justify the upgrade if it meant 10%-20% improvement in daily tasks. At my hourly billing rate, it doesn't take too many hours to recoup $500 in costs.
 
Tesselator said:
Someone posted a blurb about a month ago or less that said the 4870 was to be the ONLY card that Apple's OpenCL would work with. I dunno if it's true or if it's changed since but that's what they posted. It was restated a week or two after the GTX285 was out as well making me think that there's no change.
Click to expand...

Completely not true.

Even the 9400 will do OpenCL, which is a big reason Apple moved to it over the GMA950. The 8800 is also compatible.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/714067/
 
What's with the "Work Group Size" number it spits out? And the "host" and "PCIe" RAM distinction for the CPU?
 
Nvidia 9800GT and 8800GTS512 as well

Pretty much a no-brainer since they are 99% the same as a 8800GT but I th0ught I would check.

My 8800GTS ROM allows all 128 Cores to show up. Gonna try with Mac 8800GT ROM on it , see if it hobbles back to 112 like the 9800GT here.

BTW, I finally figured out what the "Clock" is. Not the GPU core or Memory speed but in fact what they call the "Shader Clock"

Also...did you guys notice that GTX285 shows 2 more supported extensions than these G92 cards are showing? Or more accutately, the same 2 ones are listed twice?

Name: GeForce 8800 GTS 512
Vendor: NVIDIA
Type: GPU
Device Version: OpenCL 1.0
Driver Version: CLH 1.0
Compute Units: 128
Work Group Size: 512
Clock: 1650 MHz
Global Memory: 512 MB
Local Memory: 16 KB
Cache Size: 0 KB
Cache Line Size: 0 Bytes
Available: Yes
Double-Precision: No
Extensions:
cl_khr_byte_addressable_store
cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics
cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics
cl_APPLE_gl_sharing
cl_APPLE_SetMemObjectDestructor
cl_APPLE_ContextLoggingFunctions


[Device 0]
Name: GeForce 9800 GT
Vendor: NVIDIA
Type: GPU
Device Version: OpenCL 1.0
Driver Version: CLH 1.0
Compute Units: 112
Work Group Size: 512
Clock: 1675 MHz
Global Memory: 512 MB
Local Memory: 16 KB
Cache Size: 0 KB
Cache Line Size: 0 Bytes
Available: Yes
Double-Precision: No
Extensions:
cl_khr_byte_addressable_store
cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics
cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics
cl_APPLE_gl_sharing
cl_APPLE_SetMemObjectDestructor
cl_APPLE_ContextLoggingFunctions
 
Anyone know of a published list of Mac programs currently capable of taking advantage of the OpenCL standard? Have any of these programs been benchmarked against their non CL counterparts to identify gain? If so, what it is?

Will OS 10.6 built-in apps be optimized from day 1 for OpenCL? I have to believe that Apple software engineers are hard at work on iWork and iLife 2010 to make the most of GrandCentral and OpenCL. Don't these suites usually come out in the January / February timeframe?
 
I have very interesting result from my flashed 4870. No extension is available and only 4 computing units and 128M RAM are found.

[Device 0]
Name: Radeon HD 4870
Vendor: AMD
Type: GPU
Device Version: OpenCL 1.0
Driver Version: 1.0
Compute Units: 4
Work Group Size: 1024
Clock: 750 MHz
Global Memory: 128 MB
Local Memory: 16 KB
Cache Size: 0 KB
Cache Line Size: 128 Bytes
Available: Yes
Double-Precision: No
Extensions:
Click to expand...
 
gzfelix said:
I have very interesting result from my flashed 4870. No extension is available and only 4 computing units and 128M RAM are found.
Click to expand...

for radeons 48x0 all info you see is hardcoded inside x2000GLDriver binary
 
OEM 4870 results

[Device 0]
Name: Radeon HD 4870
Vendor: AMD
Type: GPU
Device Version: OpenCL 1.0
Driver Version: 1.0
Compute Units: 4
Work Group Size: 1024
Clock: 750 MHz
Global Memory: 128 MB
Local Memory: 16 KB
Cache Size: 0 KB
Cache Line Size: 128 Bytes
Available: Yes
Double-Precision: No
Extensions:


Same as flashed it seems
 
netkas said:
for radeons 48x0 all info you see is hardcoded inside x2000GLDriver binary
Click to expand...

Trying to keep up with all this info, but Netkas or Rominator, can you shed any light on whether or not flashed 4870s are recognized and properly utilized by OpenCL and Snow Leopard? And will all 1024 MB of the VRAM be used?

Thanks, and sorry if my questions seem basic. You guys are the experts here...
 
I am using SL 421a which is 1 version shy of the alledged "Golden Master" 432a. But as posted by myself and that other guy, both the OEM and flashed 4870s have shown up the same, supported but info seems to be "sketched in" by hardcoded values, per Netkas post.

I will have GM 432a in a few hours and will see if it is any different there.

I wouldn't work myself into a lather over this, if the Apple OEM one is supported, the flashed ones will be, unless Apple goes uber-Nazi on us somehow. (very difficult for machine to know whether it is "live" or "memorex")
 
The Rominator said:
I am using SL 421a which is 1 version shy of the alledged "Golden Master" 432a. But as posted by myself and that other guy, both the OEM and flashed 4870s have shown up the same, supported but info seems to be "sketched in" by hardcoded values, per Netkas post.

I will have GM 432a in a few hours and will see if it is any different there.

I wouldn't work myself into a lather over this, if the Apple OEM one is supported, the flashed ones will be, unless Apple goes uber-Nazi on us somehow. (very difficult for machine to know whether it is "live" or "memorex")
Click to expand...

Good to hear. Thanks for the info. My main concern is whether the extra memory on the flashed 4870s will be used by Snow Leopard and OpenCL.

From what it sounds like, Snow Leopard is far friendlier to flashed cards than Regular Leopard was. Hopefully we will see easier methods for bringing other ATI cards to the mac. I can't wait to see if the forthcoming 5870 can be flashed for Snow Leopard!
 
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