garageCube

[Frischvergiftung]

this sounds nice!

http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/#opencl

hopefully modul8 will make use of this technology in the future...

[gmint]

this sounds nice!

http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/#opencl

hopefully modul8 will make use of this technology in the future...

OpenCL does sound interesting, but I have to wonder if this type of technology would even be useful in a software like Modul8. The basic premise behind OpenCL is that programs can use the processing power that would normally sit idle in a graphics card and use it to perform general computing tasks. However, Modul8 already heavily uses the graphics card to do its thing. In fact, it seems like the opposite might actually be more useful, i.e. using the CPU in addition to the GPU to render visual elements, at least as far as Modul8 is concerned.

Personally, what I would like to see happen is to enable SLI (I believe that's the correct term) so that both of the graphics processors that I have in my MBP could work together. I understand that this is possible under Windows (at least with certain drivers) so I believe that it could happen. Unfortunately, I haven't heard any mention of this in connection with Snow Leopard. While the GeForce 9600M GT is a pretty quick graphics chip, it always frustrates me a little bit to know that there's another processor just sitting there doing nothing...

[Frischvergiftung]

oh? i thought it was just the other way around, that modul8 solely uses the CPU and makes little use of the graphics card... anyone who knows for sure?

[vanakaru]

oh? i thought it was just the other way around, that modul8 solely uses the CPU and makes little use of the graphics card... anyone who knows for sure?

Sure. That is why it runs faster than others.

[gmint]

OK, after some further research, I'm going to partially take back what I said. First see: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/ ... -block.ars

Considering that, perhaps it would be preferable if Modul8 could leverage OpenCL to squeeze some processor performance out of the now dormant graphics chip on the MBP...

(Continued)

Here's more. Actually, it turns out that maybe I should leave my comments about the heavy graphics lifting to the actual programmers

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/20 ... 0-6.ars/15