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It’s worse.... It’s Linux only so no Mac, Windows or WSL. No support what so ever for APUs which means if you have a laptop without a dedicated GPU you’re out

It’s worse.... It’s Linux only so no Mac, Windows or WSL. No support what so ever for APUs which means if you have a laptop without a dedicated GPU you’re out of luck (tho discrete mobile GPUs aren’t officially supported either and often do not work). They’ve not only haven’t been supporting any of their consumer based R“we promise it’s not GCN this time”DNA GPUs, but since December last year (2020) they’ve dropped support for all pre-Vega GCN cards which means that Polaris (400/500 series) which is not only the most prolific of AMD GPUs that have been released in the past 5 years or so but also the most affordable ones are no longer supported. That’s on top of all the technical and architectural software issues that plague the framework.

the8472 6y ago
> or WSL Does WSL not support PCIe passthrough?
- my123 6y ago
  It does not. And even then, almost all AMD customer GPUs are not supported. (Everything but Vega) APUs? Nope too.
vetinari 6y ago
> It’s worse.... > It’s Linux only so no Mac, Windows or WSL. I don't see really a problem here. You want Office or Photoshop? It runs on Mac and Windows only, so you better get one. You want ROCm? Get Linux for exactly the same reason.
- sorenjan 6y ago
  It's a big problem if you want to use GPGPU in a product shipped to customers, or if you want to do some GPU programming on your own computer in your free time. Keep in mind that not only is it Linux only, it doesn't work on consumer hardware either.
  - vetinari 6y ago
    > It's a big problem if you want to use GPGPU in a product shipped to customers, So ship linux version and let the customers decide whether they want it or not. If you are doing server product, it is even handy; just ship docker image or docker-compose/set of k8s pods, if it needs them. > or if you want to do some GPU programming on your own computer in your free time. You can install Linux very easily; it's not that it is some huge expense. > it doesn't work on consumer hardware either. It does, just not on the current gen one or even currently purchasable one. I agree, this is a problem.
    - sorenjan 6y ago
      > So ship linux version and let the customers decide whether they want it or not. What if I want to use GPGPU in Photoshop, or a game with more than two users? Or really anything aimed at consumers? > If you are doing server product That's irrelevant, server products can choose their own hardware and OS. > You can install Linux very easily "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem" Also, their main competitor with a huge market lead have this: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-installation-guide-microsoft-windows/index.html https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-installation-guide-microso... > It does, just not on the current gen one or even currently purchasable one. I agree, this is a problem. Only on old hardware, and you can't expect users' computers to be compatible. In fact, you should expect users' copmuters to be incompatible. That's like saying consumer hardware support GLIDE.
      - vetinari 6y ago
        > What if I want to use GPGPU in Photoshop, or a game with more than two users? Or really anything aimed at consumers? Then use API supported on your target platform. It's not ROCm then. Maybe Vulcan Compute/DirectCompute/Metal Compute? > That's irrelevant, server products can choose their own hardware and OS. It is relevant for ROCm. > > You can install Linux very easily > "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem" I'm quite surprised to see comparisons ad absurdum after suggesting to use proper tool for a job. Installing a suitable operating system - for a supposed hacker - is a convoluted, nonsensical action nowadays? > Only on old hardware, and you can't expect users' computers to be compatible. In fact, you should expect users' copmuters to be incompatible. That's like saying consumer hardware support GLIDE. Vega is not that old; the problem is that is not not procurable anymore, which, if you read my comment again, I agreed that it is a problem.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  No I don’t want ROCm I want GPGPU, which is why the entire planet is running CUDA. Every decision AMD made with ROCm seems to boil down too “i never want to be actually competitive with CUDA”. Everything from being Linux only and yes that’s is a huge huge huge limitation because most people don’t want ROCm but many would like Photoshop or Premier or Blender being able to use it. Especially with the OpenCL issues AMD has.... Through them not supporting their own hardware to other mind boggling decisions like the fact that ROCm binaries are hardware specific so you have no guarantee of interoperability and worse no guarantee for future compatibility and in fact it does break. The point is that I can take a 6 years old CUDA binary and run it today still on everything form an embedded system through a high end server, it would maintain its compatibility across multiple generations of GPU hardware, multi operating systems and multiple CPU architectures. And if you can’t understand why that is not only valuable but more or less mandatory for every GPGPU application you would ever ship to customers, perhaps you should stick to photoshop. AMD is a joke in this space and they are very much actively continuing in making themselves one with every decision they make. It’s not that they’ve abandoned ROCm is that it’s entire existence is telegraphing “Don't take use seriously, because we don’t”.

the8472 6y ago

> or WSL Does WSL not support PCIe passthrough?

my123 6y ago
It does not. And even then, almost all AMD customer GPUs are not supported. (Everything but Vega) APUs? Nope too.

vetinari 6y ago

> It’s worse.... > It’s Linux only so no Mac, Windows or WSL. I don't see really a problem here. You want Office or Photoshop? It runs on Mac and Windows only, so you better get one. You want ROCm? Get Linux for exactly the same reason.

sorenjan 6y ago
It's a big problem if you want to use GPGPU in a product shipped to customers, or if you want to do some GPU programming on your own computer in your free time. Keep in mind that not only is it Linux only, it doesn't work on consumer hardware either.
- vetinari 6y ago
  > It's a big problem if you want to use GPGPU in a product shipped to customers, So ship linux version and let the customers decide whether they want it or not. If you are doing server product, it is even handy; just ship docker image or docker-compose/set of k8s pods, if it needs them. > or if you want to do some GPU programming on your own computer in your free time. You can install Linux very easily; it's not that it is some huge expense. > it doesn't work on consumer hardware either. It does, just not on the current gen one or even currently purchasable one. I agree, this is a problem.
  - sorenjan 6y ago
    > So ship linux version and let the customers decide whether they want it or not. What if I want to use GPGPU in Photoshop, or a game with more than two users? Or really anything aimed at consumers? > If you are doing server product That's irrelevant, server products can choose their own hardware and OS. > You can install Linux very easily "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem" Also, their main competitor with a huge market lead have this: https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-installation-guide-microsoft-windows/index.html https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-installation-guide-microso... > It does, just not on the current gen one or even currently purchasable one. I agree, this is a problem. Only on old hardware, and you can't expect users' computers to be compatible. In fact, you should expect users' copmuters to be incompatible. That's like saying consumer hardware support GLIDE.
    - vetinari 6y ago
      > What if I want to use GPGPU in Photoshop, or a game with more than two users? Or really anything aimed at consumers? Then use API supported on your target platform. It's not ROCm then. Maybe Vulcan Compute/DirectCompute/Metal Compute? > That's irrelevant, server products can choose their own hardware and OS. It is relevant for ROCm. > > You can install Linux very easily > "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem" I'm quite surprised to see comparisons ad absurdum after suggesting to use proper tool for a job. Installing a suitable operating system - for a supposed hacker - is a convoluted, nonsensical action nowadays? > Only on old hardware, and you can't expect users' computers to be compatible. In fact, you should expect users' copmuters to be incompatible. That's like saying consumer hardware support GLIDE. Vega is not that old; the problem is that is not not procurable anymore, which, if you read my comment again, I agreed that it is a problem.
dogma1138 6y ago
No I don’t want ROCm I want GPGPU, which is why the entire planet is running CUDA. Every decision AMD made with ROCm seems to boil down too “i never want to be actually competitive with CUDA”. Everything from being Linux only and yes that’s is a huge huge huge limitation because most people don’t want ROCm but many would like Photoshop or Premier or Blender being able to use it. Especially with the OpenCL issues AMD has.... Through them not supporting their own hardware to other mind boggling decisions like the fact that ROCm binaries are hardware specific so you have no guarantee of interoperability and worse no guarantee for future compatibility and in fact it does break. The point is that I can take a 6 years old CUDA binary and run it today still on everything form an embedded system through a high end server, it would maintain its compatibility across multiple generations of GPU hardware, multi operating systems and multiple CPU architectures. And if you can’t understand why that is not only valuable but more or less mandatory for every GPGPU application you would ever ship to customers, perhaps you should stick to photoshop. AMD is a joke in this space and they are very much actively continuing in making themselves one with every decision they make. It’s not that they’ve abandoned ROCm is that it’s entire existence is telegraphing “Don't take use seriously, because we don’t”.