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For Cycles, Vulkan is simply not an option. Metal compute is capable of everything OpenCL is, but is more modern / nicer / whatever, while Vulkan Compute is pre
by lonjil 5y ago
For Cycles, Vulkan is simply not an option. Metal compute is capable of everything OpenCL is, but is more modern / nicer / whatever, while Vulkan Compute is pretty crap and definitely can't be used as a replacement for OpenCL.
The only cross platform alternative that actually works is OpenCL, but Blender is moving away from OpenCL, mostly because literally every GPU vendor is doing so as well.
- zozbot234 5y agoAIUI, Vulkan Compute is just missing a few math-focused extensions compared to OpenCL. The OpenCL memory model is also more full-featured (i.e. it allows for general pointers) but that can be addressed via other Vulkan extensions. The more annoying variation between the two is the need to refactor the code from using "kernels" to "compute shaders", but that's just a difference in the underlying programming model.
- pjmlp 5y agoYeah, and is also "just" misses having an ecosystem like SYSCL or CUDA for C++, with polyglot infrastructure targeting the GPU. Yes, there is SPIR-V, yet few care to target it in practice, besides typical shading languages.