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History has shown that it's not necessarily the most performant option that wins, it's usually the most convenient. Otherwise we wouldn't use Python for data sc

History has shown that it's not necessarily the most performant option that wins, it's usually the most convenient. Otherwise we wouldn't use Python for data science and ML, or Javascript for IDEs. Remeber AMD's Close To Metal? It wasn't a big hit. Take a look at the Blender announcement that's on the front page right now, Blender is removing OpenCL code and replacing it with HIP/Cuda to get a single codebase [0]. There's room for both solutions, but I think it's important to have a relatively easy way to use accelerators like GPUs in a cross platform way, without being an expert or having to rewrite code for new architectures. It is my understanding that because both Vulkan and SYCL use SPIR-V, the work done on drivers and compilers for one of them benefits the other as well. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29234671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29234671

rektide 5y ago
AMD's close-to-the-metal was the blueprint for Vulkan, or at leat the majorest contributor (ed: oops, im thinking of AMD Mantle, a little bit latter & also extremely super low level). It won. It's ideas power almost all GPU technology today. Vulkans not relatively easy to do from scratch, but it is cross platform, and again, most folks dont need to write Vulkan. They're using ML frameworks that abstract that away. Vulkan will enable use of countless great extensions & capabilities that tools like SYCL wont be smart enough to use. Maybe the SPIR-V can be optimized by the drivers well, but the code SYCL spits out, i'd wager, will be world's less than what we do if we try. This is what CUDA does: it allows bad/cheap SYCL like code, but most folks use NV's vast ultra-complete libraries that are far far far better written in much lower level code & tweaked for every last oz of performance. CUDA is basically a scripting language + close to the metal library. SYCL might eventually be able to become similar, but only if we do the hard work of making really good Vulkan libraries. Otherwise it'll be pretty much trash. There's a lot of argumemts in favor of being bad, of not going for thr good stuff. But end of the day, we just should do the right thing. Everyone other than NV should make a real start, should make a bid for their & the survival of everyone else. Vulkan is the only real bid i see.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  It won where? Consoles use their own APIs, even the Switch, has an alternative to Vulkan. Apple has Metal and Windows DirectX. The only places where Vulkan has "won" are Linux, irrelevant given the 1%, and Android, where most games are still GL ES if one cares about reaching everyone.

rektide 5y ago

AMD's close-to-the-metal was the blueprint for Vulkan, or at leat the majorest contributor (ed: oops, im thinking of AMD Mantle, a little bit latter & also extremely super low level). It won. It's ideas power almost all GPU technology today. Vulkans not relatively easy to do from scratch, but it is cross platform, and again, most folks dont need to write Vulkan. They're using ML frameworks that abstract that away. Vulkan will enable use of countless great extensions & capabilities that tools like SYCL wont be smart enough to use. Maybe the SPIR-V can be optimized by the drivers well, but the code SYCL spits out, i'd wager, will be world's less than what we do if we try. This is what CUDA does: it allows bad/cheap SYCL like code, but most folks use NV's vast ultra-complete libraries that are far far far better written in much lower level code & tweaked for every last oz of performance. CUDA is basically a scripting language + close to the metal library. SYCL might eventually be able to become similar, but only if we do the hard work of making really good Vulkan libraries. Otherwise it'll be pretty much trash. There's a lot of argumemts in favor of being bad, of not going for thr good stuff. But end of the day, we just should do the right thing. Everyone other than NV should make a real start, should make a bid for their & the survival of everyone else. Vulkan is the only real bid i see.

pjmlp 5y ago
It won where? Consoles use their own APIs, even the Switch, has an alternative to Vulkan. Apple has Metal and Windows DirectX. The only places where Vulkan has "won" are Linux, irrelevant given the 1%, and Android, where most games are still GL ES if one cares about reaching everyone.