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You are just old and grumpy. There is a heck of a lot more use for a GPU other than gaming, including content creation, which also benefits from higher resoluti

You are just old and grumpy. There is a heck of a lot more use for a GPU other than gaming, including content creation, which also benefits from higher resolution and dynamic range displays, though X and Wayland can't handle HDR yet. Graphics libraries like Skia, browsers, the Android emulator and so on all take advantage of your GPU. OpenCL, CUDA, mixed-precision computing, transcoding, ray-tracing are all accelerated with a GPU.

jchw 4y ago
Wayland can handle HDR, and wlroots/sway supports it too.
- Comevius 4y ago
  That can't be true, the Wayland people are currently working on a Weston reference implementation before changing the protocol to support HDR. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/weston/-/issues/467 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/weston/-/issues/467 The DRM KMS API can be used to pass HDR metadata to the monitor, so it's not impossible to write a software to take advantage of that, but I don't know any that does.
  - jchw 4y ago
    What I should have said is Sway properly supports high bit depths and color formats that can support HDR. It still has no protocol for actually negotiating HDR, but I also don’t have HDR displays, so I wouldn’t notice the difference.
lproven 4y ago
> You are just old and grumpy. Well, I know, that's why I said it. > There is a heck of a lot more use for a GPU other than gaming I am aware. I just contend it's mostly minority stuff. > including content creation Do it for a living. Have done most of the last 25Y. Make my living doing it. I do it in Markdown these days. Mostly in an Electron thing that's 100x bigger than it needs to be, but it works. Used to do it in Word. Outline Mode is gold for a writer. I do it across 3 displays, 2 of 'em quite big ones. On an Intel integrated GPU. Don't need dedicated silicon for that. > which also benefits from higher resolution and dynamic range displays Not for me. > though X and Wayland can't handle HDR yet. Don't care. Don't need it. My iMac probably can; I don't care on it, either. The only thing in this department that my iMac does better is that when I plug in an external screen, the OS figures out its size, aspect ratio, and makes everything the same size across all screens. That is a fantastic feature, benefits everyone -- unlike the stuff you're talking about -- and Wayland can't do it, nor can X, nor can Windows. > Graphics libraries like Skia Never heard of it. Don't need it. > browsers I have nice smooth GPU-assisted scaling and playback on my cheapo Intel integrated chip, thanks. Less hassle with drivers, too. > the Android emulator What Android emulator? When I need Android, I use my phone. It has nothing I want on any of my desktops, ta. > and so on all take advantage of your GPU. And a cheap simple integrated one is 100% fine for this. The Apple Silicon Macs are making this point very well. Their GPU is relatively simple but because of fast memory, shared with the CPU cores, it works better than the phat nVidia and AMD space-heaters. Big discrete GPUs are a temporary passing phase that'll soon be as dead as spinning hard disks: IOW, a temporary trend only found in some fancy servers. > OpenCL, CUDA, Don't need it, never did, almost certainly never will. > mixed-precision computing, transcoding, ray-tracing are all accelerated with a GPU. And are also doable on a standard CPU, with less coding effort. Also, all things I've never really needed or wanted. For clarity: There are uses for this stuff. But honestly, most of them are ways to try to find ways to use the big fat hot special-purpose silicon designed solely to try to make games render faster. The stuff that is needed by more or less all general-purpose computer owners can be done perfectly fine at more than acceptable performance by small, simple, cheap, electricity-frugal GPUs that can be built into a small part of a multicore 64-bit CPU's die. And that is the pattern of the future: smaller, simpler, cheaper GPUs, without all the fancy rendering stuff, sharing the die of a CPU. We will look back at the era of big fat 2-slot GPUs with multiple cooling fans and multiple power cables with the same amused derision as we look back at big clunky slow 5.25" mechanical hard disks now.

jchw 4y ago

Wayland can handle HDR, and wlroots/sway supports it too.

Comevius 4y ago
That can't be true, the Wayland people are currently working on a Weston reference implementation before changing the protocol to support HDR. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/weston/-/issues/467 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/weston/-/issues/467 The DRM KMS API can be used to pass HDR metadata to the monitor, so it's not impossible to write a software to take advantage of that, but I don't know any that does.
- jchw 4y ago
  What I should have said is Sway properly supports high bit depths and color formats that can support HDR. It still has no protocol for actually negotiating HDR, but I also don’t have HDR displays, so I wouldn’t notice the difference.

lproven 4y ago

> You are just old and grumpy. Well, I know, that's why I said it. > There is a heck of a lot more use for a GPU other than gaming I am aware. I just contend it's mostly minority stuff. > including content creation Do it for a living. Have done most of the last 25Y. Make my living doing it. I do it in Markdown these days. Mostly in an Electron thing that's 100x bigger than it needs to be, but it works. Used to do it in Word. Outline Mode is gold for a writer. I do it across 3 displays, 2 of 'em quite big ones. On an Intel integrated GPU. Don't need dedicated silicon for that. > which also benefits from higher resolution and dynamic range displays Not for me. > though X and Wayland can't handle HDR yet. Don't care. Don't need it. My iMac probably can; I don't care on it, either. The only thing in this department that my iMac does better is that when I plug in an external screen, the OS figures out its size, aspect ratio, and makes everything the same size across all screens. That is a fantastic feature, benefits everyone -- unlike the stuff you're talking about -- and Wayland can't do it, nor can X, nor can Windows. > Graphics libraries like Skia Never heard of it. Don't need it. > browsers I have nice smooth GPU-assisted scaling and playback on my cheapo Intel integrated chip, thanks. Less hassle with drivers, too. > the Android emulator What Android emulator? When I need Android, I use my phone. It has nothing I want on any of my desktops, ta. > and so on all take advantage of your GPU. And a cheap simple integrated one is 100% fine for this. The Apple Silicon Macs are making this point very well. Their GPU is relatively simple but because of fast memory, shared with the CPU cores, it works better than the phat nVidia and AMD space-heaters. Big discrete GPUs are a temporary passing phase that'll soon be as dead as spinning hard disks: IOW, a temporary trend only found in some fancy servers. > OpenCL, CUDA, Don't need it, never did, almost certainly never will. > mixed-precision computing, transcoding, ray-tracing are all accelerated with a GPU. And are also doable on a standard CPU, with less coding effort. Also, all things I've never really needed or wanted. For clarity: There are uses for this stuff. But honestly, most of them are ways to try to find ways to use the big fat hot special-purpose silicon designed solely to try to make games render faster. The stuff that is needed by more or less all general-purpose computer owners can be done perfectly fine at more than acceptable performance by small, simple, cheap, electricity-frugal GPUs that can be built into a small part of a multicore 64-bit CPU's die. And that is the pattern of the future: smaller, simpler, cheaper GPUs, without all the fancy rendering stuff, sharing the die of a CPU. We will look back at the era of big fat 2-slot GPUs with multiple cooling fans and multiple power cables with the same amused derision as we look back at big clunky slow 5.25" mechanical hard disks now.