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Interesting facts about CUDA – OpenCL
from here: https://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=23127
Apple and NVidia are fighting for OpenCL/CUDA.
Apple by default barely support Fermi cards. These cards are not their priority! Also they do not care about CUDA.
Nvidia wants to use the CUDA technology on the market, so NVidia provides support for CUDA/OpenGL with their BETA drivers for OS X. They do NOT want to bring OpenCL support for their card. The kexts they provide into their installer overwrite Apple kexts for NVidia cards and kill OpenCL support.
So as you can see, our game is to bring both OpenCL and CUDA support for Fermi cards under OSX.
Under 10.6.7, Apple released an update with kexts to support Fermi cards. So you can have OpenCL working with Apple kexts AND CUDA working with NVidia drivers. Thus, you have full support for OpenCL/CUDA/OpenGL/QE under 10.6.7, read more here: https://netkas.org/?p=764. Basically, what you have to do is to install NVidia drivers for CUDA/OpenGL, and then erase some specified kexts with the Apple Update.
Note: NVidia Driver Installers do not only install kexts, but also Frameworks Frameworks are the key for OpenGL/OpenCL/CUDA. Kexts only tell the kernel how to use the video card when these Frameworks are used by apps. That’s the reason why you need Frameworks from NVidia (with CUDA/OpenCL/OpenGL) but kexts from Apple (because they unlock the OpenCL functionality for Fermi cards).
Under 10.6.8, Apple kexts do NOT support Fermi cards anymore , like I said, this is not their priority. So NVidia jumped into the arena and quickly provided working kexts. Actually if you want to have your Fermi card working under 10.6.8 you have to install all kexts and Frameworks provided by NVidia (into their BETA driver installers).
This time they won the game, and we do not have OpenCL working anymore. We either have to wait for Apple to release updated kexts to bring back OpenCL support, or wait for Lion.Under 10.7, Apple did a big effort and brought OpenCL support for Fermi cards
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1 Reply
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Good post, thanks Mikhail.
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