[Beowulf] GP-GPU experience

["C. Bergström"]

Herbert Fruchtl wrote:
> They hear great success stories (which in reality are often prototype 
> implementations that do one carefully chosen benchmark well), then look at the 
> API, look at their existing code, and postpone the start of their project until 
> they have six months spare time for it. And we know when that is.
>
> The current approach with more or less vendor specific libraries (be they "open" 
> or not) limits the uptake of GPU computing to a few hardcore developers of 
> experimental codes who don't mind rewriting their code every two years. It won't 
> become mainstream until we have a compiler that turns standard Fortran (or C++, 
> if it has to be) into GPU code. Anything that requires more change than let's 
> say OpenMP directives is doomed, and rightly so.
>   
Hi Herbert,

I think your perspective pretty much nails it

(shameless self promotion)
http://www.pathscale.com/ENZO (PathScale HMPP - native codegen)
http://www.pathscale.com/pdf/PathScale-ENZO-1.0-UserGuide.pdf
http://www.caps-entreprise.com/hmpp.html (CAPS HMPP - source to source)

This is really only the tip of the problem and there must also be 
solutions for scaling *efficiently* across the cluster.  (No MPI + CUDA 
or even HMPP is *not* the answer imho.)

./C