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Could Snow Leopard leave Windows 7 eating its dust?

By | December 9, 2008, 12:46pm PST

Today has been an interesting day for those interested in GPGPU (General Purpose computing on the GPU), and Apple’s support for this technology could mean that the next incarnation of Snow Leopard could leave Windows 7 eating its dust.

Today at SIGGRAPH Asia the Khronos Group, which describes itself as a “member-funded industry consortium focused on the creation of open standard, royalty-free APIs to enable the authoring and accelerated playback of dynamic media on a wide variety of platforms and devices” has released the OpenCL 1.0 spec. OpenCL is noteworthy because, according to the Khronos Group, it is “the first open, royalty-free standard for cross-platform, parallel programming of modern processors found in personal computers, servers and handheld/embedded devices.”

So, what’s the big deal about GPGPU? Well, because of the huge parallel capabilities that graphics processors offer, tapping into the GPU would benefit applications that leverage parallel processing. This no only means applications such as image and video processing, but also more advanced and demanding features such as real time ray tracing, life-like gaming and voice processing and much more. All this is off in the future, but both NVIDIA and ATI have pledged support for OpenCL. OpenCL has a huge industry-following: 3DLABS, Activision Blizzard, AMD, Apple, ARM, Barco, Broadcom, Codeplay, Electronic Arts, Ericsson, Freescale, HI, IBM, Intel Corporation, Imagination Technologies, Kestrel Institute, Motorola, Movidia, Nokia, NVIDIA, QNX, RapidMind, Samsung, Seaweed, TAKUMI, Texas Instruments and Umeå University.

Now, notice how Apple is on that List and that Microsoft is not. That’s of interest because Apple is scheduled to bring OpenCL to the desktop. In fact, Apple is already pushing the benefits of OpenCL:

Another powerful Snow Leopard technology, OpenCL (Open Computing Language), makes it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit (GPU). With GPUs approaching processing speeds of a trillion operations per second, they’re capable of considerably more than just drawing pictures. OpenCL takes that power and redirects it for general-purpose computing.

No backing for OpenCL from Microsoft won’t mean that the benefits of OpenCL won’t come to Windows (after all, OpenCL is cross-platform) but it does mean that while Apple is baking technologies into the Mac OS that will be of benefit to developers and end users, Microsoft is left twiddling bits and releasing a revamped Vista. That’s a potential PR issue that Apple could pounce on.

OpenCL certainly feels like it’s the beginning of something very interesting, and it could well bring a mainstream relevance to multi-GPU PCs. ATI and NVIDIA will sure like that!

[UPDATE: TG Daily shares some thoughts on OpenCL:

"OpenCL in Snow Leopard may very well be only a technology showcase, but if it provides those dramatic speed improvements Apple promises and if it sparks the development of a wave of new applications, then Microsoft may have a much bigger problem at the end of next year than it has today. A cleaned up interface and touchscreen support (see our slideshow) may not cut it".]

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Topics

Microsoft Windows 7, NVidia Corp., Apple Inc., Microsoft Windows, GPU, OpenCL, Benefits, Human Resources, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

Disclosure

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

All opinions expressed on Hardware 2.0 are those of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. Every effort is made to ensure that the information posted is accurate. If you have any comments, queries or corrections, please contact Adrian via the email link here. Any possible conflicts of interest will be posted below. [Updated: February 23, 2010] - Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other actual/potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted so far on this blog.

Biography

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology -- whether that be by learning to program, building a PC from a pile of parts, or helping them get the most from their new MP3 player or digital camera.

Adrian has authored/co-authored technical books on a variety of topics, ranging from programming to building and maintaining PCs. His most recent books include "Build the Ultimate Custom PC", "Beginning Programming" and "The PC Doctor's Fix It Yourself Guide". He has also written training manuals that have been used by a number of Fortune 500 companies.

Adrian also runs a popular blog under the name The PC Doctor, where he covers a range of computer-related topics -- from security to repairing and upgrading.

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What more bloat
mrjoctave@... 12th Dec 2008
??
View in thread
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Its dust
rseiler 9th Dec 2008
Typo
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Contributr
Cheers ...
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes 9th Dec 2008
... mistakenly hit "change all" in the spell checker and then my Internet connection went down as I tried to edit the post.
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Damn Macs
mrjoctave@... 12th Dec 2008
:O)
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RE: Could Snow Leopard leave Windows 7 eating it's dust?
Sleeper Service 9th Dec 2008
It's possible but then since 95% of the world uses Windows I doubt it.

And, since it's cross platform, people will just build it into drivers anyway.

It's no biggie.
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Contributr
Valid point ...
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes 9th Dec 2008
... sure, this feature could be added to apps, but that method would be a clumsy approach. Nice to have the facility baked in.
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It's already *in*apps.
Spiritusindomit@... 10th Dec 2008
Maya 8.5 uses dx10 to assist in enhancing rendertimes, and photoshop cs4 uses opengl like maya has for 10 years to accelerate prerender workspace acceleration.

There's also CUDA, so, this really isn't all that groundbreaking, and I figure it will just be another opengl anyways. Really good idea, but no developmnet $ behind it, so it will just turn into a hardware intensive coding nightmare.
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What more bloat
mrjoctave@... 12th Dec 2008
??
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Wake up!! It's not 95%!!
Arm A. Geddon 9th Dec 2008
http://www.pcworld.com/article/154800/.html?tk=rss_news

Btw, I'm not a believer of Net Applications but other statistic sites have it about the same. happy
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Actually it is...
Sleeper Service Updated - 9th Dec 2008
...when you consider that most corporate PCs are Windows based and, since about two thirds of them are not connected to the internet, don't register on sites like Hitlinks. You may want to look at Gartner's and IDC's sales figures to get a feel for what the actual sales splits are which will give you a better idea of what the OS share is.

Of course whether it's 93% or 95% is a moot point - Windows is unlikely to drop lower than 80% soon and still represents the world's favourite operating system by a massive margin thus the one everyone will bend over backwards to support.

So it goes.
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Re: world's favourite operating system?
Arm A. Geddon 9th Dec 2008
I wouldn't go that far but to each their own. I use the big 3(Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux) and I still prefer Linux. Why? One of the big reasons is control over the OS. Anyway, about the percentages of OSes, browsers, etc. you do know the old saying about statistics, right? wink
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I use 'favourite' as an...
Sleeper Service 9th Dec 2008
...adjective here, not a noun. happy

And I do know that adage about statistics which is why it's much more sensible to use the actual sales figures that Gartner and IDC provide.

Hey, I'm not raising a flag about it, I'm just stating the obvious - everything is geared towards the big player and in this case that's Windows.
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Lies, damn lies and statistics
Fred Fredrickson 9th Dec 2008
It's obviously false to claim "95% of the world uses Windows", when at least half the people in the world not only don't have a computer, but they've never used one and likely never will.

It is also wrong to assume that the percentage of people whose primary OS is Windows is the same as the percentage of new computers sold that have Windows as the OS.

The statement that two thirds of business PCs aren't connected to the internet is pure speculation, my real world experience tells me otherwise - I can't remember a site I've worked on in the last 10 years (and there have been many) that didn't provided internet access for all users.

Quote all the statistics you like, no one believes you.
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Behind NAT firewall, All Are One!
Patanjali 9th Dec 2008
In general, to a site on the Internet, wouldn't all users behind a firewall look like one user (except if logged in or cookies set)?
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Dear me, Fred...
Sleeper Service 10th Dec 2008
...if you want to be the king of literalism then feel free to amend my phrase to "95% of the world who use computers".

Or grow up. Whatever.
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i hate to be rude
jk_10 9th Dec 2008
i you are a regular msft hater, but you are writing for the public. just want tell you loudly:

Shut up!
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Contributr
Cut down on the caffeine
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes 9th Dec 2008
happy
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LOL...
OhTheHumanity 9th Dec 2008
Is this that baby off the e-trade commercials? You must have stock in MSFT? Any good inside information?
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Oh! I have one, I have one!
Spiritusindomit@... 10th Dec 2008
When ballmer turns red in the face and puffs a lot, that means sell!
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Not really
jepzilla 9th Dec 2008
GPGPU is one of those issues which commentators like to talk about, but about which they know little to nothing.

The hard part of GPGPU is adapting the algorithms, which sometimes means revisiting research which hasn't been touched in decades. Once you have a working algorithm, the specific API you're coding to is almost irrelevant. It's such an insignificant part of the development process, OpenCL, CUDA, Brook+, whatever. The underlying computation model is the same and that's the important part.

AMD/ATI and NVIDIA will provide OpenCL drivers in Windows for developers to use, just like they provide OpenGL drivers, and NVIDIA provides CUDA. As a GPGPU developer, 'Integrating' OpenCL into the OS doesn't provide any benefit, since the drivers already have a fast path to the hardware.

Ultimately, I think that outside of a few video codecs, GPGPU support in Snow Leopard is basically irrelevant. Most of the software where there is a significant demand for GPGPU are specialized applications costing tens of thousands (or more) per license. The cost-benefit of porting these applications to OS X is laughable (usually they're half-written in FORTRAN which nobody has even looked at in a decade).
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Contributr
I'm not so sure ...
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes 9th Dec 2008
Look at how Adobe has embraced the GPU, and Wolfram.

Leveraging the GPU has a lot of potential.
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GPGPU isn't API centric
jepzilla 9th Dec 2008
Sometimes when you're programming you're interacting with an API constantly, over thousands of lines of code. Then the specifics of an API are important and significant.

With GPGPU the amount of time you spend writing code that'll actually run on the GPU is quite small, and the overall number of lines of code is tiny compared to the overall size of any real project. We'll spend months with our GPGPU code in matlab and maybe only a few weeks actually implementing it on the underlying API.

OpenCL may make life a little easier, but far less than advertised. It has the potential to remove some headaches as far as cross-platform support, but I suspect I'll be writing separate kernels for every piece of hardware that crosses my desk, for years to come.
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Will businesses care?
voyager529 9th Dec 2008
Let's briefly look at who this really benefits.

Let's postulate for a moment that Apple's core demographic are home users and media production people. Additionally, let's look at the fact that nearly all Apple systems come with a respectable GPU (i.e. not Intel can't-support-Aero Integrated or equivalent).

Media people run apps that would benefit much more from further use of the GPU in non-rendering apps, and Apple machines have, for a couple of generations now, had GPUs worth using for additional processing capabilities.

What would an office machine want to accelerate? Quickbooks? Excel? Not apps that can greatly benefit. Couple that with the fact that most business desktops don't have more than integrated graphics cards, I highly doubt that an IT department with half a brain stem and a budget to meet is going to start rolling out GeForce 8800's to their end users for this purpose. Sure there are people like me who live in After Effects and my friend who spends his days and nights in AutoCAD on a Quadro card, and I'm all for it. But, if you're Microsoft, are you going to say to yourself, "self! Let's push back the release date for Win7 to incorporate a technology that the majority of our customers won't need to use or have the horsepower to use appreciably." I sure wouldn't.

Now, if you want to argue that this should be included in Service Pack 1, then I think that it would be a solid idea. RTM bits that are largely stable? I'm not holding my breath.

Joey
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Contributr
Some areas where business would benefit ...
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes 9th Dec 2008
... voice recognition (this could benefit hugely from being GPU assisted), VoIP, image/video processing. The names backing OpenCL give you a clue.
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If you want to see what will be in OS X tomorrow, look at Windows today
NonZealot 9th Dec 2008
One word: NVidia CUDA

Actually, CUDA was finally made available to OS X users quite a while after it was available to Windows users.

So no Adrian, you can report back to the Apple marketing department that Apple can not get credit for inventing this technology although I have no doubt that this won't stop them from claiming it. Heck, you've already claimed it for them! happy
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Contributr
Yes, but your post highlights why OpenCL is better than CUDA ...
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes 9th Dec 2008
... CUDA wasn't designed with platform-independence in mind ... oh, and you need an NVIDIA GPU!

But you're right, CUDA is a great idea.

It's not about who invented something, it's about getting the benefits of the technology out there! happy
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Funny you should mention that
NonZealot 9th Dec 2008
It's not about who invented something, it's about getting the benefits of the technology out there!

How true. Considering I've been getting the benefits of CUDA for months now (transcoding is FAST!!), I have to say that Apple should be more concerned with why Vista leaves Snow Leopard eating its dust before they try to best Windows 7. I am using this technology today, there is no need for me to wait 6 months and then overpay for my hardware to get the benefits of yet another Apple "invention". happy
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Pssst, do not bother Mr. I-am-not-a-fanboy "PC" doctor
markbn 9th Dec 2008
with a reality check.
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Contributr
But wouldn't you rather ...
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes 9th Dec 2008
... have the CUDA benefits no matter what GPU (or OS)?
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No
NonZealot 9th Dec 2008
I only use NVidia on Vista. happy

This sounds like DirectX vs OpenGL all over again. You can argue all you want that OpenGL is better than DirectX because it is cross platform but what are 99% of all Windows games and even most non games written against? DirectX. In the end, we can do everything on Windows with DirectX that OpenGL offers on other platforms (more actually when you consider that DirectX includes audio, input, and networking support. If DirectX 11 does, in fact, include support for GPU assisted computations then the only question will be whether Windows programmers choose to support OpenCL or DirectX 11. I'm betting on DirectX. happy

Don't get me wrong, the idea behind OpenCL is as good as the idea behind OpenGL but it isn't revolutionary, lack of native OpenGL support hasn't hurt Windows so I doubt that lack of native OpenCL support will, and it most certainly won't make Snow Leopard leave Windows 7 eating its dust. I don't disagree with the stated benefits of OpenCL, I disagree with your suggested conclusion that this will put Snow Leopard ahead of Windows 7.
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Contributr
I agree ...
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes 9th Dec 2008
You're dead right on the DirectX vs. OpenGL thing.
Here's the thing though (and please don't take this as some kind of fanboy statement happy. Take the iPhone and features such as the accelerometer and the touch screen. Look at the innovation that's sprung around that in the Apple App store. I'm no fan on the App Store but the buzz that these apps have generated for the platform has been a huge benefit to Apple.
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The only difference is the level of innovation...
Spiritusindomit@... 10th Dec 2008
DX10 is specifically made for high end games, making them easy to code, and easy to access advanced features that, in opengl, take months to code (see: starcraft II).

I wouldn't really even call what's in the iphone innovation so much as good marketing of things that have existed for almost 20 years.
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eh?
Mitch 74 Updated - 10th Dec 2008
Let's look at the best selling game of 2008.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

Core development is done in OpenGL (like all Warcraft games since WC3). The Mac port uses OpenGL directly, the Windows port can use OpenGL through a command line setting, a configuration file tweak, or an option in the game's UI. A Linux client exists (confirmed by Blizzard developers), it is just not released to the public. It uses OpenGL. The DirectX version is, actually, done later - once the game's finished.

Another widely used 3D application is Google Earth. Which uses OpenGL. Direct3D mode is available as "fallback" mode for those Windows systems that don't have an OpenGL driver. I may mention that it works very well - if a bit slowly - on software-mode OpenGL Linux systems.

OpenGL can be ported to any system, while DirectX is Windows dependent (there is no DirectX 10 for Windows XP, not for lack of system capabilities, but due to Microsoft not willing to make the port), forcing game developers to do a DirectX 9 and a DirectX10 versions of their engines. Do OpenGL (say, 2.1 for feature parity with DX10), and not only does it work on any Windows version, it also works on Mac, it works with Geforce 6xxx and Radeon 9xxx as well (if more slowly) than on Geforce 2x0 or Radeon HD 4xxx.

About driver supports, it's up to the card manufacturers to support DX10 anyway. And look at what's happening:
- NVIDIA use the same OpenGL code for all platforms but has to maintain separate repositories for Windows 2000/XP and Vista/7.
- Ati/AMD switched to using the same OpenGL stack for all OSes they support; the speed and feature boost it gave them (compared with DX9/10 support) is not to be laughed at.
- Intel's OpenGL driver is currently maintained inside Mesa on UNICes (that includes MacOS), and Windows' is left to rot.

Now, you may answer that OpenGL's insistence on backwards compatibility has caused a lack of rapid evolution; that's not wrong, but it was also made from the get go to be extensible (driver makers can create their own features). GLSL fills in the gap of non-fixed functions in OpenGL (OpenGL contexts allow several threads to run on the card), and can actually be completely or partially supported in software (allowing advanced recent OpenGL functions to run - slowly - on older systems).

In short, Microsoft shot themselves in the foot with DX10 (DX10 now doesn't match what DX10 was at Vista's RTM, DX10.1 is compatible but not compatible but it is, DX9 is supported but it's different but it's the same...) by being fragmented and unpopular with card makers (who could have done without the bad rap their early Vista drivers gave them), something that OpenGL, by design, can't do: you don't like an implementation (say, Nvidia's), use another (like Mesa's): if it's really better, it'll be part of the next revision of OpenGL (that's how OpenGL evolves).

If lack of OpenGL support didn't hurt Windows, how comes Vista comes with OpenGL 1.3 support out of the box?
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I think you missed...
Spiritusindomit@... 10th Dec 2008
"99% of all games and nongames using graphics libraries use direct x."

It doesn't matter what one game does or doesn't do. Blizzard supports opengl, as stated by blizzard, for one reason: They've always made games for mac, since way back in the day when it's all there was, and they are going to continue to do so in homage to their past.

Most of what you say isn't worth responding too, because your statements are too vague, but I thought I'd point out that just because you imagine it to be true doesn't mean it is.

"It's up to the manufacturer to support dx"

Wrong.

DX 10 is in the new nvidia chipset by default and building cards using the 8 and 9000 series chipsets requires you include DX10.

As far as inclusion in MESA, intel doesn't bother because windows went to a manufacturer provided driver model a long time ago, and it's worked significantly better than anyone else's for consistency and performance (certainly better than os x, your specifically listed example).

"- NVIDIA use the same OpenGL code for all platforms but has to maintain separate repositories for Windows 2000/XP and Vista/7."

And?

"- Ati/AMD switched to using the same OpenGL stack for all OSes they support; the speed and feature boost it gave them (compared with DX9/10 support) is not to be laughed at."

*laughs* next.

"Opengl allows multiple threads."

Up to 32, DX allows up to 256, next.

"GLSL"

In the real world we call this a 'bandaid.'

"If lack of OpenGL support didn't hurt Windows, how comes Vista comes with OpenGL 1.3 support out of the box? "

I don't know genius, why don't we focus on what they did *wrong* ^^
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Update on DX 11
Spiritusindomit@... 10th Dec 2008
DX 11 will also include raytracing, so you can add that to the list of firmware upgradeable features on dx 10 cards, and new dx 11 cards that opengl doesn't, and won't ever likely support.
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Contributr
BTW ...
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes 9th Dec 2008
... what transcoding do you do using CUDA? I've been impressed with Badaboom but got lazy and went back to my regular tools.
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Direct X 10 was designed to be...
Spiritusindomit@... 10th Dec 2008
However, microsoft releasing a dx10 api for other operating systems to support card side interaction would be like berlin releasing another album. It wouldn't be well received or broadly announced, and that's probably a bad example, because berlin wouldn't be nearly as maligned by people who never looked at the release.

Part of that is microsoft's abysmal marketing department, and the other half is the frothy cults that formed up around its various detractors.

You also can't say that opencl wouldn't require a specifically coded, OS specific api and sourcebase, so it is a valid comparison.
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You're a funny guy.
KaplanMike 10th Dec 2008
Your post is the funniest thing I've read in years!!

Windows today is, for the most part, where OS X was at three
generations ago...
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Not sure I get it...
RationalGuy 9th Dec 2008
For applications that required instensive graphics work, the GPU was invented to efficiently offload that to a seperate processor. Now, they're saying since we have this efficient processor architecture in place already, let's leverage that for other things besides graphics. However, since the GPU itself was just answer to yesterday's architecture limitations, how long of a lifespan will GPGPU likely have?

Doesn't it make more sense to build more robust multi-core CPUs and do away the GPU altogether?
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Contributr
It does ...
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes 9th Dec 2008
... and it'll happen, but for now GPUs have progressed to such a point where they have grown beyond gaming and should be leveraged elsewhere.
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So the dust will settle quickly?
RationalGuy 9th Dec 2008
Any advantage that Apple gets out of this will be fleeting, it seems, unless this work will inform the multicore work being done on Snow Leopard and future Mac OS releases. I wonder how much of the theory is transferable.

Or it could be that given the multicore work already being done, the GPGPU support is kind of a gimme - an easy way to add one more bullet point to the Snow Leopard features list.
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Let's give Adrian some hours so that he can ask the Apple PR machine
markbn 9th Dec 2008
for another nonsense that will leave Windows in
the dust.
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I think you're being unfair here
RationalGuy 10th Dec 2008
There are many areas where Mac OS X leaves Windows in the dust, and vice versa. I don't think Adrian's post is saying anything more than, "Could Snow Leopard leave Windows 7 eating it's (sic) dust in the area of GPGPU?"

That's a crappy headline, though. I don't think that the point of the post was that Snow Leopard would smoke Windows 7 in market share or anything like that.

A fair answer to the GPGPU question is "probably."

However, the salient questions are really:
- What real leverage does being the GPGPU leader give Apple?
- What advantage (long and short term) does GPGPU give to the consumer?

Apple switched from PCMCIA to ExpressCard/34, thereby leaving most PC manufacturers in their dust technologically, but there was little to no ExpressCard/34 hardware on the market to help convert that advantage directly into sales.

Similarly, they went full bore with PCI-X, leaving PC manufacturers and their old school PCI buses in their dust. However, now consumers are a bit wanting for upgrade hardware as PCI Express became the industry standard and PCI-X parts are tough to find.
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Contributr
Possibly ...
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes 9th Dec 2008
I can think of many different applications for GPGPU but the one that I keep coming back to is gaming, and Macs just aren't the platform for gaming. Also, imagine scaling this up to say triple SLI. Again, no use on a Mac. OpenCL has the greatest chance of survival if it was baked into Windows.
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Then to summarize
markbn 9th Dec 2008
OpenCL will be left in the dust (together with
Snow Leopard) if Windows does not support it.
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Contributr
Depends ...
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes 9th Dec 2008
... it could. I'm assuming that Apple will actually make use of OpenCL in iLife. But to really succeed it needs innovative uses that go beyond gaming and transcoding.
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Like OpenGL, should be in display driver
Patanjali 9th Dec 2008
Apples controls its hardware, so can embed OpenCL, but Windows does not have the control so while it can provide an abstraction class, it still makes sense to put the smarts in the video driver (and perhaps they can only be there).

However, MS could make OpenCL support a condition of video driver certification.
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GPGPU is not a video function...
RationalGuy 10th Dec 2008
... in fact, it's the opposite. It's leveraging video hardware to do non-video computation. Seems unnecessary to pass that through the video driver.
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Wasn't support for GPGPU announced
honeymonster Updated - 9th Dec 2008
as being included with DirectX 11 back in june? DirectX 11 is expected to go RTM with Windows 7 mid-2009. So how much dust is it? Yeah, OpenCL is cross platform which DirectX is not, but the MS approach may actually make programming for GPGPU more approachable. They are already doin some amazing stuff with Parallel LINQ. (and OpenCL will still be available on Windows).
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Contributr
DirectX 11 could be very interesting ...
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes 9th Dec 2008
... especially if it brings GPGPU to all DX9 capable cards.

DX11 will also bridge the gap between the PC and games consoles.

Last time I heard DX11 was slated for early 2010.
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RE: Could Snow Leopard leave Windows 7 eating it's dust?
DonBurnett 9th Dec 2008
Yet another article with a limited perspective point of view and not all the facts.. The large majority of commenters might be right, score this article to Apple marketing's misinformation campaign about Windows..

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