So... where are all the CUDA aps?

nVidia kept pumping up CUDA, and I've got a GTX260, which I can't imagine would be a slouch. I'd like to use it for video and audio encoding/transcoding to see how it compares to my OCed Q6600, how can I go about doing this? I ask because I have yet to see a single CUDA enabled app, aside from Badaboom, but that didn't seem to be any better (or worse) than my processor, making me wonder if it was even actually using CUDA.

Also considering when Badaboom was previewed it was buggy as hell - CUDA is a fad. Unless Nvidia actually wrote CUDA for ATI cards as well as Nvidia cards and kept them up to date the platform will never take off. The next version of Photoshop is reported to run on CUDA for some filters but even then it's not going to have a huge effect on performance overall.

Where's all the CUDA apps? Waiting for AMD to release their own version of CUDA.

Well, Adobe CS4 supports CUDA and I read somewhere that one other plugin for some other app will support it. And apparently both AMD + Nvidia GPU's work on CS4.

But realistically, it seems to me that PhysX/CUDA is going nowhere; more and more developers have started supporting AMD over the past few months, and making their games with Havoc physics and DX10.1 which are hardware accelerated on Radeon 4k series. There is not a single upcoming game that I know of which will use PhysX, and the only app I've heard using CUDA is CS4.

TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress Video....
http://news.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/10381/524437.html

Point is, due to the highly specialised nature of a GPU and the limitations of its programmability (with the exception that will be Larrabee) it makes no financial sense to buy a top of the line GPU over a Quad.

Nehalem will also close the performance gap significantly while being a more realistic proposition.

don'tknow said:

Where's all the CUDA apps? Waiting for AMD to release their own version of CUDA.

Well, Adobe CS4 supports CUDA and I read somewhere that one other plugin for some other app will support it. And apparently both AMD + Nvidia GPU's work on CS4.

But realistically, it seems to me that PhysX/CUDA is going nowhere; more and more developers have started supporting AMD over the past few months, and making their games with Havoc physics and DX10.1 which are hardware accelerated on Radeon 4k series. There is not a single upcoming game that I know of which will use PhysX, and the only app I've heard using CUDA is CS4.

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really now? care to name a hardware havoc game? ya ok 1 or 2 dx 10.1 games are around or are coming out, but there are still what 150+ physx games on tap. as for cuda apps i too would love to have a dvd authuring app
and im still ****ed at the nvidia guys here at work for not having my netflix with SLI enabled working yet. besides by the time anybody can/will make good use of dx10.1 the dx 11 cards from nvidia will be out and will support all of dx10.1.

Not hardware havoc. DX10.1 hardware accelerated, havoc isn't hardware accelerated (that was worded wrong) but is supported by AMD/ATI.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8372&Itemid=34

There's a bunch of other similar articles saying that basically ATI supports Intel with the Havoc engine and does not want game developers using Nvidia's PhysX. Which means they offer them Havoc for cheaper, and it's easier to use; that is why it's much more widely used than PhysX.

Games supporting Havoc Physics so far:

http://www.havok.com/content/blogcategory/29/73/

150+ physx games on tap.

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Not sure what you mean by that.

well Havoc is supported by everybody due to it being only software and now that intel owns it we will see where they take it. and for a list of games that are out and upcoming check out http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_physxgames_home.html
i do admit i was a bit off on the numbers but it is still a far from dead api
and with the ability to run cuda\physx on ati cards (nvidia says its cool with them) it would only get bigger.

Hm, I think many of those games are software accelerated PhysX. I played some of them on my old rig with a radeon x1900xt on max settings with no problems. Gears of War, Age of Empires 3, Mass Effect and some others.

The only title that I know which supports hardware PhysX is UT3 (Warmonger is free so I don't really count it) and... it was strange. I tried Hardware PhysX on, loaded one of the PhysX maps with my old Opteron180 CPU on my gtx 260. It ran at 10 fps. Later on when I upgraded to the rig in my sig, it's now running those maps at 50+ fps. Regular non-physx maps all run at 150-250 fps without vsync, but I've enabled vsync (fps never goes below 60) because that high framerate causes a lot of tearing. Also, the 10 fps was with graphics set to minimum settings with UT3 tweaker. The 50+ fps I'm currently getting in PhysX maps (and 150-250 without PhysX) is with all graphics settings set to maximum detail.

With PhysX on though in the UT3 PhysX maps, it looks like it is very very CPU intensive, so this must be a big part of the reason why developers aren't using hardware accelerated physics yet. Intel and AMD are working on optimizing Havoc for hardware acceleration on future Radeon GPU's, they don't want to rush this because it seems Nvidia did rush it and the result is very bad performance unless you have a top end CPU with a high overclock.

WiglyWorm said:

nVidia kept pumping up CUDA, and I've got a GTX260, which I can't imagine would be a slouch. I'd like to use it for video and audio encoding/transcoding to see how it compares to my OCed Q6600, how can I go about doing this? I ask because I have yet to see a single CUDA enabled app, aside from Badaboom, but that didn't seem to be any better (or worse) than my processor, making me wonder if it was even actually using CUDA.

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Damn give the apps time to be written. CUDA is new. Writing and debugging Apps
to use it doesn't happen with a snap of the fingers lol.

Viper

ViperJohn said:

Damn give the apps time to be written. CUDA is new. Writing and debugging Apps
to use it doesn't happen with a snap of the fingers lol.

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Wow, a voice of reason.

How long did it take software to start using SSE? SSE2? What SSE# are we up to anyways?

Software takes a while to catch up, plus most developers will aim for the lowest common denominator, to make their potential customer base as large as possible. Also, people tend to do what they know, and CUDA is new to everyone (though it is related to C+, right?).

Eventually, either CUDA will fall by the wayside like AMD's 3Dlater (er, 3DNow!) or it will become ubiquitous like S3TC being integrated into DX.

Zap said:

Wow, a voice of reason.

How long did it take software to start using SSE? SSE2? What SSE# are we up to anyways?

Software takes a while to catch up, plus most developers will aim for the lowest common denominator, to make their potential customer base as large as possible. Also, people tend to do what they know, and CUDA is new to everyone (though it is related to C+, right?).

Eventually, either CUDA will fall by the wayside like AMD's 3Dlater (er, 3DNow!) or it will become ubiquitous like S3TC being integrated into DX.

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Did anything of substance ever use SSE or its derivatives lol.

Viper

zap, we will be up to sse4 with nehalem once it comes out and later on sse5 probably with amds bulldozer architecture
and i agree with viper on the grounds that i can only think of a handful of apps that can take advantage of any sse (ie. seti and raytracing)

http://badaboomit.com/


heres a video encoder program but i find it to be very bare and still needs work imo. everytime i use it, the audio is in very crappy quality and the video shows allot of tearing.

but like viper said, give it time. This program was built from the ground up with a new method to encode videos. This company fully written their own code to encode videos.

atm743 said:

http://badaboomit.com/


heres a video encoder program but i find it to be very bare and still needs work imo. everytime i use it, the audio is in very crappy quality and the video shows allot of tearing.

but like viper said, give it time. This program was built from the ground up with a new method to encode videos. This company fully written their own code to encode videos.

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Remember CUDA or any other programming API can not overcome bad programmers that write crap
for code. There are people out there without the programming savvy to get past "Press Button Here"
and not dork it. They could turn a diamond laying goose into neutered Woodpecker in minutes lol..

Viper