Any PPD reports for ARC GPU's?
Moderator: Site Moderators
Forum rules
Please read the forum rules before posting.
Please read the forum rules before posting.
-
- Posts: 63
- Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2020 11:47 am
Any PPD reports for ARC GPU's?
Local store has some in stock now. Haven't been able to find any folding performance reports on any of them, though.
-
- Site Moderator
- Posts: 6359
- Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2007 10:38 am
- Location: Bordeaux, France
- Contact:
Re: Any PPD reports for ARC GPU's?
Arc GPU are not supported by FAH for the moment :
- They lack hardware double precision support
- The software implementation of double precision is not reliable enough yet to run FAH
- They lack hardware double precision support
- The software implementation of double precision is not reliable enough yet to run FAH
-
- Posts: 63
- Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2020 11:47 am
Re: Any PPD reports for ARC GPU's?
Ah, OK. Don't know what that means, but good to know.
-
- Site Admin
- Posts: 7937
- Joined: Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:41 pm
- Hardware configuration: Mac Pro 2.8 quad 12 GB smp4
MacBook Pro 2.9 i7 8 GB smp2 - Location: W. MA
Re: Any PPD reports for ARC GPU's?
To explain what that means in practice, folding mostly uses single précision floating point calculations. Those are also called 32-bit or FP32 calculations. A small amount of the calculations need more precision than can be obtained with 32-bits, so double precision 64-bit (FP64) calculations are used where needed.
How this applies to the Intel graphics is that when first supported the iGPUs from their 9th generation supported FP64 in hardware. For whatever reason there was not a designated 10th generation, the 11th generation iGPUs also supported FP64. With the 12th generation GPU architecture Intel removed the FP64 hardware support and added code in the driver to emulate FP64 calculations with software instructions. From early information out on the just released Arc GPUs they are using the same approach to support FP64. Tests done using folding gave inconsistent results, or caused the folding core to crash.
How this applies to the Intel graphics is that when first supported the iGPUs from their 9th generation supported FP64 in hardware. For whatever reason there was not a designated 10th generation, the 11th generation iGPUs also supported FP64. With the 12th generation GPU architecture Intel removed the FP64 hardware support and added code in the driver to emulate FP64 calculations with software instructions. From early information out on the just released Arc GPUs they are using the same approach to support FP64. Tests done using folding gave inconsistent results, or caused the folding core to crash.
iMac 2.8 i7 12 GB smp8, Mac Pro 2.8 quad 12 GB smp6
MacBook Pro 2.9 i7 8 GB smp3
-
- Posts: 63
- Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2020 11:47 am
Re: Any PPD reports for ARC GPU's?
Ah, interesting. Thanks for the explanation.