Folding Forum

Just curious if there's been any experimentation with using GPUs on Androids?

It's been talked about quite often on BOINC and I went looking for the topic again and I found a post from David Anderson of BOINC:

The BOINC Android client supports GPUs with OpenCL libraries.
This has been been demo'ed on Tegra-based devices.

The issue is lack of applications.
Projects have to create ARM/OpenCL executables, which is some work.


So I was wondering F@H having an OpenCL client...

I noticed recently looking at the BOINC log on my Samsung tablet that the GPU was detected. Regrettably, I don't know more if there's a certain minimum standard to be useful.

I have seen no announcements suggesting that FAH is developing a GPU processing capability for OpenCL on Android.

Is it possible? probably.
Are there enough clients that would produce enough results to make the development effort worthwhile? I don't know.

I was just wondering. Been theorized the GPUs have gotten powerful enough to contribute to DC projects. Whether there's sufficent mass and support, I don't know either. As David Anderson noted in regards to SETI... Yes it's possible but it'll probably take a volunteer to develop one. GPUGrid was supposedly experimenting but it looks to have been delayed indefinitely.

Just like in the 'desktop' world, not all GPUs are created equally in the Android world either.

They often pick the lowest hanging and ripest fruit first, then go back for more if there is enough time, labor, and money.