AMD Acceleration Enhances the Next Wave of Adobe Photoshop CC Features

heffeque

2014-06-20 08:27

Why does this OpenCL implementation only take advantage of AMD GPUs? I know that OpenCL has the possibility of enhancing performance for specific hardware, but isn't OpenCL all about having the possibility to code for generic hardware of all sorts as well?

#4848654

peshkohacka

2014-06-20 09:09

....

#4848916

morbias

2014-06-20 13:43

Yes, obviously it's Nvidia's fault that this will only work on AMD cards...

#4849025

heffeque

2014-06-20 15:13

Because Nvidia would very like to enforce CUDA, that's why CUDA always out-performs OpenCL on Nvidia GPU's. Plus AMD's architecture gives them a slight edge in OpenCL. You have to understand (if you haven't by now) that Nvidia "innovates' with closed technology. They thrive with features unique to their cards and this is how they spend their money.

That doesn't seem to explain why Adobe would choose to not support OpenCL on nVidia's hardware at all, even though nVidia's OpenCL driver lacks features and isn't as fast as AMD's OpenCL driver. There would still be speed improvements over not using OpenCL at all, don't you think? Adobe stopped coding for CUDA some time ago, so it would seem like a good choice to at least support OpenCL on nVidia... But then again, maybe not. I guess that they made the decision of not supporting nVidia's OpenCL for a reason. Who knows...

#4849027

Spets

2014-06-20 15:14

Why does this OpenCL implementation only take advantage of AMD GPUs? I know that OpenCL has the possibility of enhancing performance for specific hardware, but isn't OpenCL all about having the possibility to code for generic hardware of all sorts as well?

It doesn't, it works for all: http://www.nvidia.com/object/adobe-photoshop-cc.html The announcement was made by AMD, they're not going to say "By the way you can have all these effects if you don't buy our product"

#4849036

heffeque

2014-06-20 15:18

It doesn't, it works for all: http://www.nvidia.com/object/adobe-photoshop-cc.html

Oh, then why specify for AMD hardware when it's for AMD, nVidia and guess probably Intel too? That seems odd. A note from Adobe about OpenCL and what hardware they support would have been a better choice IMO, instead of one about AMD hardware.

#4849040

Fender178

2014-06-20 15:19

Adobe products for the past couple of years always worked better on Nvidia based cards it is nice to see AMD to get a performance boost with the Adobe products.

#4849468

Lane

2014-06-20 18:54

Adobe products for the past couple of years always worked better on Nvidia based cards it is nice to see AMD to get a performance boost with the Adobe products.

Its not the first version to support OpenCL, this should be since 1 year that Adobe have start "transition" their softwares to OpenCL .. Anyway, i ask me as it seems Nvidia dont tell anything about it on his site, does thoses "new features" are using CUDA or OpenCL on Nvidia gpu's ?

#4849560

Pill Monster

2014-06-20 19:42

Its not the first version to support OpenCL, this should be since 1 year that Adobe have start "transition" their softwares to OpenCL ..

^This.

#4849567

Fender178

2014-06-20 19:45

Its not the first version to support OpenCL, this should be since 1 year that Adobe have start "transition" their softwares to OpenCL .. Anyway, i ask me as it seems Nvidia dont tell anything about it on his site, does thoses "new features" are using CUDA or OpenCL on Nvidia gpu's ?

True but Nvidia still had the edge when it came to performance with Adobe programs.

#4849573

Lane

2014-06-20 19:49

True but Nvidia still had the edge when it came to performance with Adobe programs.

Not when you take acceleration by OpenCL vs CUDA ( where really performance counts finally with the mercury engine ).. openCL is way faster ( mostly because it deal easely with both CPU and GPU ) than CUDA .... And like Nvidia performance on OpenCL are really bad anyway, using OpenCL with nvidia gpu's is a no go. ( they dont even support fully the latest set of OpenCL it seems ( maybe fixed, i have not check everything lately). I admit it is offtly hard to test.. different gpu's and not forcibly allways the last ones for thoses review. and when a gpu is tested on a review with GPGPU, photoshop, after effect etc or other software are offtly too quick passed over. Anyway, after check, Adobe have open OpenCL since end of 2011-2012 in their softwares.. and its clear at start performance was in favor of CUDA at this time, but the table have flip thoses last years in favor of OpenCL.

#4849720

Denial

2014-06-20 21:22

OpenCL has benefits in performance because you can optimize kernels for specific hardware. Which is good when the vendors provide the documentation necessary to do. For the longest time AMD/Intel were really bad about the docs specific to OpenCL for their processors. CUDA is basically a blanketed approach that works on nearly everything as Nvidia supplies the libraries and templates. You can probably optimize OpenCL to be faster than a comparable CUDA implementation but CUDA has the advantage of being way easier to develop on. Neither one is better they both have various pros and cons. In the long run I do think OpenCL will win out though due to mobile chipset support being the majority in the future.

#4849732

Lane

2014-06-20 21:30

OpenCL has benefits in performance because you can optimize kernels for specific hardware. Which is good when the vendors provide the documentation necessary to do. For the longest time AMD/Intel were really bad about the docs specific to OpenCL for their processors. CUDA is basically a blanketed approach that works on nearly everything as Nvidia supplies the libraries and templates. You can probably optimize OpenCL to be faster than a comparable CUDA implementation but CUDA has the advantage of being way easier to develop on. Neither one is better they both have various pros and cons. In the long run I do think OpenCL will win out though due to mobile chipset support being the majority in the future.

If we take the words of Adobe developpement team, for them, this was more easy to deal with OpenCL than Cuda ( When mercury engine have been released ). Because the software was developped on the scratch for OpenCL.. Now if you take an existing software who dont deal well with parralelism at start, you will certainly end with something more difficult to code on the end. ( Blender is a good example ) The problem with OpenCL today is you see many peoples who think what was true 4-5years ago are still the same. Today you have full library of tools and languages who allow you to be really quick and easy to deal with OpenCL when coding a softwares. You dont take anymore just OpenCL, you will pass by tools, library, language. ANd like those ones are now the most used in professionnal developpement softwares, you have all you need at disposition for use OpenCL. This was not the case many years ago..

#4849744

Noisiv

2014-06-20 21:37

If we take the words of Adobe developpement team, for them, this was more easy to deal with OpenCL than Cuda ( When mercury engine have been released ).

Hmm...really? Pretty sure I've seen somewhere one Adobe guy saying implementing OpenCL was a $@#& nightmare

#4849746

Lane

2014-06-20 21:40

Hmm...really? Pretty sure I've seen somewhere one Adobe guy saying implementing OpenCL was a $@#& nightmare

I have just fall on an article some minutes ago, will try find it back ( dated from 2012 ( January i think ). Edit: it was from Oliveir from GIMP/GEGL ( my misstake ). “I don't think the OpenCL API in itself is hard,” says GIMP/GEGL developer Victor Oliveira. “In fact, in my opinion, it is cleaner for general-purpose computation than other APIs like OpenGL and CUDA. Things can get hairy when you have to integrate OpenCL in an existing application that doesn't take performance and parallelism into account. " To note the article was made in early 2012 .. when i say things have change ..

#4849762

V3RT3X79

2014-06-20 21:47

yea ati and dont forget to make another driver update soon too