#Is opengl 4.4 still used drivers#
#Is opengl 4.4 still used full#
#Is opengl 4.4 still used portable#
#Is opengl 4.4 still used software#

The separation of backend from the frontend means that Clang merely needs to be extended or replaced to add new languages, and as it stands Clang offers Khronos a very clear path towards enabling C++ in future versions of OpenCL, something that developers have been asking about for quite some time now. By going this route Khronos is able to leverage the strengths of LLVM, mainly LLVMвЂ™s wide portability and existing high quality intermediate representation format, not to mention the fact that many of the OpenCL vendors already use LLVM for their GPGPU compilers (particularly NVIDIAвЂ™s CUDA toolchain).ДЄs an added bonus, much like NVIDIA and their use of LLVM for CUDA, by moving to LLVM Khronos gains the ability to quickly and efficiently add support for new high level languages to OpenCL. Meanwhile Clang is the C language compiler frontend for LLVM. LLVM is a widely popular compiler backend, used in both CPU and GPU environments alike. On a technical level, it should come as no great surprise that SPIR will be borrowing heavily from the tag-team duo of LLVM and Clang.

#Is opengl 4.4 still used portable#

And since the OpenCL JIT model means that low level binaries are not portable to other devices, there is a clear need for an intermediate format that provides similar protection while maintaining portability. Though by no means perfect, compiling code to lower levels вЂ“ be it intermediate or low level вЂ“ prevents trivial reverse engineering and provides a reasonable level of protection for code.

#Is opengl 4.4 still used full#

The exposure of high level code in fully portable (and forward-compatible) programs was not a problem in the early days of OpenCL, but as additional developers come on board and OpenCL programs move from complexity levels similar to OpenGL shaders (simple) to full blown applications (complex) thereвЂ™s a need to protect code from trivial reverse engineering and source code theft.

#Is opengl 4.4 still used software#

Ultimately SPIR is primarily being driven by the needs of software vendors, whose needs are expanding as OpenCL stabilizes and matures, and the number of capable devices increases.

#Is opengl 4.4 still used drivers#

With the appropriate systems in place, software vendors would then be able to ship OpenCL programs and kernels compiled down to the SPIR format, with device drivers then consuming the SPIR code and compiling the programs to their final device specific formats. SPIR solves this by defining a standard intermediate representation for OpenCL code, along with creating the frontends and backends necessary to support SPIR. To use a Java analogy, OpenCL core lacks the equivalent of an intermediate format like a class file, and this is what SPIR is intended to solve. Importantly, with OpenCL core there is nothing in between, leaving the only options being to expose the original code or put together binaries for each and every device family. By default OpenCL programs can be shipped in one of two forms, either as a low-level binary compiled to specific devices, or in a high level form with the original high level C code being compiled all the way down to binary form at runtime the botton and top of the compilation stack respectively. SPIR seeks to solve one of the outstanding issues with deploying OpenCL programs, which relates to OpenCLвЂ™s Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation nature. Standing for Standard Portable Intermediate Representation, SPIR is the format and specifications needed to represent OpenCL programs in an intermediate format, between high level C kernels and low level fully compiled binaries. Starting off with OpenCL SPIR 1.2, SPIR is an extension of OpenCL designed around filling in some of the software deployment holes the standard OpenCL software stack exposes. Khronos in turn is announcing two new OpenCL standards, OpenCL SPIR 1.2 and OpenCL 2.0. OpenCL was first released in 2008, and has since then been iterated on in conjunction with further software developments and the release of newer, more capable hardware. Moving on from OpenGL, the rest of KhronosвЂ™ major news for SIGGRAPH revolves around their OpenCL standard for GPGPU compute. OpenCL SPIR 1.2: An Intermediate Format For OpenCL