AMD dropping OpenCL support?

[cine.chris]

I don't run any AMD GPUs, but i saw a bullet chart that stated they will be dropping support for OpenCL in the upcoming Rays4.0 release.
I've got a seasonal approach to Folding (summer/winter) & I was wondering what new gear would be showing up in the fall, like 'big' NAVI. But no driver support for OpenCL would be a Folding No-Go, right? Or will there be GPUopen extensions incorporated into the FAHclient?

https://gpuopen.com/radeon-rays/

[bruce]

It's hard to predict what AMD is going to do. Perhaps older drivers will still be available. FAH will figure out something.

[JimboPalmer]

Can you document your claim in any way?

[NRT_AntiKytherA]

The link provides all the evidence needed. Incidentally, older hardware that can fold sometimes will not on Linux due to the way amd drivers are made available. my Athlon 5350 has a GCN GPU. It will fold in W10 with AMD drivers downloaded and installed or linux with an experimental install of amdgpu (via manjaro) and mesa opencl. It will not fold on Ubuntu with the radeon driver, there is no amdgpu experimental option for this distribution.

So it does not surprise me that AMD would drop support for OpenCL as they don't really care about it anyway. They are more interested in Vulkan and HIP.

Of more concern? RAYS 4.0 will not be opensource.

[JimboPalmer]

I may be confused, but all I see is a ray tracing library completely unrelated to Folding@Home or AMD's Graphics drivers.

No part of F@H was using this before, and no part can be expected to use it in the future as F@H does not use ray tracing hardware or software on any device.

Was this just misplaced from the Anything goes forum?

As it does not effect any driver anywhere, I still can't see it as relevant to "Problems with AMD/ATI drivers" and you seem unable to relate it to any driver.
If you have evidence that any of your link effects some graphics driver, I await your quote of that statement.

Personally, I am much more concerned that AMD does not support the latest CPUs in OpenCL, but again that does not effect F@H development, so does not belong here.

[foldy]

Don't get confused that link is only talking about AMD Rays, an accelerated ray intersection library. That is not used by FAH as it is for gaming lighting.

[cine.chris]

Here's the link: https://gpuopen.com/radeon-rays/
Just asking what the impact might be...

[JimboPalmer]

Just asking what the impact might be...

If F@H ever decides to do ray tracing in the client, they will have choices involving OpenCL or not. But realistically, why would they?

Ford is dropping manufacture of all Sedans, how will this effect Folding@Home? It won't.

[cine.chris]

Looks like they had another episode, similar to Zen3 support.
I've been pleased with my latest Ryzen 3000 edit station build & looking forward to some keen GPU hardware options in the fall.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= ... Going-Open

[JimboPalmer]

It is sad that someone who claims to own AMD gear is actually spreading FUD about AMD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_unc ... _and_doubt

[bruce]

I agree with JimboPalmer. The title says this topic is about OpenCL but the link and discussion is about a totally different subject: How does AMD compete with NVidia's RTX series which contains hardware that accelerates the rah-tracing process.

The former is a legitimate concern for FAH and Stream Computing in general. The latter is a legitimate concern for gamers.

We are a support forum for FAH, not a platform for discussing gamer concerns.

[cine.chris]

Sorry, about the dumb question & not understanding the FAHclient GPGPU dependencies.
I'm just a retired engr folding@5.2M PPD this afternoon in my basement & don't own a video game.
As for AMD, I'm hoping their expected Fall GPU offerings will create the same disruption as the Ryzen CPUs.
Spreading is a harsh term for someone that felt this was the right place & 1st place to bring their question & concerns.
Lots of stress in the world now, sorry that it was disruptive.

[bruce]

Video games put significant demands on computer hardware that are not easily met by traditional CPUs. First you have a lot of 3d objects in rapid motion that must be calculated. Second, you have to transform that scene into a smooth image with a frame-rate fast enough to fool the human eye.

FAH doesn't care about making high frame-rate images, but it does have a lot of 3d objects in motion that must be calculated as quickly as possible. A traditional CPU can handle a few hundred objects. A GPU can handle a few hundred thousand objects and respectable speed by running calculations in parallel. GPGPU hardware becomes very powerful when you have calculations that can be readily parallelized. The traditional CPU shines when calculations are more serial in nature.

[Asghan]

With the RadeonPro 21.40 Beta driver AMD now confirmed that OpenCL will be dropped in favor of HIP.
21.40. does no longer include OpenCL. (see gpuopen.com)

[JimboPalmer]

Again, when making such claims, document your sources.
When I browsed that site, I saw no mention of the AMD Graphics Driver at all. Just other software that F@H does not use.