21-23 August: OpenCL Training London

From 21 to 23 August StreamHPC will give a 3-day training in OpenCL. Here you will learn how to develop OpenCL-programs.

A separate ticket for only the first day can be bought, as then will be a crash-course into OpenCL. Module basics.

The second and third day will all about parallel-algorithm design, optimisation and error-handling. Module optimisation with several new subjects added.

The last part of the third day is reserved for special subjects, as requested by the attendees. Continue reading “21-23 August: OpenCL Training London”

12-14 June: OpenCL Training Amsterdam

From 12 to 14 June StreamHPC will give a 3-day course in OpenCL (was 3 to 5 June). Here you will learn how to develop OpenCL-programs.

A separate ticket for only the first day can be bought, as then will be a crash-course into OpenCL. Module basics.

The second and third day will all about parallel-algorithm design, optimisation and error-handling. Module optimisation with several new subjects added.

The last part of the third day is reserved for special subjects, as requested by the attendees. Continue reading “12-14 June: OpenCL Training Amsterdam”

Basic concept: Hosts and devices

Time for some basic concepts of OpenCL. As I notice a growing number of visitors to this page, I notices I have actually not written much about coding and basics.

One of the first steps of an OpenCL program is selecting hosts and devices. If you program for a tablet, which has one chip and a screen, you don’t think of several devices. And if you log in on a server, your context is there is one host and that’s the one you logged into. If you have read my article about how to install all drivers on Ubuntu, you have gotten several clues. I added some tips&tricks, but not too many. If you know more stuff about this subject yourself, please share with others in the comments.

Continue reading “Basic concept: Hosts and devices”

28 June: OpenCL course in Utrecht, NL

At 28 June 2011 StreamCompting will give a 1-day course on OpenCL in Utrecht. As it is quite new, the priced is reduced. Also if you want to learn CUDA or any other GPGPU-language, this course is also a good option for you. The most important thing about GPGPU are the concepts. In other words the “why” they chose to make GPGPU-languages ike this. In my course you will get it after a one-day training. Most of the day consists of lectures with a short lab-sessions. The training makes use of a unique block-method, so you learn the technique top-down and almost can fill in the spaces yourself. At least 2 years of thorough programming-experience in Java, C++ or Objective C is preferred, because of the level of the subjects. The following is discussed with the big why-question as leading:

[list1]

  • OpenCL debunked: getting to understand how OpenCL is engineered.
  • Algoritms: which can be sped-up with GPGPU/OpenCL and which not.
  • Architectures & Optimalisations: why does one OpenCL-program work better on one architecture and not on another.
  • Software-engineering: wrapper-languages, code re-use and integration in existing software.
  • Debugging: not the screenshots, but giving you insight in how the memory-models work.
[/list1]

The lab-sessions are very minimal; you get (fully documented) homework which you can do the subsequent week (with assistance via mail). If you prefer to have extensive lab-sessions, please inform to the possibilities. After the session and the homework you’ll be able to decide on your own what kind of software can be sped up by using OpenCL and which not. Als you will be able to integrate OpenCL into your own software and engineer OpenCL-kernels. Note that the advances you make depend heavily on your seniority in programming. If all attendees are Dutch, it is given in Dutch. Future sessions will be in other cities, so if you prefer to receive training more local or at your company, please ask for the possibilities.

If you want more information, contact us.

Khronos OpenCL presentation at SIGGRAPH 2010

Here you find the videos uploaded by Khronos of their presentation about OpenCL. I added the time-line, so you can scroll to the more interesting parts easily. The presentation by Ofer Rosenberg of Intel and Cliff Woolly of NVIDIA were not uploaded (yet). Please note that for non-American people the speech of Affi Munchie is hard to hear; luckily his sheets explain most.

For the first two presentations the sheets can be downloaded from the Khronos-website. The time-line has the sheet-numbers mentioned.

0:00 [sheet 1] Presentation by the president of Khronos and chair of the session: Neill Trevett of NVIDIA.
0:06 [sheet 2] Welcome and a quick overview
1:12 [sheet 3] The prizes for the attendees (not us, online viewers)
1:40 [4] Overview of all members of Khronos. Khronos does not only take care of OpenCL but also the more famous OpenGL and projects like Collada.
2:26 [5] Processor Parallelism. CPUs are getting more parallel and GPUs more programmable. The overlapping area is called Heteregenous Computing and there is where OpenCL pops up.
3:10 [6] OpenCL timeline from version 1.0 to 1.1.
4:44 [7] OpenCL workinggroup with only 30 logos. He mentions missing logos like the one from Apple.
5:18 [8] The Visual Computing Ecosystem, where OpenCL interoperability with other standards are shown. The talk is not complete, so I don;t know if he talks about DirectX.

Continue reading “Khronos OpenCL presentation at SIGGRAPH 2010”

Our training concepts for GPGPU

It’s almost time for more nerdy stuff we have in the pipe-line, but we’ll keep for some superficial blah for a moment. We concentrate on training (and consultancy). There is a lot of discussion here about “how to design training-programs about difficult concepts for technical people”, or better: “how to learn yourself something difficult”. At the end of this blog, we’ll show you a list how to learn OpenCL yourself, but before that we want to share how we look at training you.

Disclaimer: this blog item is positive about our own training-program for obvious reasons. We are aware people don’t want (too much) spam, so we’ll keep this kind of blogs to the minimum. If you want to tell the world that your training-program is better, first mail us for our international partner-program. If you want the training, come back on 14 June or mail us.

OpenCL and CUDA are not the easiest programming languages due to incomparable concepts in software-land (You can claim Java is “slightly” different). Can the usual ways of training give you the insights and facts you need to know?

Current programs

Most training-programs are vendor-supported. People who follow us on Twitter, know we are not the best supporters of vendor locked products. So lets get a list of a typical vendor-supported training-programs, I would like to talk about:

  • They have to be difficult, so the student accomplishes something.
  • The exam are expensive to demotivate trial-on-error-students.
  • You get an official certificate, which guarantees a income-raise.
  • Books and trainings focus on facts you must learn.
  • It’s very clear what you must learn and what you can skip.

So in short, you chose you wanted to know the material and put a lot of effort in it. You get back more than just the knowledge.

Say you get the opposite:

  • They are easy to accomplish.
  • Exams is an assignment which you only need to finish. You can try endless times.
  • You don’t get a certificate, but you might get feedback and homework for self-study.
  • You get a list of facts you must learn; the concepts are explained to support this.
  • You are free to pick which subject you like.

That sucks! You cannot brag about your accomplishments and after the training you still cannot do anything with it; it will probably take years to actually finish it. So actually it’s very clear why the programs are like this, or can we learn from this opposing list? Just like with everything else, you never have to just copy what’s available but pick out the good parts.

Learning GPGPU

If you want to learn GPGPU, you have to learn (in short) shader-concepts, OpenCL, CUDA and GPU-architectures. What would be needed to learn it, according to us?

  • A specified list of subjects you can check when understood.
  • An insight story of the underlying concepts to better understand the way stream-computing works. Concepts are the base of everything, to actually make it sound simple.
  • Very practical know-how. Such as how to integrate stream-computing-code into your current software.
  • A difficult assignment that gets you in touch with everything you learned. The training gave you the instruments you need to accomplish this step.

So there’s no exam and no certificate; these are secondary reasons for finishing the course. The focus should be getting the brain wrapped around the concepts and getting experience. As the disclaimer warned you, our training-program has a high focus on getting you up-and-running in one day. And you do get a certificate after your assignment gets approved, so bragging is easy.

If you want to learn stream-computing and you won’t use our training-program, what then?

  • Read our blog (RSS) and follow us on Twitter.
  • Make yourself a list of subjects you think you have to learn. Thinking before doing helps in getting a focus.
  • Buy a book. There are many.
  • Play around with existing examples. Try to break it. Example: what happens if the kernel uses more and more local/private memory.
  • Update the list of subjects; the more extensive, the better. Prioritise.
  • Find yourself an assignment. For example: try to compress or decompress a large JPG using OpenCL. If you succeed, get yourself a harder assignment. Do you want to be good or the best?

If you know OpenCL, CUDA is easy to learn! We will have some blogs which support your quest on learning OpenCL, so just start to dig in today and see you next time.