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0 pointsrdedev4y ago0 comments

Just curious. What is your objections wrt the last 3 points ?

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3 comments · 1 top-level

ReactiveJelly4y ago· 2 in thread

I like FOSS a lot. Normal programming languages have relatively small downloads and run on normal CPUs dating about 10 years back with almost no issue.

GPU workloads always want some odd driver that has a gigantic download, and they're constantly coming up with new reasons to force you to the newest APIs, which means you have to buy new chips that have the right architecture or firmware for the new APIs.

So I have to buy this co-processor, and then I can't even treat it like a black box that I send commands to, I need a gigabyte-scale SDK or something to issue the commands on my behalf.

I can't stand it. It's as if there was a tiny window when programming was simple, after I learned about FOSS, and before GPGPU caught on. As if the personal computer really will turn out to have been a fad.

olliej4y ago

Ok, GPGPU isn’t “general purpose” in the basic sense, it means “not just graphics”. No CPU is going to be able to get performance in NNs that matches that of a GPU. A CPU simply cannot do the work. The closest a “general” CPU gets to that kind of thing are the big vector machines like the old Crays or Itanium’s packet architecture. Programming for either of those architectures is non trivial, and for normal software those architectures are slower than normal CPUs.

Despite the trade offs those systems made, consumer GPUs ended up with better performance because a lot of the things and general CPU has to do interfere with performance of pure numerical computation.

astrange4y ago

This research uses Nvidia products because it was released by Nvidia, who have hired approximately every graphics researcher out there.

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