SDK boosts GPU, CPU app performance

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has launched the ATI Stream Software Development Kit (SDK) v2.1, the latest update of its ATI Stream SDK supporting OpenCL industry standard-based programming on AMD GPUs and x86 CPUs.

The ATI Stream SDK helps developers accelerate application performance by leveraging the CPU and GPU resources in a given system. This collaborative computing model will be enhanced in the upcoming AMD Fusion family of accelerated processing units (APUs). The new version brings additional performance-enhancing features, increases ease-of-programming and expands hardware support, and is available for download today.

"With the anticipated arrival of the AMD Fusion family of APUs next year, we can support developers who want to begin creating next-generation software experiences for APUs now," said Ben Bar-Haim, general manager AMD Canada and corporate VP of software engineering, AMD. "The ATI Stream SDK puts the developer community on the path to success by providing access to the CPU and GPU system resources already available to them today."

ATI Stream SDK v2.1 features the following:

??Support for OpenCL / OpenGL interoperability, helping reduce the overhead of passing data for display purposes, enabling a richer and more responsive visual experience for the user.
??Support for OpenCL byte addressable stores allowing more natural and efficient code for applications, such as image processing, that depend on the ability to update data at smaller than 32bit granularities.
??Support for OpenCL images, providing developers with access to hardware-accelerated texture features on AMD GPUs.
??OpenCL extension support for AMD media operations in OpenCL, giving developers a set of OpenCL kernel operations commonly used in multimedia applications.
??OpenCL extension support for device fission in OpenCL, enabling developers to sub-divide an OpenCL device and allowing multiple work kernels to be assigned to that device.
??Integration of Stream KernelAnalyzer 1.5 installer, which helps developers to statically analyze OpenCL kernel performance on AMD graphics processors.
??Support for next-generation ATI FirePro professional graphics cards, including the industry's most powerful professional graphics card ever created1, the ATI FirePro V8800, and the latest ATI Radeon and ATI Mobility Radeon graphics from AMD.