Question

I read that Microsoft is closely working with Nvidia to improve AMP performances.

But my question is: is AMP a CUDA-replace by Microsoft? Or does AMP use CUDA drivers when a NVIDIA CUDA video card is available? Is AMP an openCL substitute?

I’m still pretty confused..

Answer 1

C++ AMP is a library (and as part of it a key language extension was also introduced). Since C++ AMP is an open specification, it can be implemented on any other low level languages. Microsoft’s implementation builds on DirectCompute (and hence on HLSL), but that is completely hidden from you when you are using C++ AMP (which is why C++ AMP can be an open specification; it does not expose DirectX in the API surface). For more on C++ AMP, please follow the resources on the right of our blog (we’ll keep adding to that):
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/nativeconcurrency/

You made a statement about Microsoft working with NVIDIA to improve C++ AMP performance – that is not true. Microsoft has worked with NVIDA and AMD and other partners to create the C++ AMP open specification. Microsoft also work with hardware vendors to make sure that the hardware vendors have stable video card drivers, which are required for any GPU compute technology to work correctly.

You also expressed confusion and threw some terms out. OpenCL is an approach to GPU computing (by Khronos), as is DirectCompute (by Microsoft), as is CUDA (by NVIDIA). These are all separate technologies, each with its own path to the GPU (always via a driver of some sort), each with its own merits, strengths, and disadvantages. One does not replace the other, and one is not universally better than the other. You now also have C++ AMP in that mix, as one more choice, and the same statements apply to that. The choice is yours as to which you decide to use.