Question

I’m investigating ways of using GPU in order to process streaming data. I had two choices but couldn’t decide which way to go?

My criterias are as follows:

1. Ease of use (good API)
2. Community and Documentation
3. Performance
4. Future

I’ll code in C and C++ under linux.

Answer 1

OpenCL

• interfaced from your production code
• portable between different graphics hardware
• limited operations but preprepared shortcuts

CUDA

• separate language (CUDA C)
• nVidia hardware only
• almost full control over the code (coding in a C-like language)
• lot of profiling and debugging tools

Bottom line — OpenCL is portable, CUDA is nVidia only. However, being an independent language, CUDA is much more powerful and has a bunch of really good tools.

1. Ease of use — OpenCL is easier to use out of the box, but once you setup the CUDA coding environment it’s almost like coding in C.
2. Community and Documentation — both have extensive documentation and examples, however I think CUDA has better.
3. Performance — CUDA allows for greater control, hence can be better fine-tuned for higher performance.
4. Future — hard to say really.