Intel SDK for OpenCL installer crashes on Windows 10

[Anca1]

Hi,

Intel SDK for OpenCL installer crashes just a few seconds after being launched. It displays a window with a progress bar and then it seems to exit, without giving any error and without installing the SDK.

Any idea how to fix this?

The SDK I am trying to install is intel_sdk_for_opencl_applications_2019.5.345. I am running on 64bit Windows 10.

support.txt file contains the following additional information:

Package ID: w_cembdw_comp_p_2019.5.082

This package contains:
        Intel(R) System Studio 2019 Update 5 Composer Edition for Windows*
        Intel(R) C++ Compiler 19.0 Update 5 for Windows* Target
        Intel(R) Math Kernel Library 2019 Update 5 for Windows* Target
        Intel(R) Integrated Performance Primitives 2019 Update 5 for Windows* Target
        Intel(R) Threading Building Blocks 2019 Update 8 for Windows* Target
        Intel(R) Data Analytics Acceleration Library 2019 Update 5 for Windows* Target
        Intel(R) Debugger for Heterogeneous Compute 2016**
        OpenCL(TM) Tools 2019 Update 5

Thanks.

[McAllister__David]

Regarding my own installer woes, I believe the hard crashes I was facing after installing this SDK were due to my app carelessly choosing which OpenCL device to run. (I also have an Nvidia GPU in the machine.) I have fixed my app now and don't see those crashes.

However, the installer seems to have added an additional, identical Intel OpenCL platform. Before the SDK install I had 1 Intel platform w/ a CPU and GPU device, and 1 Nvidia platform w/ a GPU device. Now I have 2 Intel platforms, each w/ a CPU and GPU, plus the Nvidia w/ a GPU. I am attaching the before and after CLInfo logs for comparison. I don't know what's up with that.

Regards,

Dave

[Michael_C_Intel1]

Hi DavidM,

Thanks for the feedback and the clinfo references.

The two Intel OpenCL platforms listed does not appear to be an intended configuration. It looks like the graphics driver could have a duplication of ICD references on the Windows machine. I recommend taking a look at your system registry here:

Location: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Khronos\OpenCL\Vendors

ICD References which clinfo will pick up are associated with line items that look like this:

Name: C:\windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\ig<path_on_your_system>\IntelOpenCL64.dll REG_DWORD 0

That dll file maps to the OpenCL implementation. It gets referenced indirectly when a device is chosen via OpenCL-API.

Are there multiple references to the same files? Can you share what that folder looks like? Does the reference list inform something you can uninstall? It may be worthwhile to reinstall runtimes to ensure the ICD Loader references are as lean as possible.

On Driver installs and the OpenCL runtimes... The driver install path is as such:

1) Check the system vendor website for Intel Graphics drivers... The vendor may tie graphics driver support to usage of their driver. They may lockdown the ability to install other drivers.

2) Try obtaining an Intel first-party graphics driver from downloadcenter.intel.com. These usually are ahead of vendor drivers. Vendors may base their driver packages from the same content supplied. The vendor has the discretion for when they choose to update their drivers to the latest versions. On my Windows work laptop this install is disabled and I must use the system vendor driver package. I assume these drivers are most often applied to NUC form factor systems.

3) Lastly, the CPU Runtime itself is available as a standalone... without an OpenCL runtime that targets GEN graphics like in the above options. This runtime is available as a standalone from software.intel.com and the Intel Registration Center. If this runtime detects it is being installed on top of a CPU/iGFX combo runtime package it should stop it's installation. If it detects it is already installed it should stop it's installation. The standalone CPU Runtime is included with the SDK (primarily as an enabling vehicle for development). 

With respect to the SDK installer and older drivers: Microsoft introduced the DCH driver type at the end of 2018 which precipitated a major driver refactor and breaking changes for some device application support. Later versions of the SDK were validated and features can only work with DCH designated drivers. Pre-DCH drivers for newer Intel processors were removed from downloadcenter.intel.com. Legacy drivers are available for platforms that are no longer receiving driver updates. The SDK is incompatible with platforms that have pre-DCH drivers for both new and legacy platforms.

The latency at which vendors have adopted DCH drivers have yielded newer versions of SDK incompatible on some systems.

Many of these details should be echoed in the SDK release notes.

For completeness, The classic location for 32bit OpenCL references is to be stored is within these registry entries:

Location: HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Khronos\OpenCL\Vendors

Name:

C:\windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\ig<path_on_your_system>\IntelOpenCL32.dll REG_DWORD 0

Thanks,

-MichaelC