Why Intel OpenCL is for 5th gen or later processors?

[Rai__Tetsuji1]

Hi,

I'm using Fedora 30 linux on Haswell (4th gen) and Ivybridge (3rd gen).   Until Fedora 29, beignet comes with Fedora as a package, but beignet is produced on non-profit basis, so its development is stalled in favor of  OpenCL Runtimes for Intel Processors although this does't support 4th gen processors or earlier ones.

I bought Haswell and Ivybridge only 2 years ago secondhand, and they are still working very fine.   Personally I use beignet OpenCL only on Haswell, but lots of people must be using old processors and want to use Intel's OpenCL.

So I want OpenCL Runtimes for Intel Processors to support 4th gen processors and earlier....Its demand must be huge.

[Michael_C_Intel1]

Hi TetsujiR,

Thanks for the interest in heterogeneous compute.

When packages aren't available, you may wish to investigate building or altering beignet from source for targeting your platform...

• It may be constructive to leave platform build or support feedback here: https://github.com/intel/beignet/issues ...
• or perhaps on the forums for the OS distribution itself.

Some context on Intel­® Graphics Compute Runtime for OpenCL™ Driver "NEO", OpenCL and supported devices:

• NEO OpenCL graphics runtime was developed to enable devices with Graphics microarchitecture GEN8 with an eye on GEN9 and newer... GEN9 represented a significant departure from previous generations of devices for feature additions.
• The NEO strategy has consolidated and saved on effort required to maintain (SRB) and beignet.
• Intel introduced new extensions registered on Khronos to access features that only existed on GEN9 and later. 
• OpenCL 2.0 spec was released after the 4th Generation processors announcement in 2012.

To clarify, current Intel runtimes for CPU and Gfx are available for download for free. Review them here.

Thanks,

-MichaelC

[Rai__Tetsuji1]

Hi Michael,

Thank you for information on "NEO."   So I must stick to beignet...   I need runtimes for gpu.  Not for cpu.

Fedora 30 comes with gcc-9.1.1, clang-8.0.0, llvm-8.0.0, and latest beignet source (git) cannot compile successfully w/o modification.   Now I'm trying to modify.   Until I succeed, I'll use beignet binary package for Fedora 29.

regards,

-Tetsuji

[Michael_C_Intel1 · Accepted solution]

Hi TetsujiR,

Thanks for the feedback.

Although "NEO" doesn't support the 4th gen configuration, I want to encourage forum viewers to state their usage cases like this because it helps us understand the gaps. Deployment concerns are a big deal because machines have different configurations and it's not possible to see every use case. If we get critical feedback we may be able to address some of these issues to improve products.

Clarifications:

"NEO" was a short hand name for Intel® Graphics Compute Runtime for OpenCL™ Driver... if OpenCL api calls are interrogated or the github is searched, the "NEO" designation will be found as a string. This is the runtime that is only expected to support GEN graphics on processors after 5th generation. Review the support criteria in the main README for full details. 

Runtimes for CPU: Intel® CPU Runtime for OpenCL™ Applications is not currently open source. It's available from registrationcenter.intel.com. Compatible platforms are listed in the release notes.

-MichaelC