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62 January 2011 electronics for you w w w . e f y m a g . c o m

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and Services Group, says, The aver-

age mainstream user is expecting a

relatively rich visual experience in

almost every platform. From a low-end

core to a high-end system, the expecta-

tion of the user in terms of video qual-

ity or just user experience is always on

a higher side.

GPUs have enabled the best user

experience from high-denition (HD)

to three-dimension (3D), from the liv-

ing room to personal computing.

The key driving factors for GPUs

are the three Csconsumer, comput-

ing and communication, says Nishant

Goyal, head of sales, South Asia for

NVIDIA. The evolution of consum-

ers lifestyle with increasing usage of

technology products such as set-top

boxes, LCD TVs and digital cameras has

forced the industry to provide easy and

efcient solutions. Fusion of CPU and

GPU has been successful in deliveringsupercomputing capability. These are

Graphics processing units (GPUs)

started getting into desktop

computers for graphics en-

hancement a decade ago. Today, with

their immense parallel computing

capability, GPUs have made their way

even to supercomputers. Nebulae

a supercomputer built on a cluster

of 4640 blade serversranks as the

second most powerful computer in

the world in the June list of the fastest

supercomputers by TOP500, a project

that ranks most powerful computers in

the world. It uses NVIDIA Tesla series

general-purpose GPUs, exploiting the

massively-parallel capabilities and

providing unbelievable 3 petaops/s

peak capabilitythe highest ever on

the TOP500.

Video and multimedia are today

the centre stage for every user. Naren-dra Bhandari, director, Intel Software

being used in applications like scientic

image processing, spatial exploration,

oil exploration, 3D reconstruction and

even stock options price determination.

GPUs s grnsuprcomputr

In 2006, while delivering a keynote at

International Conference on Computer-

Aided Design (ICCAD), AMDs ex-chief

technology ofcer Phil Hester stated that

it was important to examine the capabili-

ties of GPUs for the round two of killer

micros. GPUs have moved from simple

wire-frame rendering in the 1980s to 32-

bit parallel-processing engines. Hester

predicted that the combination of CPUs

and GPU functions in heterogeneous

cores would boost supercomputers per-

formance, which is now a reality.

GPUs today are highly parallel

general-purpose single-instruction

multiple-data (SIMD) processor arrays.These not only boost the computing

Por OfGPUs TodyToug CPUs onc d four tms s mny trnsstors s GPUs, GPUstody v movd fr d t tr procssng cpbts brngngsuprcomputng xprnc to t dsktop. Ts cn nd normous dtprocssng from stndrd-dfnton to g-dfnton, nd from 2D to 3D

ShweTa DhaDiwal BaiD

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capabilities of CPUs but also greatly

reduce the power consumption. Eight

out of the worlds greenest supercom-

puters combined specialised accel-

erators like GPUs with CPUs to boost

performance and power efficiency,

according to the Green500 list which is

released twice a year.

Tianhe-1A, the latest supercomputer

revealed in October 2010, parallels a

large number of GPUs with multi-core

CPUs to signicantly boost its perfor-

mance and reduce power consumptionand size. In one of the releases, Guang-

ming Liu, chief of National Super-

computer Center in Tianjin, said, The

performance and efciency of Tianhe-1A

was simply not possible without GPUs.

Other supercomputers combining

GPUs with CPUs include the Dawning

Nebulae and the Mole-8.5.

GPGPUs rvoutonsco-procssng

Co-processing with digital signal proces-

sor (DSP) blocks and oating-point units

(FPUs) has enhanced the performance

of CPUs. However, experts believe that

a GPU co-processor will certainly mark

a revolutionary step in the world of co-

processing. GPUs have evolved more

as general-purpose graphics processing

unit (GPGPUs) mainly because of four

reasonsmassive parallelism, power,

ubiquity and usability due to new tools

and ease of development.As parallel processors, GPUs excel

at tackling large amounts of similar

data because the problem can be split

into hundreds or thousands of pieces

and calculated simultaneously. As se-

quential or serial processors, CPUs are

not designed for this type of computa-

tion, but these are more adept at serial-

based tasks such as running operating

systems and organising data.

Goyal shares, We believe that the

concept of hybrid computing or co-

processing where GPUs and CPUs

work together will apply the mostrelevant processor to the specic task

in hand, creating synergies.

Dscrt vs ntgrtdGPUs

As with any tool, its very important to

have the right GPU for the right task.

Graphics processors primarily exist

in two form-factors, viz, discrete and

integrated. Bhandari explains, An in-

tegrated graphics processor means that

when you buy a processor core system,

the graphics component is part of the

processor and you dont need to buy an

additional piece of silicon or additional

core to run the 3D graphics or high-end

video. But, when you buy an additional

core dedicated to graphics enhance-

ment, its called a discrete solution.

Explaining further, Goyal says, If

you are a gamer who demands the latest,

greatest bleeding-edge entertainment

experience with advanced features likestereoscopic 3D Vision, HD resolutions

and physical effects, you crave at least

one high-end discrete GPU. But if you

want to create a home media centre

that is quiet and power-efcient, an in-

tegrated GPU may be the best for you.

There are solutions where you can

include the best of both worlds (discreteand integrated). Goyal adds, A system

having both integrated and discrete

GPUs switches intelligently between

the two depending on what application

you are running. So you can enjoy an

unprecedented combination of power

efciency and performance.

From a designers perspective,

Discrete GPUs are good for highly

accelerated software, where a certain

processing block can be completely off-

loaded to the GPU. In the case of a soft-

ware needing continuous data transfer

between a host and the GPU, an inte-

grated GPU would perform better than

a discrete GPU, as there is a lot of data

movement across GPU and CPU. So it

really depends on the softwarehow

is it designed and will it perform bet-

ter on integrated GPUs than discrete

GPUs, shares Kapil Agrawal, designer

and CEO, Mediamagic Technologies.

Bhandari adds, You will see al-most ve times improvement in data

transfer when the GPU is closer to the

CPU as in the case of an integrated

platform.

Whatever the needs of end users, its

clear that the right GPUwhether its

discrete or integratedis the key to a

great computing experience. As almost

every application becomes graphically

oriented, its the GPU in your system

which will ensure that you get the best

bang for your buck in a device.

Grpcs on CPU scon

Earlier, integrated GPUs meant GPU

and CPU as separate pieces of silicon

on the same motherboard. With tech-

nological advancements, integrated

GPUs have started including graphics

onto the same die as the processor,

shares Bhandari.

Bringing graphics and processor

core onto the same die has a lot ofadvantages, explains Bhandari. There

Nebulae supercomputer combines GPUs with CPUs

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is a signicant improvement in data

transfer speed. Most of the products in

this category have a signicant cache

size on the processor. Now a graphics

processor can take advantage of this

high-speed cache available right next

to it. The input/output trafc ow im-

proves quite a bit, as the trafc moves

from the motherboard to the die itself.

Bhandari explains, Its analogous

to the situation where you are running

a factory. You are doing the computing

there, taking the assembled goods, put-

ting them in a truck, sending them to

a separate graphics factory, getting the

processing done and bringing the goods

back. Now you are doing it inside the

factory right next to your assembly line.

So the transfer time for the data

back from the memory is greatly re-duced.

Power management is another

important advantage. For high-per-

formance tasks like music ripping or

video compression-decompression,

the hardware works hard for a short

duration of time and maintains its

low-power state for the rest of the time.

Fuson GPUs ccrtprocssng

While Intel tries to put the CPU and

GPU on the same socket for a low-level

integration, the accelerated processing

unit (APU) from AMD provides a higher

level of integration. An APU is basically

an x86 CPU combined with memory

controller and graphics processor.

One major difference between dis-

crete graphics chips and APUs is that

in discrete graphics chips the entire

silicon and all of its transistors face pix-

el-crunching tasks, whereas in APUsthe technology bandwidth is divided

for the rest of the computerCPU and

memory controller.

The Fusion technology promises

performance at par with some of the

discrete graphics chips. However, it

cannot be compared or serve as an al-

ternative to high-end discrete graphics

chips for serious gamers.

One major advantage of Fusion ap-

proach in APUs is its minimal access

times and maximum bandwidth. The

introduction of APUs does not mean a

replacement of the CPU in the design.

Vamsi Krishna, manager-product

marketing APAC, AMD, explains,

CPUs will still be the driving brain.

Without the classic CPUs you cannot

have the millions of applications run-

ning on your product.

In the performance desktop space,discrete graphics chips will still lead

the graphics computing power. He

says, The bulk of general-purpose

computing will move towards APUs

giving you the advantage of integra-

tion, price and real estate.

intnsv computngppctons

Today, graphics cards not only pro-

vide the best graphics but also support

applications like video transcoding,

video acceleration, facial recognition

and facial tagging where the data is

massive and needs parallel processing

capabilities.

Krishna says, GPUs are becoming

more and more generic processors than

what was intended before. While the

primary objective is graphics, people

have started extracting the secondary

objective from it.

3D home entertainment to personalcomputing. Graphics processors have

become central to almost every aspect

of computing and this is expected to be

a long-term trend.

Goyal informs, Stereoscopic 3D

is a huge trend right now. Within less

than a year, 3D has gathered incred-

ible global momentum. The wholeindustry ecosystem has very much

embraced the technology. 3D-capable

panels from LG, Samsung, Viewsonic,

Alienware and Acer, and 3D Vision

enabled desktop and notebook PCs

from major OEMs are evidence of this.

The advent of 3D Blu-ray and YouTube

conrms that 3D is much more than a

gimmickits here to stay.

Another noteworthy trend is seen in

professional graphics. There has been

an inection point with the emergence

of computational visualisation era. For

high-precision, data-sensitive applica-

tions, professional graphics solutions

with error-correcting code memory and

fast double-precision capabilities ensure

the accuracy and delity of your results.

These not only serve as a graphics pro-

cessor but also drive an entire visual

supercomputing platform, incorporat-

ing hardware and software that enable

advanced capabilities such as stereo-scopic 3D, scalable visualisation and 3D

high-denition broadcasting.

Multi-display solutions.Buying alarge-screen panel may be very expen-

sive, but its now easy to stretch the

video into three or six smaller screens

without compromising on the quality

of video.

Krishna adds, The eyenity fea-

ture enables you to view the video split

into smaller screens joined together to

form a large screen, so that you can

enjoy high-end gaming.

The way you have USB port hubs,

you now get display port hubs. With

one hub, you can connect up to four

monitors, take a display port connector

and expand it to four monitors. This

will give an altogether different game

play experience. Both the gamers and

productivity guys can take advantage

of this, especially if they have to work

on multiple monitors.Video stabilisation. Krishna shares

Graphics on Linux

Kapil Agrawal, designer and CEO, Mediamagic Technologies, shares, Earlier, it was verydifficult to utilise all the resources of a GPU inside Linux, as there were neither properAPIs to offload hardware acceleration needed by video encoding/decoding, nor enoughtools from GPU companies as they always saw non-Linux as the biggest market.

But, with many users and companies moving towards Linux, tools are now available

to do software development on GPUs in Linux. Also, GPU companies have releasedAPIs that can now directly talk with the GPU for hardware acceleration, like VDPAU fromNVIDIA, VAAPI from Intel and XVBA from ATI.

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that the most critical application ena-

bled by programmability of GPUs

is image and video stabilisation. He

adds, Digital still and video cameras

are common gadgets and not all of the

users are professionals. The images are

blurred and shaky, especially whenusing zoom for far away objects. So a

lot of software algorithm supported by

GPUs is loaded on these gadgets for im-

age and video stabilisation. Techniques

like processing each frame and remov-

ing the unwanted ones, and matching

brightness and colour are used to give

an enjoyable experience to the user.

Facial tagging. Digitisation has

added not only lots of features to

photography but also a lot more photo-

graphs to our albums. Over the years,

when you have 50,000-60,000 pictures,

it is very difcult to nd all the pic-

tures of a particular person if you had

not tagged them initially.

Thanks to highly intelligent and

smart facial tagging software algo-

rithms, you can tag all the 50,000 pic-

tures with just one click, says Krishna.

These are intensive computing applica-

tions which need a capable graphics

chip as well as good software.Video transcoding. Video transcod-

ing allows you to watch an HD video

on your HD TV set as well as on your

Android-based smartphone with ten

times smaller screen. Basically, the

algorithm allows you to convert a 4GB

le into a 100MB le when you view the

same video on different types of screens.

Krishna informs, A quad-core CPU

will do the same task in 2-2.5 hours, but

with massively parallel GPUs, the con-

version is done within 15-20 minutes

seamlessly.

Video upscaling. It is another algo-

rithm very critical in plasma and LCD

TVs available today. The DVD collec-

tion of your video library is probably

suitable for standard denition (SD),

but you cannot replace every SD-DVD

with an HD video to view on your new

plasma TV.

A lot of algorithm goes in your HD

TV set to support your old SD videos. Itbasically uses interpolation and adds a

lot of data to existing data so that you

get near-high-denition experience.

Gesture recognition. Today, there

are a number of sensors added to your

phone, laptop and desktop PC in order

to perform various tasks like gesture

recognition, motion recognition, eye

tracking and multi-gesture recognition.

Bhandari shares, These kinds of

applications use three 3D cameras and

all the data is captured and processed

in real time. Even playing a fast-paced

car game requires a millisecond re-

sponse time. Such applications need a

good balance of computing and graph-

ics both.

Every improvisation on a video

basically involves parallel processing

capabilities. And GPUs today offer in-

tense hardware capability t for these

applications. Its now the software

and algorithm that need to exploit thehardware capability to provide the best

visual experience.

Softr: Ky to unockrdr potnt

The software is an important element

that helps determine the performance

and efciency of a given product. With

the advent of DirectX and OpenGL

(open graphics library), GPUs can

process short programs for each pixel,

adding programmability to the chip.

Millions of applications that are

already there in the market will con-

tinue to drive the classic microproces-

sor/microcontroller industry. Where

massively-parallel applications start

choking the CPU capabilities, the soft-

ware will take the advantage of GPUs.

This is where open computing language

(OpenCL) comes into picture. OpenCL

is a framework for writing programs

that execute across heterogeneous plat-forms consisting of CPUs, GPUs and

other processors, explains Krishna.

For optimal utilisation of the GPU,

the software design plays a crucial

role. The same GPU chip can perform

very differently when it comes to using

software. Justifying this, Agrawal says,

A high-end Nvidia GPU can perform

worse than an Intel CPU like i3 or i5

if the software designer doesnt know

how to use the parallel processing

being provided by CUDA in Nvidia

GPU, or he is unable to break the soft-

ware in parallel processing units. It

also matters what kind of software you

are designing. A software which has

no inherent parallel blocks can perform

better on a GPU needing non-parallel

scheduling like Intels.

GPUs for rc xprnc

India is a country which prizes

top-class entertainment very highly.Expectedly, increasingly rich, techno-

logically advanced entertainment is

becoming a major driver for growth

in the graphics industry, says Goyal.

Whether it is movies and TVs mov-

ing from standard- to high-denition,

games shifting from 2D to stereoscopic

3D, or the explosion of demanding

Flash-based Web applications like Fa-

cebook and games such as Farmville,

all these trends require the GPU. With-

out GPUs parallelism, it is impossible

to develop power-efcient supercom-

puters, experts believe.

The author is a senior technology journalist at EFY

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