Prominent Computer

When people think and talk about DirectX, they normally associate it with a games technology. It is true that the majority of its applications have been (and largely continue to be) in the games arena (pun intended) there is a distinctly different, emerging niche where the technology is beginning to be put to great use – GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) Computing.

As GPU’s from manufacturers such as nVidia and ATI have become more and more powerful and (crucially) programmable, the DirectX platform upon which they operate has by necessity evolved to exploit the greater capabilities and performance offered by these highly sophisticated graphics cards.

Rather than just being used to accelerate games, then, this potent combination is now being exploited for many other uses where the massively parallel architecture of graphics cards can bring benefit. Typical examples are video processing (try transcoding a high-definition video to / from 1080p format using software only, and then try a GPU-accelerated version and be prepared for a huge reduction in time taken), biomedical studies, weather forecasting, financial analysis – the list is large and growing.

The really great thing here is that software developers are learning to utilise multiple processing units in varying tasks. This means that, for example, Intel and AMD’s push for more and more cores in their chips suddenly starts to make sense; these additional cores, eventually, will be able to deliver extra performance for the user rather than just sitting idle during normal use!

This is the multi-processor dawn, and things are about to get very exciting, very fast!

By: Nemark

Article source: http://www.articledashboard.com

Mark Warren – Nemark Technology, where IT Support matters.