Regarding deprecation of  --device N option:
can anyone provide  description for what reason it was done?

Each API contains own enumeration.
Each enumeration (in particular device class) starts from zero (0).
What prevents BOINC to report --device N to app correctly if BOINC knows for 
what accelerator class designed ?
In view of recent CAL/OpenCL issue (or in view OSX CUDA OpenCL issue, no 
matter):
--device N for CAL should be 1 and 0 (2 CAL enabled devices installed);
--device N for OpenCL should be only 0 (1 OpenCL capable device installed). 
BOINC keeps track what device is what physical device, app just need device 
number in own API enumeration scheme.
For what reason (for example) my OpenCL app should know that there are another, 
non-OpenCL device in system ? It should not. Hence, no "device 1", but "device 
0". It doesn't kere about keyboard or mouse, it should not care about CAL GPU 
too. It's BOINC mission not to allocate same physical device both  as CAL and 
OpenCL in the same time.
Currently app recives OpenCL context handler. Ok, no probs with that. But (!) 
ensure back compatibility! such OpenCL context should contain same device as 
OpenCL enumeration API would provide if --device contains offset in device 
list. What particular issues do you see with this? But providing both --device 
_and_ OpenCL context (for what reason context - separrate question but perhaps 
sometimes it's convenient indeed) you provide at least partial backward 
compatibility. If one can provide backward compatibility it should be done! 
All this (BOINC) about using AVAILABLE user resources, already available ones. 
Not about requesting users to upgrade OS, but new hardware and so on. Backward 
compatibility should be keystone of BOINC concept. And all these nor really 
needed "deprecations" will play badly with existing userbase.



Понедельник, 15 апреля 2013, 12:28 +04:00 от "Raistmer" <[email protected]>:
>I would like to attract BOINC devs attention to this issue described here:  
>http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=71192&postid=1357117
>
>In short, current BOINC accelerator separation by vendor names is 
>inappropriate and already caused issues.
>Type of accelerator API - that's what matters, not vendor name.
>If device supports few APIs it should be listed under all supported types. But 
>different API should mean different type (it's possible/convenient to have few 
>types for same API like in case of OpenCL, but in no circumstances different 
>APIs should share same type as in the case of  "ATI" type currently).
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