On Mon, 13 Apr 2009, Guy K. Kloss wrote: > Well, I'm much more afraid of another issue: GPUs are being used > much more and more by other processes they more belong to. E. g. the > composite manager, etc. And one thing they're not good at at all is > task switching. So if more *applications* on a general desktop are > competing for the resource that could lead to a massive slowdown. In > scientific computing that's not an issue (as I see here) as they are > performed on dedicated boxes where one expects not to have a smooth > user feeling.
This is certainly a valid concern and stems from the same problem that the GPU is an adjunct to the computer system architecture which has been refined over the past 30 years. Modern computer system architectures provide resource management and security. Besides multiple applications contending for the same resource from one user, you may have applications for multiple users contending for the same resource. This is something that the traditional operating system handles very well, but which is not adequately handled once one departs from the operating system. To put this in context, if you were using lcms as part of a batch processing application to color correct thousands of images (perhaps part of a printing subsystem), then there could be many tens of simultaneous requests for the same resource, and not necessarily by the user who currently owns the system display. If Firefox is using the GPU, the operating system is using the GPU, and a random lcms-using application is using the GPU, then there will surely be contention and perhaps previously unknown security issues as well (e.g. ability to deadlock the display). Bob -- Bob Friesenhahn bfrie...@simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com _______________________________________________ Lcms-user mailing list Lcms-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/lcms-user
