>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit#mw-head> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit#p-search> Not to be confused with Graphics card <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_card>. "GPU" redirects here. For other uses, see GPU (disambiguation) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPU_(disambiguation)>.
A *graphics processing unit* (*GPU*), also occasionally called *visual processing unit* (*VPU*), is a specialized electronic circuit <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_circuit>designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_buffer> intended for output to a display. GPUs are used in embedded systems <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_system>, mobile phones <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone>, personal computers <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer>, workstations <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workstation>, and game consoles <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_console>. Modern GPUs are very efficient at manipulating computer graphics <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_graphics> and image processing <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_processing>, and their highly parallel structure makes them more effective than general-purpose CPUs <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_processing_unit> for algorithms <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm> where processing of large blocks of data is done in parallel. In a personal computer, a GPU can be present on a video card <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_card>, or it can be on the motherboard <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherboard> or--in certain CPUs--on the CPU die <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_(integrated_circuit)>. [1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit#cite_note-1> The term GPU was popularized by Nvidia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia> in 1999, who marketed the GeForce 256 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_256> as "the world's first 'GPU', or Graphics Processing Unit, a single-chip processor with integrated transform, lighting, triangle setup/clipping <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transform,_clipping,_and_lighting>, and rendering engines that are capable of processing a minimum of 10 million polygons per second". Rival ATI Technologies <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATI_Technologies> coined the term visual processing unit or VPU with the release of the Radeon 9700 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R300> in 2002. On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 12:19 PM, Rusty Ramser <[email protected]> wrote: > What kind of system are you using, Mike? Even if you don't have a desktop > PC with a high-powered Nvidia or Radeon GPU card plugged into the > motherboard, your system will have some type of GPU. If you don't have an > add-on card, it will probably be provided by a (usually weak) on-board > Intel HD type of GPU. > > > > > > *From:* [email protected] [mailto: > [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Michael Havens > *Sent:* Monday, March 16, 2015 12:14 > *To:* Mike Butash; Main PLUG discussion list > *Subject:* Re: nacl_helper > > > > but I have no gpu (I don't think). > > > :-)~MIKE~(-: > > > > On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 12:08 PM, Michael Butash <[email protected]> > wrote: > > NaCL (salt, sodium chloride) is their GL helper for local gpu > acceleration. Youtube video acceleration, gaming stuff, anything that > needs hardware-ish interactions use it. > > It shouldn't be spawning randomly, if it is, might want to figure out what > is invoking it, could be bad as gpu's do things like bitcoin generation. > Wouldn't surprise me some worm infects you and uses you to start computing > hashes. > > I disable gpu acceleration under chrome|chromium, nothing good comes about > with my ever leaving it on, oddly disabling it invokes bugs that break it > more depending on your version of chrome (see ulimit issues). > > -mb > > > > > On 03/14/2015 02:51 PM, koder wrote: > > The difference seems to be whether or not you intended it to run. > there is also some issue with nacl and nacl-helper that comes about with > Google's development process. I did not understand the references. > > On 03/14/2015 02:47 PM, Michael Havens wrote: > > oh well, along as nothing nefarious is happening with my computer all is > well. the hard drive stopped running a while ago so all it seems nothing > bad is happening. > > > :-)~MIKE~(-: > > > > On Sat, Mar 14, 2015 at 2:38 PM, Michael Havens <[email protected]> wrote: > > yeahhhh that's kinda what I figured from my duckduckgo search. > > > :-)~MIKE~(-: > > > > On Sat, Mar 14, 2015 at 2:36 PM, koder <[email protected]> wrote: > > it seems to be a part of chromium > > HM > > On 03/14/2015 02:21 PM, Michael Havens wrote: > > I was sitting at my computer when my hard drive started to go crazy! So I > opened a terminal and ran ps -e and all the processes appeared normal > except there was one I had never seen. That one is nacl_helper. What is it? > > :-)~MIKE~(-: > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > > PLUG-discuss mailing list - [email protected] > > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > > http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - [email protected] > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > > PLUG-discuss mailing list - [email protected] > > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > > http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > > PLUG-discuss mailing list - [email protected] > > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > > http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - [email protected] > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - [email protected] > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > -- A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button. Stephen
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