Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Tylui]

It's still possible for Toady to make an overhaul to make it multithreaded.  It'd be hard work, and would probably a take a long time, with the only results being improved performance.  It's not something he WANTS to do, you understand?  That doesn't mean that it doesn't need to be done.  You can stop being a total dickwad any time you'd like, Draco.

As far as the OP goes; I think multithreading is way more likely; not to mention less stressful.  As has been mentioned, it won't be 100% supported by all video cards for quite some time.  I've got quite the machine running, but I only have dual 7800s, so it would do me no good.  I have a dual core, however...

Hello Tylui, since I first saw you in the announcements section I assume you're new here. Otherwise you'd know that this suggestion is in the top-20, which means three things: every 20th thread is about this, the regulars are bloody tired of if popping up, and Toady already is very very well aware of the suggestion.

Nah, I'm not new.  I've been a member a year, a month, and 3 days longer than you have, newb, so stay down.

I was not suggesting that Toady put in multithreading; I was replying to Draco's terrible argument, as well as his dickisms.  Which you seem to have picked up on.  He said that "it needs to be done within the first few days".  You can overhaul an application to make it multithreaded any damn time you'd like; it's easier from the "onset", but it's still possible.  I'm confident a lot of the popular applications weren't multithreaded in old versions, and now they are, for example.

And if you even READ my post, I addressed why it won't get done: Toady doesn't want to because it would take a very long time and would be of small tangible gain.  Sure, we'd get better performance, but that isn't exactly a new feature, or anything fun.

Thank you, loser, for understanding how I feel about these people.  "Elitist" is like the perfect word.   

[Draco18s]

And if you even READ my post, I addressed why it won't get done: Toady doesn't want to because it would take a very long time and would be of small tangible gain.  Sure, we'd get better performance, but that isn't exactly a new feature, or anything fun.

That is half the reason.

The other half is Toady has expressed he doesn't even know the first thing about multi-threading (or GPU cycle-steal, which amounts to about the same thing).

The third half is that everyone and their mother has already created a thread on multi-threading, heck, there's ALREADY a thread about taking advantage of the GPU.  The reason I'm so "dickish" is because I'm tired of seeing this request repeatedly asked for.

And I'm 3 and a half months older than you, so pipe down noob.  God, I hate it when people pull seniority.

[Tylui]

And I'm 3 and a half months older than you, so pipe down noob.  God, I hate it when people pull seniority.

I wasn't saying my post in seriousness: I was stating my "forum age" with sarcasm and satire(although, I forgot to point that out; I oft forget the falliability of such forms of communication over the internet.).  Obviously, how long someone's been on a forum has nothing to do with the validity of their points.  He brought up that "I must be new"; so I felt that it was appropriate to bring up my forum age in such a way that wouldn't make sense.  Then I forgot about that point.  Curses, I have a terrible memory, even from moment to moment. >.<

Also, I wholeheartedly agree with the 3 halves of your points.  The half about Toady not knowing much about it also could fit into not wanting to do it: it's more time and effort into learning something(and then the actual coding after that) that might not be of much gain. ^_^

And you've been dickish to me on other occasions, completely without backing up your arguments.  I'm sorry I'm so opposed to it, but I don't like it when people just go "LOL NO UR WRONG K BAI".

Sorry >.>... These sorts of, erm, ego-battles shouldn't be here.

[winner]

I'm impressed
this must be a good forum, rarely in other places do you see people end arguments so civilly.

[Draco18s]

And you've been dickish to me on other occasions, completely without backing up your arguments.  I'm sorry I'm so opposed to it, but I don't like it when people just go "LOL NO UR WRONG K BAI".

Sometimes being terse looks argumentitive.  I'm ussually terse in my arguments when I'm tired of making the argument (such as multi-threading--I keep having to point out the same points over and over).

[Mikademus]

It's still possible for Toady to make an overhaul to make it multithreaded.  It'd be hard work, and would probably a take a long time, with the only results being improved performance.  It's not something he WANTS to do, you understand?  That doesn't mean that it doesn't need to be done.  You can stop being a total dickwad any time you'd like, Draco.

As far as the OP goes; I think multithreading is way more likely; not to mention less stressful.  As has been mentioned, it won't be 100% supported by all video cards for quite some time.  I've got quite the machine running, but I only have dual 7800s, so it would do me no good.  I have a dual core, however...

Hello Tylui, since I first saw you in the announcements section I assume you're new here. Otherwise you'd know that this suggestion is in the top-20, which means three things: every 20th thread is about this, the regulars are bloody tired of if popping up, and Toady already is very very well aware of the suggestion.

Are you guys always this elitist or only when Toady is on vacation?

Seriously, the topic here is CUDA, or it started as CUDA, so a little diversion into multithreading should be expected.

You don't have to read every thread that comes up.  If there's something you or the drakeling don't want to read, don't read it.

If you have some inability to avoid reading every damn thread due to a compulsive disorder or an obsession with the board that does not justify advocating the censorship of someone's technical post just because you don't want to hear about it.

If Toady or the other mods don't want something discussed they can and will put up a sticky asking that it not be brought up.

Until such time, chill the fuck out.

As has also been stated many times before, there is a very good reason duplicate threads are frown upon: they constitute noise that make novel suggestions overlooked or make finding the good ideas more difficult. Check the page count and you might understand why we, as in those that have been here for some time (as well as Toady himself, to refer back to the Image of Authority you're invoking), encourages reusing existing threads and avoiding new ones where possible.

[Idiom]

This isn't duplicate. Some searching reveals nothing on involving the GPU.
Yes, this has been 5 some years in the making, but it's still an alpha. Nothing is set in stone yet. It's under 12 megs even.

[Kholint]

Ignoring will-he won't-he toady-based reasoning, probably the biggest turn off for me about CUDA is that it's nvidia only.

It's bad enough when developers have to dedicate themselves to a single OS or platform due to some dependancy or idiosyncrasy in their program or codebase they're using. Potentially splitting the userbase in half by whatever graphics card they're using is even worse!

The problem exists for both the players and the developers:
On the player side, people are having less fun because they picked an ATI card (imagine if direct X or openGL only supported one of the two brands and you found you couldn't play a load of games because of a largely arbitrary choice in the brand of your GPU).
Trying to then support both ATI and nvidia users with two different languages is even more of a headache for the developer.


Without wanting to back to the multithreaded stuff, but to give you a contrast: a multithreaded program will run very well on a multi-core processor, and run fine (the same as a single threaded program) on a single-core processor. One implementation and everyone has fun, some with better performance than others.

A CUDA-based program will run brilliantly on anyone with a decent nvidia card, but not at all with someone who has an older nvidia card or an ATI card (or no card at all).
If he wanted everyone who didn't have an 8000+ series nvidia GPU to play (read: most people), toady would need to have multiple implementations of all his systems. One for CUDA, one for those who would need to run it 'without acceleration' on the CPU ("in software"? :p).

Which would be a nightmare for development, as well as creating an arbitrary, big divide in supported platforms where there was none before.

And that's pretty much it for CUDA.

[Draco18s]

This isn't duplicate. Some searching reveals nothing on involving the GPU.

....Such as this thread....or this one right here.

[loser]

This isn't duplicate. Some searching reveals nothing on involving the GPU.

....Such as this thread....or this one right here.

So two?

After two threads you're tired of it?

Or were you tired of it after the first?

Or are you just tired, and in need of a nap, perhaps?

Calm down.  Stick to the topic, not your mood-swing-driven rant-a-ways.  And have a damn apple.  Take care of your blood sugar.  You'll feel better.

[Chewy2007]

After two threads you're tired of it?

I think he listed those two threads as an example of what he doesn't like about people suggesting things about the GPU (the frequency of it being posted and the fact that Toady doesn't seem to want to touch it.)

[Draco18s]

Loser: Partly.  The other part is the fact that Idiom said he searched for it, yet I plugged in "GPU" and found 2 threads in the top 10 results.

[Capntastic]

I think overall the unhappy thoughts come from the fact that it's not really a suggestion if someone else has already suggested it; and since Toady's said he doesn't feel like considering it, there's no real point in discussing it- you dig?

Overall- it is my feeling that repeat suggestions are annoying because it shows they don't hang around or respect the community to care what it thinks or what the current situation is, but somehow they feel they have a bigger stake in things and their new revised suggestion is way better than any of the older threads or whatever.   Sometimes this is fine when it's an honest mistake, but if they clearly don't care to read before posting or to even try searching for older threads- and to argue and whine when someone points out an older thread- it becomes a problem.   The basis for this is that the new suggester shows a sort of hostility towards the community at large by largely ignoring the discussions that have happened recently.   

This really has nothing to do with anything here, of course, and y'all should stop arguing.

FINAL SUMMNATION:  Discussing GPUs and multithreading is pointless at this time.

[Idiom]

Actually I searched for "CTM"/"Close to Metal", "GPGPU", "PhysX", and even "FireStream". Looks like I missed "BrookGPU". Methods to use the GPU, which did reveal nothing.

Then for the sake of variety in questions:
What about leaving it a single process, but a ported version to run on the GPU? It's much more powerful than the CPU in many cases (considering multi-cores will be worth only one core with DF), and leaves the processor free to get work done.

Also, no I don't have enough time to monitor this community to the point that it irritates me, and if you do something is wrong.

[Mikademus]

I don't have enough time to monitor this community to the point that it irritates me, and if you do something is wrong.

You're missing the point of restricting making new threads: noise. This thread isn't noise in that has a clear title that makes it very easily to dismiss (even though it might have been better to reuse an old thread). Another multi-threading or multiplayer thread would be sheer noise. Noise is bad, not because you need to monitor this forum, but because Toady needs to. And disrespecting an established community and its norms is bad and does not earn you nor your suggestions any karma ("you" in the general sense).