C/C++ Cross platform Library allowing the utilisation of GPU for floating point calculations

Question

Does any one know of any cross platform c/c++ libraries which will utilise the GPU for the purposes of floating point calculations, not specifically graphics oriented calcs. Which ones are in common use, which ones recommended , which ones have you had experience of. Specifically it should be open source with a GPL license.

addendum:- Any libraries you know of that are not GPU manufacturer specific.

addendum:- OpenCL has been brought up in a few answers as having cross GPU compatability. Does anyone have experience using it and can vouch for it's maturity? I'm guessing that if it's Kronos it'll be pretty good.

Answer 1

I would very much doubt that you have a reasonable chance of finding something like this as open source, as "utilise GPU" usually implies "heftily hardware specific, top secret NDA driver stuff".

However, OpenCL is as cross platform as you can get (works with every major vendor and even has at least one software fallback implementation) and it is reasonably free insofar as there are no fees and no restrictions on how you may use it. The only non-free thing is that it's not open source and you can't modify it.

ATI/AMD and nVidia have been offering OpenCL working on G80 and RHD, respectively, for some time, also ATI/AMD has been offering a software implementaion for a good time. As for Intel, I remember reading that they were working for OpenCL for Sandy Bridge generation about a year or so ago, so it should probably be finished by now as well.

Answer 2

How about OpenCL?

Here is the project page at the Kronos Group.