Installing Theano on windows for gpu - suspected nvcc version issue

Question

I have been following instructions to set up Theano to use a GPU on Windows.

The issue is I cannot follow these instructions exactly because I have a new graphics card, the GEForce GTX 980M and it only works with cuda 7.0. (The instructions suggest cuda 5.5). Everything works fine except when it gets time to run the GPU then I get an error:

nvcc fatal   : Value '2008' is not defined for option 'cl-version'

['nvcc', '-shared', '-O3', '--use-local-env', '--cl-version=2008', '-Xlinker', '/DEBUG', '-D HAVE_ROUND', '-m64', '-Xcompiler', '-DCUDA_NDARRAY_CUH=bf8d22b192850a85a00263cce1175696,-D NPY_NO_DEPRECATED_API=NPY_1_7_API_VERSION,/Zi,/MD', '-Ic:\\scisoft\\theano\\theano\\theano\\sandbox\\cuda', '-IC:\\SciSoft\\WinPython-64bit-2.7.9.4\\python-2.7.9.amd64\\lib\\site-packages\\numpy\\core\\include', '-IC:\\SciSoft\\WinPython-64bit-2.7.9.4\\python-2.7.9.amd64\\include', '-o', 'C:\\Users\\Thor\\AppData\\Local\\Theano\\compiledir_Windows-8-6.2.9200-Intel64_Family_6_Model_70_Stepping_1_GenuineIntel-2.7.9-64\\cuda_ndarray\\cuda_ndarray.pyd', 'mod.cu', '-LC:\\SciSoft\\WinPython-64bit-2.7.9.4\\python-2.7.9.amd64\\libs', '-LC:\\SciSoft\\WinPython-64bit-2.7.9.4\\python-2.7.9.amd64', '-lpython27', '-lcublas', '-lcudart']

The version of nvcc I have installed does not have version -2008 (that looks to have been deprecated by the lastest cuda 7.0 version, but 2010 is allowed). What is the best way to fix it? Should I hard code it in Theano into the file cuda\nvcc_compiler.py? I tried that and it seems to try to use 2008 version anyway. Is there a later version of Theano that would use the later nvcc version?

Answer 1

I ran into a similar problem when trying to install Theano on Win 8.1 64bit with CUDA 7.0., using a GTX 750Ti graphics card. I was able to get it working by following these instructions.

Answer 2

For me it started working when I replaced

[nvcc]
flags = --use-local-env  --cl-version=2008

by

[nvcc]
compiler_bindir=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\bin

in the .theanorc file.