Using OpenCL in the guest system with CPU on Virtual Box, VMWare or Parallels?

Question

Is it possible to use opencl for the CPU, while using some virtualization software (i.e. in the guest system)? I think it becomes more important, while the computation is moving into clouds.

Answer 1

Some drivers, like Intel's CPU driver actually does not seem to allow to be installed in Parallels virtual machine for some reason.

To get OpenCL support in Windows running parallels I first booted to run Windows natively and installing drivers there. Then I booted back to OSX and Intel's CPU driver was also available in Parallels. Naturally this approach works only for Bootcamp + Parallels setup.

Answer 2

Sure, OpenCL for CPU is just another process running in the CPU, with nothing special on it. Virtualization should be possible without problems.

Answer 3

This is only possible when a OpenCL driver is available for the host systems GPU. As far as I know it is not possible for the three systems mentioned. I am sure for Virtual Box. The graphics board emulated is not OpenCL compatible and the virtual box GPU drivers do not support OpenCL.

As far as I know this would only be possible if the guest system would see the original GPU board from the host. You have to check this out and to install the needed OpenCL drivers.