irclog2html for #brlcad on 20070217

00:37.27 brlcad hello
00:37.49 *** mode/#brlcad [+o brlcad] by ChanServ
01:44.17 Maloeran brlcad or Erik, do you think there might be any interest in performing raytracing on truly programmable "GPUs"? http://developer.nvidia.com/object/cuda.html
01:44.40 Maloeran From what I hear, it can do random memory access and incoherent branching finally, compiling true C code
02:04.09 Maloeran This really looks perfect to perform tasks such as raytracing, an excellent architecture. It's nothing like our mess of CPUs and their hardware cache synchronisation
02:11.34 *** join/#brlcad IriX64 (n=IriX64@bas3-sudbury98-1168056909.dsl.bell.ca)
02:11.58 IriX64 guys, automake-1.10 broke your autogen.sh.
02:12.44 IriX64 can i get away with renaming it to -1.9.9?
02:14.46 IriX64 no i cant
02:15.24 brlcad IriX64: what's the error?
02:15.33 brlcad ./autogen.sh --verbose
02:16.09 brlcad Maloeran: haven't we talked about that before already? :)
02:16.29 IriX64 at least version 1.6.0 is required.
02:16.30 brlcad we've been watching the gpgpu developments for years
02:16.44 bjorkBSD brlcad, are you in belize?
02:16.45 brlcad IriX64: hmm, maybe they changed their version string
02:16.49 brlcad bjorkBSD: heh, no
02:17.05 bjorkBSD thought so.
02:17.07 Maloeran brlcad, they finally reached the point where GPUs can be usable for some real computations
02:17.08 brlcad the server name comes from bz.bzflag.bz .. tld makes for a nice server name
02:17.09 IriX64 they did it says 1.10
02:17.24 brlcad Maloeran: that's been the case for at least two years
02:17.42 brlcad there are still some issues, but it's usable
02:17.59 Maloeran Random memory access with pointers, synchronisation between threads, shared memory, incoherent branching ; this is new
02:18.15 brlcad floating point being one, generality being another, and writing to an interface that is constantly changing fast
02:18.44 Maloeran CUDA is pseudo-C and meant to stay, it seems quite nicely designed
02:19.25 IriX64 _report_error=no for now ;)
02:20.20 brlcad yep, cuda is interesting, and has come a ways
02:20.25 brlcad interface is still changing fast
02:20.25 bjorkBSD brlcad, you mentioned the other day that tk wouldn't be used for the next interface, what might it be instead?
02:20.39 bjorkBSD your answer scrolled offscreen when i got back.
02:20.46 bjorkBSD screen/buffer etc
02:20.57 Maloeran brlcad, I think it's a huge leap forward. My nv6xxx and nv7xxx were unusable for tasks such as raytracing ( I tried ), but these programmable arrays of little processors will do nicely
02:20.57 brlcad bjorkBSD: not logging? :)
02:21.14 bjorkBSD no :D
02:21.19 bjorkBSD i've run out of harddisk space :(
02:21.30 Maloeran Could there be any interest in developing CUDA raytracing over there?
02:21.34 bjorkBSD ... i'm trying now to delete some non-essentials i don't wanna get rid of.
02:22.13 bjorkBSD small harddisk.
02:22.46 brlcad Maloeran: again.. this isn't anything new :) there is/was interest -- just a matter of being interesting *enough* to actually dominate over other tasks and to date that has not been the case for pragmatic reasons
02:23.03 brlcad there is certainly interest though.. that would be sweet to testbed
02:23.10 brlcad I'd certainly fund the idea ;)
02:23.17 Maloeran I'm certainly very interested to try out
02:23.31 brlcad bjorkBSD: hehe
02:23.53 brlcad bjorkBSD: hmmm did you build static, or do you just not have much hard drive space?
02:24.21 bjorkBSD not much space to begin with.
02:24.21 brlcad cd / && du -k | sort -nr
02:24.37 Maloeran And the Rayforce API would adopt such a new back-end very nicely, it was meant to do so
02:25.01 brlcad bjorkBSD: as to the answer, it's still somewhat undecided though also somewhat non-critical given how the design is layered
02:25.01 bjorkBSD and i've been too lazy to go get another drive.
02:25.08 bjorkBSD ah okay.
02:25.23 brlcad opengl driven would be a requirement
02:25.31 bjorkBSD do you think it would still look the same? :D
02:25.37 brlcad as well as some form of framebuffer support
02:25.41 brlcad bjorkBSD: not in the least
02:25.57 Maloeran It's usable outside OpenGL and other APIs. You can use the library directly to offload computations on the GPU
02:26.13 brlcad some of the same capabilities, taking some of the best features, but none of the existing gui code in mged would be used
02:26.15 Maloeran Though it can of course be used along with OpenGL
02:26.52 brlcad Maloeran: my opengl comment wasn't towards you :)
02:27.01 brlcad towards new modeling interface
02:27.42 brlcad i agree that leveraging the gpu behind a C api would be sweet
02:28.10 brlcad what that api is, looks like, and how functional it is from a practical standpoint becomes important
02:28.13 Maloeran And CODA uses C code directly, with several extensions to the language, such as vector data types
02:28.30 Maloeran It looks very much usable to me, from all points of view
02:29.48 brlcad from all points of a view is a rather bold statement..
02:29.48 Maloeran I dreamed of raytracing hardware as I was frustrated of the horrible architecture of processors, memory and cache. These GPUs actually have an elegant architecture, highly efficient, very flexible
02:31.26 bjorkBSD hmmm Maloeran you just might re-invent the ancient SGI machines ;)
02:31.27 brlcad elegant and efficient for certain purposes, not for all purposes in the least
02:31.27 brlcad it's a great approach for some tasks, but there's no sense in overhyping it beyond what it actually is :)
02:31.45 Maloeran :) Fine fine, forgive me if I'm a bit excited by these new chips :)
02:32.01 brlcad a little transparent ;)
02:33.11 brlcad as far as I recall, cuda still didn't directly support (i.e. hardware-accelerate) double precision yet did it?
02:33.36 Maloeran Well no, it doesn't
02:33.42 brlcad k
02:33.59 brlcad what about framebuffer locking?
02:34.26 Maloeran What do you mean by framebuffer locking exactly?
02:35.14 brlcad (so you can cluster-compute with gpu cards) .. their high-end cards support this, but to date none of the others did
02:35.21 brlcad basically, the ability to lock and share portions of the framebuffer memory
02:35.36 brlcad akin to acquiring a semaphore lock on portions of memory between video cards
02:35.49 Maloeran brlcad, CUDA runs code like an array of processors. You can store the results back straight into system memory, without any "framebuffer"
02:36.50 brlcad of course, but you're talking about one card -- that's not what I"m referring to
02:37.40 brlcad you can actually gang together video cards across a cluster, for example, and get them inter-processing similar to cluster cpus
02:37.52 brlcad actually talking to or at least collaborating between each other
02:38.07 brlcad to date only a few cards have allowed this, rather high-end
02:38.15 Maloeran Hum. Well, the cluster CPUs manage the operations of the GPUs, so I don't see that as a problem
02:38.44 brlcad heh, that's a different approach and kills the benefit I would have retained
02:40.09 Maloeran I haven't read anything about synchronisation of multiple GPUs. As far as I can tell, their operation is entirely managed by the processors
02:40.57 brlcad it's the same technology that allows you to drive massive displays (like 40000x40000 pixel displays)
02:42.03 brlcad (with one cpu)
02:42.03 Maloeran Right, I see
02:42.03 brlcad you can of course approach the problem in other ways
02:42.04 brlcad but most of them suck ass
02:42.04 brlcad (in comparison to having framelock)
02:44.07 brlcad it's one of the details that separates the quaddro fxers from the geforce line
02:44.07 brlcad and I forget the ati equivalent
03:03.53 IriX64 may i give u a pastebin url?
03:04.30 IriX64 http://www.pastebin.ca/359867
03:04.40 IriX64 hat happens with automake 1.10
03:04.59 IriX64 +w :)
03:06.12 IriX64 ill be back when i have a fix (cripes Irix just drop back a couple of revs :))
03:18.10 *** join/#brlcad IriX64 (n=IriX64@bas3-sudbury98-1168056909.dsl.bell.ca)
03:31.37 brlcad IriX64: interesting
04:56.25 brlcad IriX64: is that with CVS or a source tarball?
04:56.29 brlcad more importantly.. if that is a source tarball, can you retry with the latest cvs? there have been several changes with respect to adrt (which is what it is error'ing on)
04:56.30 IriX64 source tarball
04:56.31 IriX64 dont have cvs
04:56.36 *** join/#brlcad IriX64 (n=IriX64@bas3-sudbury98-1168056909.dsl.bell.ca)
04:56.36 IriX64 tried to paste something to pastebin.ca, keeps going away before i can cut the url, sorry but it was the output of aclocal and automake.
04:56.38 dtidrow brlcad: the ATI FireGL line is roughly equivalent to the nVidia Quadro line
06:17.28 Maloeran ATI's Linux drivers have always been atrociously bad in my experience, especially the amd64 ones. I can't imagine anyone using them for serious software
06:17.33 dtidrow well, there is that
06:17.33 dtidrow though supposedly they have gotten better, I still much prefer nVidia
06:17.33 dtidrow hopefully AMD will bash some sense into them :-)
06:17.33 dtidrow in my experience, the nVidia Linux drivers 'just work'
06:17.39 brlcad dtidrow: true, but last time I check (2 years ago?) the firegl line was still missing frame locking, or there was some issue with it
06:18.42 brlcad Maloeran: ati's drivers generally do suck in comparison, though the quadro and firegl drvier line aren't the same caliber as the consumer grade ones
08:05.36 CIA-5 BRL-CAD: 03brlcad * 10brlcad/configure.ac:
08:05.36 CIA-5 BRL-CAD: AM_PROG_CC_STD was deprecated and later made obsolete by automake 1.8 with the
08:05.36 CIA-5 BRL-CAD: functionality merged into AC_PROG_CC. the macro attempted to ensure that the
08:05.36 CIA-5 BRL-CAD: compiler is running in 'ansi mode'. add AM_PROG_CC_C_O to handle compilation of
08:05.36 CIA-5 BRL-CAD: non-libtool stuff with compilers that don't happen to support the common -c -o
08:05.36 CIA-5 BRL-CAD: syntax. latest automake seems to be complaining about the option being
08:05.37 CIA-5 BRL-CAD: missing/needed (reported by IriX64) during autogen.sh.
08:10.04 *** join/#brlcad clock_ (i=clock@84-72-93-122.dclient.hispeed.ch)
11:55.58 *** join/#brlcad ``Erik (i=erik@c-69-250-155-85.hsd1.md.comcast.net)
12:40.35 *** join/#brlcad IriX64_ (n=IriX64@bas3-sudbury98-1168056909.dsl.bell.ca)
13:13.15 *** join/#brlcad docelic (n=docelic@212.15.183.177)
13:21.40 *** join/#brlcad SWPadnos_ (n=Me@dsl245.esjtvtli.sover.net)
15:05.34 *** join/#brlcad clock_ (i=clock@84-72-93-122.dclient.hispeed.ch)
21:34.37 *** join/#brlcad ibot (i=ibot@pdpc/supporter/active/TimRiker/bot/apt)
21:34.37 *** topic/#brlcad is BRL-CAD CSG Modelling... http://www.brlcad.org http://sourceforge.net/projects/brlcad
22:11.21 *** join/#brlcad cad88 (n=530d8e42@bz.bzflag.bz)
22:12.36 cad88 hello I have problem with mged and rt ( 7.8.4 ), mged tries to lunch /usr/bin/rt instead of /usr/brlcad/bin/rt
22:12.58 cad88 is there any config to change path?
22:13.59 cad88 during configure --prefix was not changed
22:15.09 IriX64 last line of make install output: be sure to add /usr/brlcad/bin to your *path*
22:16.03 cad88 I did it
22:16.15 IriX64 did ir right?
22:16.20 IriX64 it even.
22:16.21 cad88 100%
22:16.35 IriX64 try it from the bin dir then.
22:16.43 cad88 The probelm is that mget tries to run rt with absolute path
22:16.46 IriX64 ie cd /usr/brlcad/bin
22:17.02 cad88 rt works perfectly rom tty but not from mged
22:17.15 IriX64 just a sec.
22:17.57 IriX64 works properly here
22:18.06 IriX64 gotta be your setup
22:18.31 IriX64 rt: a database is not open.
22:19.10 IriX64 want me to pastebin it?
22:19.41 cad88 when I do rt in mged i got: /usr/bin/rt no such file or dir
22:19.48 cad88 yes please
22:19.59 IriX64 just a sec
22:22.33 IriX64 http://www.pastebin.ca/361083
22:24.54 cad88 no you have miss understand me.... I mean that mged ties to run rt with absolute path ... /usr/bin/rt ant it should run it with /usr/bin/brlcad/bin/rt
22:25.14 cad88 mged just cant find binary of rt
22:25.20 IriX64 if it was trying that i would not have got the result i did .
22:25.41 cad88 if I link ls -s /usr/brldcad/bin/rt to /usr/bin/rt all works
22:26.12 IriX64 symlink? its not necessary, you've got issues on your system.
22:26.44 cad88 I'm running gentoo , self comiled ant it is nto system paths problem
22:27.20 IriX64 pastebin too.
22:27.25 cad88 what version of brlcad You are running?
22:27.30 IriX64 7.8.4
22:27.51 cad88 ok thanks anyway ...
22:44.54 CIA-5 libIRC: 03jeffm2501 * 10libirc/ (15 files in 5 dirs): remove the dependency on our own SDLNet, move the subset of what we needed into net.h and net.cpp, so there isn't any confilcts with apps that want to use SDLNet for other stuff.
23:02.42 CIA-5 libIRC: 03jeffm2501 * 10libirc/src/net.cpp: add in the actual net implementation
23:03.02 CIA-5 libIRC: 03jeffm2501 * 10libirc/include/net.h: remove the old pre OSX open transport code.
23:25.33 *** join/#brlcad cad28 (n=54be5a78@bz.bzflag.bz)

Generated by irclog2html.pl by Jeff Waugh - find it at freshmeat.net! Modified by Tim Riker to work with blootbot logs, split per channel, etc.