Name String
cl_codeplay_soft_math
Contact
Ewan Crawford, Codeplay Software Ltd. (ewan ‘at’ codeplay.com)
Contributors
Ewan Crawford, Codeplay Software Ltd.
Neil Henning, Codeplay Software Ltd.
Version
Version 1, September 12, 2016
Number
OpenCL Extension #XX
Status
Proposal
Dependencies
OpenCL 1.2 is required.
Overview
The goal of this extension is to allow developers to control when hardware accelerated math functions are enabled. Being able to force a software path is useful for debugging accuracy issues within kernels, as well as verifying software maths library code which would otherwise not be covered in testing.
Although hardware implementations of all OpenCL builtins will be disabled, a particular use case for this feature regards the native floating point maths builtins. These are intended to be run on hardware, and so have undefined precision requirements to avoid prohibiting the goal of speed over accuracy. Software implementations of native builtins may use algorithmic optimizations instead to take advantage of the lax precision requirements, and having a mechanism to test the suitability of the software path for a particular application can be useful.
Modifications to the OpenCL API Specification
Append to the end of Section 5.6.4.3 “Optimization Options”
-cl-codeplay-soft-mathSet that hardware accelerated math optimizations should be disabled, and instead a software math path should be used.
Revision History
Rev |
Data |
Author |
Changes |
|---|---|---|---|
1 |
2016/09/12 |
Ewan Crawford |
Initial proposal. |
2 |
2020/05/13 |
Ewan Crawford |
Expand overview wording. |
