TR033 - Computer Science

thysol · 01-09-2011 10:47AM

Thanks for the advice.:) If they teach Java real slow then even I should get my head around it, at least I hope.:D

I still have a few questions though:

1. Will there be any GPGPU stuff in first year, like CUDA or OpenCL?
2. Is anyone aloud to use the Nvidia Tesla Workstations in Trinity?
3. What GPUs specifically are in the workstations? (G92, Fermi?)

I would really like to test a program I wrote in OpenCL on a workstation with like 4 or maybe even 8 GPUs. I only have single-GPU at home.:( A guy from Belfast told me that Trinity has Tesla stuff and is big into CUDA. He told me I could test my program there. Is that somehow possible? He said I just need to ask politely.:D

Hope someone can help.:)

ED E · 01-09-2011 11:07AM

thysol wrote: »

I still have a few questions though:

1. Will there be any GPGPU stuff in first year, like CUDA or OpenCL?
2. Is anyone aloud to use the Nvidia Tesla Workstations in Trinity?
3. What GPUs specifically are in the workstations? (G92, Fermi?)

Hope someone can help.:)

Lol.

1.The most graphical thing we do in 1st year is Processing, which is just java with bells on.
2. I havent "seen" any Tesla workstations, but if you email the SCSS help address the guy who maintains the dept's machines is a sound guy and will let you know what the story with them is.
3. There are two different boxes in use, the new ones are i7s with 4850's IIRC(Its a long time since I looked). The old ones, they're C2Ds with some ancient card I think, nothing of any consequence.

If you want a big SLI/Crossfire system you'll probably have to build your own rig, and a MOBO like that aint cheap, nevermind the cards themselves.

thysol · 01-09-2011 11:24AM

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

1.The most graphical thing we do in 1st year is Processing, which is just java with bells on.

Ok, thanks. GPGPU isn't about Graphics by the way. Its about using the GPU for CPU stuff.

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

2. I havent "seen" any Tesla workstations, but if you email the SCSS help address the guy who maintains the dept's machines is a sound guy and will let you know what the story with them is.

Thanks, I think I'll just ask him when I get there.

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

3. There are two different boxes in use, the new ones are i7s with 4850's IIRC(Its a long time since I looked). The old ones, they're C2Ds with some ancient card I think, nothing of any consequence.

Lol, 4850s are a bit dated by now. I guess its a first gen. i7 not the new Sandy Bridge ones but sure even the old i7s are quite fast. I think my OpenCL program wouldn't even work on a 4850.

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

If you want a big SLI/Crossfire system you'll probably have to build your own rig, and a MOBO like that aint cheap, nevermind the cards themselves.

OpenCL and CUDA don't use SLI or Crossfire. You can even use up to 8 GPUs on a single system with CUDA and OpenCL, CF and SLI are limited to 4 GPUs. I won't build anything like that myself, way too dear. lol.

Thanks for your answers.:)

yutta · 01-09-2011 12:04PM

The TCHPC certainly have two c2050 GPUs. Undergrads aren't allowed use them. As far as I know, they're at 100% usage.

Other research groups would have Fermi GPUs.

I'd suggest talking to one of the technicians about your eagerness. They might be able to provide you with access to a mid-range GPU or at least put you in touch with someone.

Dongasaurus · 01-09-2011 12:16PM

While your keenness for GPUPU programming is admirable, it's not really within the scope of the course til 3rd year.

Plus it's ****ing boring unless you ****ing jizz yourself over matrix multiplications.

thysol · 01-09-2011 12:20PM

yutta wrote: »

The TCHPC certainly have two c2050 GPUs. Undergrads aren't allowed use them. As far as I know, they're at 100% usage.

Other research groups would have Fermi GPUs.

I'd suggest talking to one of the technicians about your eagerness. They might be able to provide you with access to a mid-range GPU or at least put you in touch with someone.

If undergrads aren't allowed to use them I guess I can forget about it. I don't really need a HPC, just a computer with Multiple GPUs because I wrote a dynamic workload manager benchmark in OpenCL that can use an unlimited number of GPUs and CPUs. I wanted to see how the benchmark would scale with multiple GPUs for my project. What would be even better would be if the PC had a mixture of different types of GPUs, because then I could test how well my dynamic workload manager automatically gives the faster GPUs more work and the slower ones less work.

As I said, I'll ask at Trinity if I am allowed to test it just for like 10 minutes, but I doubt they'll allow me too seen as I am an undergraduate.

Thanks for your help people.:)

Dongasaurus · 01-09-2011 12:25PM

If you ever need any help with anything the netsoc are a friendly bunch and will help you out. Make sure to sign up at freshers week!

thysol · 01-09-2011 12:28PM

Dongasaurus wrote: »

If you ever need any help with anything the netsoc are a friendly bunch and will help you out. Make sure to sign up at freshers week!

I sure will.:)

Dongasaurus wrote: »

While your keenness for GPUPU programming is admirable, it's not really within the scope of the course til 3rd year.

Plus it's ****ing boring unless you ****ing jizz yourself over matrix multiplications.

Its just a project I'm doing. But why just matrix multiplacations? My program calculates the orbital trajectory of rocks around a sphere in space. I don't find it boring.

ED E · 01-09-2011 12:33PM

/noob

You're calculating vectors then no? Which would be matrix work?

/noob

thysol · 01-09-2011 01:29PM

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

/noob

You're calculating vectors then no? Which would be matrix work?

/noob

I don't know.
Here is my kernel:

string rocksorbit = @"
__kernel void
orbit(__global float * v1,
__global float * v2,
__global float * v3,
__global float * v4,
__global float * v5,
__global float * v6,
__global float * v7,
__global float * v8,
__global float * v9)
{
int i = get_global_id(0);
int b = 100;
int p = v9[0];

while (p < b)
{

v4 = v3 / (2 * 398600500000000 / (v3 * (v1 * v1)) - 1);
v5 = v3 * (v1 * v1) / 398600500000000 - 1;
v6 = v4 / (1 + v5);
v7 = v5 * v6;
v6 = v6 * v6;
v7 = v7 * v7;
v8 = v6 - v7;
v8 = sqrt( v8 );
p++;
}
}";

I don't know if its a matrix or not. We didn't do matrices for the leaving cert but I always thought that matrices were where you cross multiply boxes or something like that.

trolol · 01-09-2011 02:02PM

I do love these chaps who manage to socially handicap themselves before term even begins... Every. Single. Year.

ED E · 01-09-2011 02:03PM

Yeah, you'll do them with good old Gibbons. Basically, all vectors can be represented as matrices. GPUs architecture is specifically built in a way that is better at large matrix operations than a CPU. It makes them adept at graphics work, brute forcing, bit coin mining etc.

You may be feeding your GPU linear equations, systems of them infact, but its working with their matrix form AFAIK.

I was talking to a second year before and IIRC the details of all this is third year stuff.

Anyways, you sound like somebody who'll love CS.

thysol · 01-09-2011 02:35PM

trolol wrote: »

I do love these chaps who manage to socially handicap themselves before term even begins... Every. Single. Year.

Do you mean me?

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

Yeah, you'll do them with good old Gibbons. Basically, all vectors can be represented as matrices. GPUs architecture is specifically built in a way that is better at large matrix operations than a CPU. It makes them adept at graphics work, brute forcing, bit coin mining etc.

You may be feeding your GPU linear equations, systems of them infact, but its working with their matrix form AFAIK.

Thanks for the explanation. So my kernel is in fact a matrix multiplication?

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

Anyways, you sound like somebody who'll love CS.

I hope so.:)

alxsoky · 03-09-2011 08:30PM

Yeah, I know nothing. SHOOT ME.

On a brighter note, you seniors are hilarious. :P

Shenlok · 03-09-2011 08:34PM

alxsoky wrote: »

Yeah, I know nothing. SHOOT ME.

On a brighter note, you seniors are hilarious. :P

Some of us moreso than others, you'll find...

thysol · 03-09-2011 08:40PM

alxsoky wrote: »

Yeah, I know nothing. SHOOT ME.

Shenlok wrote: »

Some of us moreso than others, you'll find...

lol, stop worrying! It said in the description, that you need no previous knowledge about computers. We are all starting from square 1.:)

And we can always ask for help when necessary, be it the staff, a society or other students.:)

I wouldn't worry about that.

alxsoky · 03-09-2011 09:09PM

Shenlok wrote: »

Some of us moreso than others, you'll find...

Oh the humour keeps pouring in. Haha (:

thysol wrote: »

lol, stop worrying! It said in the description, that you need no previous knowledge about computers. We are all starting from square 1.:)

And we can always ask for help when necessary, be it the staff, a society or other students.:)

I wouldn't worry about that.

Haha I'm trying but it's hard when everyone else knows java or c or python and the max I've done is made the stupid cat on scratch change colour. :P

thysol · 03-09-2011 09:52PM

alxsoky wrote: »

Haha I'm trying but it's hard when everyone else knows java or c or python and the max I've done is made the stupid cat on scratch change colour. :P

There are probably some people in the course who haven't even done Scratch, so don't worry.:)

Shenlok · 03-09-2011 09:55PM

thysol wrote: »

There are probably some people in the course who haven't even done Scratch, so don't worry.:)

I'd be surprised if there's any!

brona_ · 03-09-2011 09:56PM

wooooo

brona_ · 03-09-2011 09:57PM

ya

SlyNeko · 03-09-2011 09:59PM

I can't wait to meet all you new first years, gonna be fun on the bun ^_^

PurpleFistMixer · 03-09-2011 10:06PM

That's slang for "errybody's gettin sleazed on".

danoboy254 · 03-09-2011 10:16PM

trolol wrote: »

I do love these chaps who manage to socially handicap themselves before term even begins... Every. Single. Year.

no way......fair play to them

it does ever so slightly freak us people out tho, us who aint got no clue!

Grimebox · 03-09-2011 10:17PM

thysol wrote: »

There are probably some people in the course who haven't even done Scratch, so don't worry.:)

I'm about to go into third year and I had never done programming in my life before this. You'll be fine

thysol · 03-09-2011 10:19PM

Shenlok wrote: »

I'd be surprised if there's any!

Really, do you think nearly everyone has done Scratch before? Even if, people still don't need to worry, we are all starting from square 1. Its not like as if they're teaching us rocket science right from the start.:D

PurpleFistMixer wrote: »

That's slang for "errybody's gettin sleazed on".

Why, whats wrong with SlyNeko? And what do yous have against Lethal_Bullet? To me he seems quite nice.:)

SlyNeko · 03-09-2011 10:26PM

Believe me, if you come into CS expected ME to be doing the sleazing you'll be in for a nasty shock

rogers4815 · 03-09-2011 10:58PM

SlyNeko wrote: »

Believe me, if you come into CS expected ME to be doing the sleazing you'll be in for a nasty shock

Yeah, all you do is walk around our otherwise lovely society room using foul language all the time!

spacedave · 04-09-2011 01:17AM

Purplefistmixer you are not a computer scientist, stop attempting science/cock-blocking slyneko.

spoonbadger · 04-09-2011 02:36AM

8==D~~~ >-+o

Go team COMPUTER SCIENCE

TR033 - Computer Science

Comments