ATI Stream Update Gives Developers Clear Path to Deliver Next-Generation Experiences with AMD Fusion™ Family of APUs

ATI Stream SDK v2.1 brings significant enhancements for developers leveraging OpenCL™ on CPUs and GPUs

SUNNYVALE, Calif.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the availability of the ATI Stream Software Development Kit (SDK) v2.1, the latest update of its ATI Stream SDK supporting OpenCL™ industry standard-based programming on AMD GPUs and x86 CPUs. ATI Stream SDK helps developers accelerate application performance by leveraging the CPU and GPU resources in a given system. This collaborative computing model will be enhanced in the upcoming AMD Fusion™ Family of accelerated processing units (APUs). The new version brings additional performance-enhancing features, increases ease-of-programming and expands hardware support, and is available for download today. 

“With the anticipated arrival of the AMD Fusion family of APUs next year, we can support developers who want to begin creating next-generation software experiences for APUs now,” said Ben Bar-Haim, general manager AMD Canada and corporate vice president of Software Engineering, AMD. “The ATI Stream SDK puts the developer community on the path to success by providing access to the CPU and GPU system resources already available to them today.”

New features supported by the ATI Stream SDK v2.1 include:

• Support for OpenCL / OpenGL® interoperability, helping reduce the overhead of passing data for display purposes, enabling a richer and more responsive visual experience for the user.
• Support for OpenCL byte addressable stores allowing more natural and efficient code for applications, such as image processing, that depend on the ability to update data at smaller than 32-bit granularities.
• Support for OpenCL images, providing developers with access to hardware-accelerated texture features on AMD GPUs.
• OpenCL extension support for AMD media operations in OpenCL, giving developers a set of OpenCL kernel operations commonly used in multimedia applications.
• OpenCL extension support for device fission in OpenCL, enabling developers to sub-divide an OpenCL device and allowing multiple work kernels to be assigned to that device.
• Integration of Stream KernelAnalyzer 1.5 installer, which helps developers to statically analyze OpenCL kernel performance on AMD graphics processors.
• Support for next-generation ATI FirePro™ professional graphics cards, including the industry’s most powerful professional graphics card ever created¹, the ATI FirePro V8800, and the latest ATI Radeon™ and ATI Mobility Radeon™ graphics from AMD. For a complete list of supported hardware click here.

Accelerated Processing: the next generation of visual computing
AMD Fusion represents a new approach to processor design and software development, delivering powerful serial, parallel and visual compute capabilities for today’s HD video, 3D and data-intensive workloads in a single-die processor called an Accelerated Processing Unit (APU). APUs combine high-performance serial and parallel processing cores with other special-purpose hardware accelerators, enabling breakthroughs in visual computing, security, performance-per-watt and device form factor. Software developers, utilizing AMD drivers, libraries and either the ATI Stream SDK or the Microsoft DirectCompute API, can enhance the user experience and speed application performance by developing applications that fully utilize the unique compute power of AMD discrete graphics and the AMD Fusion™ Family of APUs. 

Resources

• Download ATI Stream SDK v2.1
• For more information about ATI Stream SDK v2.1, including a complete list of new features, visit the ATI Stream SDK v2.1 Product Page
• Check out AMD’s new OpenCL Zone
• Follow ATI Stream updates on Twitter at @ATIStream
• Visit the ATI Stream technology homepage for additional information
• OpenCL and AMD Fusion blog

About AMD
Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is an innovative technology company dedicated to collaborating with customers and technology partners to ignite the next generation of computing and graphics solutions at work, home and play. For more information, visithttp://www.amd.com.