What new C ++ AMP accelerators will exist in the future?

Question

I am learning C ++ AMP, and everything I've seen emphasizes that AMP runs on “accelerators,” not just GPUs. I think that today all accelerators are GPUs, but in the future there may be different types of accelerators. So what else could be an accelerator? Are new types of accelerators developed now, or is AMP just trying to be future proof?

Answer 1

An accelerator is a device that can execute C ++ AMP code. You are right, in most cases it will be a GPU, but even in Visual Studio 2012 other types of accelerators are available.

An example of such an accelerator would be the Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform (WARP) device, a standby processor that uses multi-core and SSE2. For more information on WARP, see:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg615082(v=VS.85).aspx
• http://www.danielmoth.com/Blog/Running-C-AMP-Kernels-On-The-CPU.aspx

Another will be a software help device, an emulator that is useful for debugging. For more information about the control device, see: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/nativeconcurrency/archive/2012/03/11/direct3d-ref-accelerator-in-c-amp.aspx

In Visual Studio 2012, support for DirectX11 requires a C ++ AMP accelerator that can execute code with limited access. Please note that this requirement does not mean that all accelerators will be GPUs, for example. WARP, help device, AMD Fusion or Intel Ivy Bridge. In the future, we could reassure the DirectX11 requirement to allow more accelerators capable of running parallel data algorithms.