Reference

CUDALink allows the Wolfram Language to use the CUDA parallel computing architecture on Graphical Processing Units (GPUs). It contains functions that use CUDA-enabled GPUs to boost performance in a number of areas, such as linear algebra, financial simulation, and image processing. CUDALink also integrates CUDA with existing Wolfram Language development tools, allowing a high degree of automation and control.

This section summarizes the functionality.

Wolfram Language Functions

This describes the Wolfram Language functions provided by CUDALink.

Query

CUDAQdetermine whether CUDALink is supported
CUDAInformationenumerate all device information
CUDADriverVersiongive video driver version
$CUDADeviceCountnumber of devices on system
$CUDALinkPathpath to the CUDALink application
$CUDADevicedevice used in CUDALink computation

Functions for querying the setup of CUDALink.

Resource Installation

CUDAResourcesInstallinstall the CUDA resources
CUDAResourcesInformationgive information on installed CUDA resources
CUDAResourcesUninstalluninstall the CUDA resources

Functions for installing and uninstalling CUDALink resources.

Image Processing

CUDAImageConvolveconvolve images with specified kernel
CUDABoxFilterapply the box filter on images

Filtering functions for image processing using CUDA.

CUDADilationapply morphological dilation on images
CUDAErosionapply morphological erosion on images
CUDAClosingapply morphological closing on images
CUDAOpeningapply morphological opening on images

Morphological functions for image processing using CUDA.

CUDAImageAddadd two images
CUDAImageSubtractsubtract two images
CUDAImageMultiplymultiply two images
CUDAImageDividedivide two images
CUDAClampclamp values of an image between a specified range
CUDAColorNegateinvert an image

Binary operations for image processing using CUDA.

Fourier Transform

CUDAFourierfind the Fourier transform
CUDAInverseFourierfind the inverse Fourier transform

Fourier transform operations using CUDA.

Linear Algebra

CUDADotgive product of vectors and matrices
CUDATransposetranpose input matrix
CUDAArgMaxListgive the index with maximum absolute element
CUDAArgMinListgive the index with minimum absolute element
CUDATotalgive the total of the absolute values of a vector

Linear algebra functions using CUDA.

CUDALink Programming

CUDAFunctionhandle to CUDA function loaded using CUDAFunctionLoad
CUDAFunctionLoadload CUDAFunction into the Wolfram Language
CUDAFunctionInformationget CUDAFunction information

Working with CUDA functions.

NVCCCompilercompile code using the NVIDIA CUDA compiler
CUDACCompilersgive list of supported C compilers installed on system

Access to the CUDA compiler.

SymbolicCUDAFunctionsymbolic representation of a CUDA function
SymbolicCUDABlockIndexsymbolic representation of a block index CUDA call
SymbolicCUDAThreadIndexsymbolic representation of a thread index CUDA call
SymbolicCUDABlockDimensionsymbolic representation of a block dimension CUDA call
SymbolicCUDACalculateKernelIndexsymbolic representation of a CUDA index calculation
SymbolicCUDADeclareIndexBlocksymbolic representation of a CUDA index declaration

Symbolic representations of CUDA programs.

Memory

CUDAMemoryhandle to CUDA memory registered using CUDAMemoryLoad or CUDAMemoryAllocate
CUDAMemoryLoadload Wolfram Language memory into CUDALink returning CUDAMemory
CUDAMemoryAllocateallocate memory for CUDALink returning CUDAMemory
CUDAMemoryGetcopy CUDAMemory to the Wolfram Language
CUDAMemoryUnloadunload and delete a CUDAMemory handle
CUDAMemoryInformationget CUDAMemory handle information
CUDAMemoryCopyToHostcopy CUDAMemory from GPU to CPU
CUDAMemoryCopyToDevicecopy CUDAMemory from CPU to GPU

Functions for working with memory in CUDA.

CUDALink Examples

CUDAFinancialDerivativefinancial option valuation
CUDAMapapply a function to each element on an input list
CUDASortsort input elements
CUDAFoldfold input elements
CUDAFoldListfold input elements into a list
CUDAVolumetricDataReadread raw volumetric data to be rendered
CUDAVolumetricRenderrender volumetric data read
CUDAFluidDynamicscompute and render a fluid dynamics simulation

Example applications of CUDALink.

CUDAQ and CUDAInformation

CUDAInformation gives user information on the hardware. To use, first load the CUDALink application.

This gets information on the CUDA devices on the system.

Similar to other Wolfram Language Q functions, CUDAQ will not return an error on failure. Running CUDAInformation will give an error describing why CUDA failed.

If CUDALink fails, it will return one of the following errors.

insysCUDALink is not supported on the system; only "Linux", "Linux-x86-64", "Windows", "Windows-x86-64", "MacOSX-x86", and "MacOSX-x86-64" are supported
invdevnmbased on the video card name, the video card is not supported by CUDALink
invdirvan NVIDIA driver library was not found, and CUDALink was not able to determine the NVIDIA driver library path
invdrivpan NVIDIA driver was not found in the NVIDIA library path
invdrivveran NVIDIA driver was found, but the version information cannot be determined
invdrivvervan NVIDIA driver was found, but the version is unsupported
invdrivverdan NVIDIA driver was found, but the version directory cannot be determined
syslibfldloading the CUDA runtime libraries failed
initlibloading the CUDALink library failed
initCUDALink libraries were loaded, but initialization failed
nodevCUDALink was unable to find a device that is CUDA compatible

CUDALink detection failure error codes.

There are three main reasons for getting False from CUDAQ:

System Requirements

CUDALink requires a compatible operating system, hardware, and driver software. This section describes what these are and how to confirm them.

Operating System

CUDALink is supported on Linux, Linux-x86-64, Windows, Windows-x86-64, Mac OS X-x86, and Mac OS X-x86-64. Mac OS X users need at least Mac OS X 10.6.3.

On Linux, CUDALink requires the system to be run in a runlevel that will load the video drivers. Usually this is default level 5, but on some servers the administrator may need to configure it manually.

GPU Hardware

CUDALink is supported on all hardware that has CUDA support. If you are not sure of the name of your graphics card, you can see the section on Graphics Card Information.

List of supported devices may be found on the NVIDIA CUDA-Enabled Products page.

Users with ATI or Intel graphics processors will not be able to use CUDA, but might be able to use OpenCL using OpenCLLink.

Graphics Card Information

Detailed information on your graphics can be found in the "Devices" section of SystemInformation, as shown below.

This gives information on the graphics card installed on the system.

If you have trouble finding this, then checking the graphics card is done by either checking the system documentation or going to one of the following:

Checking the NVIDIA Driver

CUDALink has a driver version detection mechanism that is accessible using CUDADriverVersion.

An alternative to this driver detection method is operating-system specific. The following details how to get the driver version on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Windows

If the NVIDIA driver is installed, then the NVIDIA control panel should be in the system's control panel and will give you information. The NVIDIA control panel can be accessed by clicking Start Control Panel.

Inside the control panel you will see the NVIDIA control panel.

Clicking on that will open windows that allow you to edit the hardware setup.

Clicking System Information in the bottom-left corner will give you the following window.

This tells you the driver version, which is 257.21 on this machine.

Linux

If the NVIDIA driver is installed, then running nvidia-settings from the command line will give version information. The following screen capture shows the system running the 256.53 version of the NVIDIA driver, which can be seen in the "NVIDIA Driver Version" system information.

If X is not available, then the following command will tell you the driver version installed.

[abduld@abduldlx ~]$ ls /usr/lib/libnvidia-tls.so.*
/usr/lib/libnvidia-tls.so.2 /usr/lib/libnvidia-tls.so.256.53.15

The above tells you a non-supported NVIDIA driver 256.53.15 is installed on abduldlx. Note that on some versions of Linux the drivers are installed in /usr/lib64 or in another nondefault location.

Mac OS X

To find the version information on OS X, open the Finder window and go into Applications.

Opening System Preferences will show a CUDA button if the CUDA driver is installed.

Clicking on the CUDA button will show both the CUDA driver and GPU driver versions.

CUDA driver version 6.0.0 or above is required by CUDALink.