Have any of you guys tried programming the cpu on the graphics card?

[gavin]

I'm not sure the name of the site but i was readig something really cool about programmin using the graphics card for faster math functions or something.

Anyone ever do this?

Thanks. :U

[P1]

Early DOS days, Yes. 

Now with embeded display electronics with the numerous cards out there.  Plus and the fact, that kind of access is not exposed to the PC system.  Control registers are, but not access to the uP code/execution stream on most graphics cards.   No,  Why would you?

Device Drivers is what layers out the individuality of each graphics card's uniqueness to the OS. 

Regards,  Michael

[Maelstrom]

You were probably looking at this one (or one just like it)

http://gamma.cs.unc.edu/GPUSORT/index.html

[hitchhikr]

I think the guy is talking about the graphics pipelines in modern gfxcards, they now contain a programmable RISC micro-processor accessible thru so called pixel & vertex shaders with a high level language translator similar to C or in asm (risc) directly.
They can be used to fastly perform other computations than just modifying graphic output (you can even process sound with these gpus) allowing the main processor to perform other tasks meanwhile.

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1496.asp
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1807.asp
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1820.asp
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1837.asp
http://www.directx.com/shader/
http://www.cgshaders.org/
http://www.gpgpu.org/developer/
http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~mjolson/personal/research/gpu_geoproc/
etc.

[P1]

I think the guy is talking about the graphics pipelines in modern gfxcards, they now contain a programmable RISC micro-processor accessible thru so called pixel & vertex shaders with a high level language translator similar to C or in asm (risc) directly.
They can be used to fastly perform other computations than just modifying graphic output (you can even process sound with these gpus) allowing the main processor to perform other tasks meanwhile.

Way too cool!  I have been out of making computer hardware for a few years now.  And the technology keeps on going!

In the early days, IBM made a 360 emulator card that uses the ISA in the older systems.  The PC uP was a IO director for the addin CPU.

Sometimes, engineering is like fashion, the techniques of enginneering go in to and out of use.  Instead of the Cycle of Life, we have the Cycle of Engineering.  Then again, 'What comes around, goes around.'

Thanks for the links!

Regards,  P1  :8)