Saul Luizaga <sau### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> Why you say no when CPU-GPU combos are been used in several applications 
> like I listed, ray-tracing  or there are trends to use this combo to 
> solve problems so I think is a yes, maybe is in very early stages but 
> this is tending to evolve and could become common ground and open 
> source.

  The GPU can be only used for certain task. It's not a generic processor
like the CPU is. There are other tasks which are very inefficient and
difficult to do with the GPU. And of course there are tasks which are
simply impossible to perform with the GPU.

  Not all tasks related to computer graphics can be performed with the
GPU. The GPU is specialized in a certain type of calculations.

  One feature of GPUs is that they are good at making the same calculations
in parallel. For example, if you are applying a filter to an image the
GPU is superb for this. That's because the exact same filter can be
applied to every single pixel of the image. It's the one and same task
performed over a set of data.

  Raytracing isn't such a task, though. Rays may or not get reflected and
refracted, split into two, they may or may not be used for shadow testing,
they may or may not be used to sample media, a texture may or may not be
evaluated at an intersection point... It's hard to do these things with
a GPU.

  Another killer is that GPUs don't support recursion, while raytracing
obviously requires it.

> Why are you so negative about it?

  I'm not negative. I'm realist. I don't like to raise false hope.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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