Re: [boost] [Proposal] Adding CPUID Library in Boost

Subject: Re: [boost] [Proposal] Adding CPUID Library in Boost
From: Gaetano Mendola (mendola_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-12-12 02:55:22

On 12/12/2012 06.05, Shakti Misra wrote:
> I think if you look at the source of SSEPlus from AMD they are doing it at
> runtime. They have a CPUID functionality to get the correct SEE level, and
> dispatch to the correct intrinsic as per it. I do not have a perfect use
> case, but in gaming applications it can be beneficial to see if the GPU is
> present at run time, so as to use GPU or not. Mostly games would be
> compiled and supplied to the end user.

This fact of GPU check at runtime seems a poor argument to me. If the 
GPU is present then what? You need anyway to rely on DirectXXXX or on 
OpenGL anyway. If you want to instead use the GPU for GPGPU you can
try to issue an OpenCL command and or CUDA one.
So the fact you can via boost (!) detect if the GPU is present or not is
like the 0.001% of the work.

Regards
Gaetano Mendola