High performance FFT on GPUs

A reader writes: "The UNC GAMMA group has recently released a high performance FFT library which can handle large 1-D FFTs. According to their webpage, the FFT library is able to achieve 4x higher computational performance on a $500 NVIDIA 7900 GPU than optimized Intel Math Kernel FFT routines running on high-end Intel and AMD CPUs costing $1500-$2000. The library is supported for both Linux and Windows platforms and is tested to work on many programmable GPUs. There is also a link to download the library freely for non-commerical use."

Final Fantasy Tactics?

[Musteval]

Why use a GPU for Final Fantasy Tactics? Couldn't you just use the GBA?

FFTs in GPUs, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, seeing as how the V.P. is such a V.I.P., shouldn't we keep the P.C. on the Q.T.? 'Cause if it leaks to the V.C. he could end up M.I.A., and then we'd all be put out in K.P.

Re:Uhh..

[Anonymous Coward]

No idea, but a high performance FFT has got to be better than the lower performance FFTs we've been using so far. I'm setting a goal of fast FFT compliance by the third week in June.

Re:Please

[__aaclcg7560]

One more reason to buy an overpriced video card instead of an overpriced CPU?

Re:This is news?

[Fex303]

I have an uncle who's a professor who's been using GPUs for scientific computation for years.

I'm sorry, but playing Quake at really high framerates does not count as research. He's not fooling anyone.

The business cards which list him as 'Profess0r of Pwnage' probably aren't helping either.

It's also bad when he refers to the undergrads as 'n00bs' during his lectures to them.

Re:Uhh..

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

FFT [berkeley.edu] is a data compression and encryption standard used by a wide variety of extraterrestrial civilizations. Seti@home spends most of its time running FFT code to look for signals. If we managed to communicate with any of these aliens we could ask them what it stands for.

Re:Final Fantasy Tactics?

[numbski]

Seriously! I mean, with only 1-D, it's really going to suck. I know people have accused Final Fantasy of being too linear in the past, but this is getting a bit silly...now, we're stuck at a single point!

Finally....

[Comboman]

Finally I have a good excuse to give the IT department why I need to upgrade my video card. I need to do FFTs faster (it has nothing at all to do with Doom3).

Re:Cray-1 comparison

[suv4x4]

People complain about its power and cooling needs, but they are rather below 200 kW! We sometimes forget just how amazing the developments in computing have been over the last three decades.

Why compare it with Cray-1, compare it with the steam-powered calculators of the past that take minutes to multiply two simple numbers and the results are sometimes kinda off.

People always demand more, this is why they develop more, so to get more. If people become suddenly satisfied with whatever state they're in, they'll never move on.

Re:As you should very well know...

[Jesus_666]

Knowing how to hook up a composite video input is irrelevant. The civilised world uses SCART. You can't screw up hooking up SCART.


And just you wait, France will develop a European alternative to that Fourier nonsense as well!

Re:As you should very well know...

[jawtheshark]

Just in case some people don't get the following statement:

And just you wait, France will develop a European alternative to that Fourier nonsense as well!

Read [wikipedia.org]... And notice the country....

Mod the guy up.. He might be a troll, but he is funny :-D

Re:Final Fantasy Tactics?

[fireman sam]

Ah, but great framerate.

IF

[Mark_MF-WN]

What is newsworthy is that this is a shameless attempt to secularize mathematics. It's right in the name -- Fast Fourier Transformation. That's idolatry. What can a man know about signals that God hasn't already made clear in the Word? Come to our website [answersingenesis.org], and you can learn all about Intelligent Factoring, which is on much sounder mathematical grounds because it develops entirely from biblical principles.

Re:It's nice...

[Henry V .009]

Yeah! If you offload your FFTs to your GPU, the system resources on your monster work box are now freed enough up to let you play Quake while you're supposed to be calculat...oh, damn.