gpu programming ?

[sam111]

hi , I have been reading stuff about gpu card programming with cuda , opencl , and DirectCompute.

What I know is this
I know DirectCompute is microsofts API for it and they say it runs on vista or windows 7 not anything earlier like xp ,...etc.

OpenCL this is an api for different programming lanuages like JOCL (java), Python ,...etc
to do gpu /parrell processing with your graphics card in much the same way as DirectCompute API

Cudu came out around the 90's era from the wikipedia artical's on it.

I am wondering if you need specific gpu/graphics cards to use cuda , opencl , and DirectCompute ? And where / what do I need to download to get started doing some test programs to see it work?

My computer is kind of old it is a dell dimenision 4600
with NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200.

Anybody with gpu programming experience out their that can help me get started.
Thank you.

 

[berry120]

As far as I know, CUDA is Nvidia only - OpenCL however will run on just about anything it can. For that reason alone I'd say go with OpenCL - I've never used it though I have looked at it briefly when I was looking at adding some custom cross platform hardware acceleration stuff (long story.) So don't take that as gospel and definitely do some more research first, but my gut reaction is OpenCL is probably the best choice.