DirectCompute
Encyclopedia
Microsoft DirectCompute is an application programming interface
(API) that supports general-purpose computing on graphics processing units
on Microsoft
Windows Vista
and Windows 7. DirectCompute is part of the Microsoft DirectX
collection of APIs and was initially released with the DirectX 11 API but runs on both DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 graphics processing units. The DirectCompute architecture shares a range of computational interfaces with its competitors -
the Khronos Group
's Open Computing Language
(OpenCL) and NVIDIA
's Compute Unified Device Architecture
(CUDA).
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
(API) that supports general-purpose computing on graphics processing units
GPGPU
General-purpose computing on graphics processing units is the technique of using a GPU, which typically handles computation only for computer graphics, to perform computation in applications traditionally handled by the CPU...
on Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
and Windows 7. DirectCompute is part of the Microsoft DirectX
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
collection of APIs and was initially released with the DirectX 11 API but runs on both DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 graphics processing units. The DirectCompute architecture shares a range of computational interfaces with its competitors -
the Khronos Group
Khronos Group
The Khronos Group is a not-for-profit member-funded industry consortium based in Beaverton, Oregon, focused on the creation of open standard, royalty-free APIs to enable the authoring and accelerated playback of dynamic media on a wide variety of platforms and devices...
's Open Computing Language
OpenCL
OpenCL is a framework for writing programs that execute across heterogeneous platforms consisting of CPUs, GPUs, and other processors. OpenCL includes a language for writing kernels , plus APIs that are used to define and then control the platforms...
(OpenCL) and NVIDIA
NVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
's Compute Unified Device Architecture
CUDA
CUDA or Compute Unified Device Architecture is a parallel computing architecture developed by Nvidia. CUDA is the computing engine in Nvidia graphics processing units that is accessible to software developers through variants of industry standard programming languages...
(CUDA).