NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit 2.2 Released

 

 

For further information, contact:

Andrew Humber
NVIDIA Corporation
(408) 486 8138
ahumber@nvidia.com

MEDIA ALERT:

NVIDIA announced today it has released version 2.2 of the CUDA Toolkit and SDK for GPU Computing. This latest release supports several significant new features that deliver a major leap forward in getting the most performance out of NVIDIA’s massively parallel CUDA-enabled GPUs. In addition, version 2.2 of the CUDA Toolkit includes support for Windows 7, the upcoming OS from Microsoft that embraces GPU Computing.

Additional new features in CUDA Toolkit 2.2 include:

• Visual Profiler for the GPU
  The most common step in tuning application performance is profiling the application and then modifying the code. The CUDA Visual Profiler is a graphical tool that enables the profiling of C applications running on the GPU. This latest release of the CUDA Visual Profiler includes metrics for memory transactions, giving developers visibility into one of the most important areas they can tune to get better performance.
  
• Improved OpenGL Interop
  Delivers improved performance for Medical Imaging and other OpenGL applications running on Quadro GPUs when computing with CUDA and rendering OpenGL graphics functions are performed on different GPUs.
  
• Texture from Pitch Linear Memory
  Delivers up to 2x bandwidth savings for video processing applications.
  
• Zero-copy
  Enables streaming media, video transcoding, image processing and signal processing applications to realize significant performance improvements by allowing CUDA functions to read and write directly from pinned system memory. This reduces the frequency and amount of data copied back and forth between GPU and CPU memory. Supported on MCP7x and GT200 and later GPUs.
  
• Pinned Shared Sysmem
  Enables applications that use multiple GPUs to achieve better performance and use less total system memory by allowing multiple GPUs to access the same data in system memory. Typical multi-GPU systems include Tesla servers, Tesla Personal Supercomputers, workstations using QuadroPlex deskside units and consumer systems with multiple GPUs.
  
• Asynchronous memcopy on Vista
  Allows applications to realize significant performance improvements by copying memory asynchronously. This feature was already available on other supported platforms but is now available on Vista.
  
• Hardware Debugger for the GPU
  Developers can now use a hardware level debugger on CUDA-enabled GPUs that offers the simplicity of the popular open-source GDB debugger yet enables a developer to easily debug a program that is running 1000s of threads on the GPU. This CUDA GDB debugger for Linux has all the features required to debug directly on the GPU, including the ability to set breakpoints, watch variables, inspect state, etc.
  
• Exclusive Device Mode
  This system configuration option allows an application to get exclusive use of a GPU, guaranteeing that 100% of the processing power and memory of the GPU will be dedicated to that application. Multiple applications can still be run concurrently on the system, but only one application can make use of each GPU at a time. This configuration is particularly useful on Tesla cluster systems where large applications may require dedicated use of one or more GPUs on each node of a Linux cluster.

Developers can download the latest CUDA Toolkit, SDK, and drivers now at www.nvidia.com/cuda

About NVIDIA
NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) is the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, a high-performance processor which generates breathtaking, interactive graphics on workstations, personal computers, game consoles, and mobile devices. NVIDIA serves the entertainment and consumer market with its GeForce® graphics products, the professional design and visualization market with its Quadro® graphics products, and the high-performance computing market with its Tesla™ computing solutions products. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. and has offices throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. For more information, visit www.nvidia.com.

Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: the benefits, features, impact, and capabilities of NVIDIA Tesla GPUs and CUDA architecture; are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: development of more efficient or faster technology; adoption of the CPU for parallel processing; design, manufacturing or software defects; the impact of technological development and competition; changes in consumer preferences and demands; customer adoption of different standards or our competitor's products; changes in industry standards and interfaces; unexpected loss of performance of our products or technologies when integrated into systems; as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its Form 10-K for the fiscal period ended January 25, 2009. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on our website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.

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