I know, I know, difficult question to answer, I’m sorry. ;)
I’m in a corporate setting, we’re porting some code. We started with OpenACC. I would really like to continue with OpenACC, but we need a Windows version (as in Windows Binaries, so no WSL as far as I am aware), not right now, but somewhere towards the second half of 2022 I’d say. It’s not a fixed date, rather an increasing urgency. On Windows we develop using Visual Studio and the MSVC compilers primarily, with a cmake based build system. Linux is using gcc. Other compilers are fine in principle, as long as cmake can use them.
We need to make a decision in the next couple of weeks to go on with the OpenACC port or switch to native CUDA. I’m looking for any information that can help with this decision basically.
Is the Windows version of the HPC SDK still being worked on? How likely is it that it will be dropped entirely?
How likely is it that it will be released by summer, say end of July? How likely is it to be released by the end of the Year?
Are there any alternatives? Would it even make sense to get a license for the PGI compiler for example? Is that still possible?
I wasn’t impressed by gcc’s OpenACC support for Nvidia GPUs, does anyone even have experience with the Windows version?
While highly unlikely that we’ll drop the Windows porting project, it has hit a major delay due to staffing. So unfortunately I can’t give any timeline.
It is possible to get you the old PGI Windows Workstation product. Not all versions are covered due to some licensing issue with Microsoft, but if you sign-up for NVIDIA software support, the PGI achieves, including Windows products are available. See the bottom section on the HPC SDK page for compiler support services: https://developer.nvidia.com/hpc-sdk
The caveat being that the PGI Workstation didn’t support C++ on Windows so the code would need to be written in C or Fortran. Also, if you encountered issues, we wouldn’t have a way to fix them.
The question of GNU support for OpenACC came up on StackOverflow so I poked the GNU folks and they said that they don’t have support on Windows yet either.
Others are working on various parts, but for a key component, yes.
I wish I could be more open about extract timelines, specifics on development (I’ve probably already have given too much detail), and offer advice on which direction your company should go, but due to the nature of software development, it’s very difficult beyond giving very general responses At least on a public forum as opposed to under NDA where we could be more open. If I did give a timeframe, and you or others used this information to make key decisions, and then for what ever reason we miss this date, it opens us up to legal issues.
I did start with “difficult question to answer” for a reason. ;)
So TLDR: Can’t commit to anything, but a release might happen this year, especially if you can find a compiler engineer and no blockers arise.
While I would have liked a deadline, I wasn’t expecting one. Not sure yet what to do with the information, but It does give us insight and options we did not have before, even if it’s not a short-term solution.
Hopefully someone qualified and interested finds the job position soon and everything is solved. I did spread the word a bit on our end. Not sure if that will help, but who knows?