A Survey of General-Purpose Computation on Graphics Hardware

The rapid increase in the performance of graphics hardware, coupled with recent improvements in its programmability,

have made graphics hardware a compelling platform for computationally demanding tasks in a wide variety

of application domains. In this report, we describe, summarize, and analyze the latest research in mapping

general-purpose computation to graphics hardware.

We begin with the technical motivations that underlie general-purpose computation on graphics processors

(GPGPU) and describe the hardware and software developments that have led to the recent interest in this field.

We then aim the main body of this report at two separate audiences. First, we describe the techniques used in

mapping general-purpose computation to graphics hardware. We believe these techniques will be generally useful

for researchers who plan to develop the next generation of GPGPU algorithms and techniques. Second, we survey

and categorize the latest developments in general-purpose application development on graphics hardware. This

survey should be of particular interest to researchers who are interested in using the latest GPGPU applications

in their systems of interest.