Apple Aperture 3 is probably the first mainstream application to use OpenCL technology. It’s not on the specifications or technical informations, but it use OpenCL for RAW decoding and processing, from start to finish, and it’s a brilliant idea, even if the software is not as fast as I expected.
I discovered that, after some forums reading, and trying Aperture 3, doing same tasks using IGP GeForce 9400M on my MacBook Pro 17″ and the GeForce 9600M GT GPU (approx. 3X faster). Simple basic tasks as Thumbnail generation is really faster with the later, showing real usage of the GPU as a resource. This is not true demonstration of use of OpenCL but as it only supports Snow Leopard OS and Snow Leopard CoreImage technology switched from OpenGL shaders to OpenCL, this is highly probable.
Anyway, beside all drawbacks on Aperture 3 (memory usage, cpu usage, stupid multi-threading implementation…), that let LightRoom rule the market, it’s cool to see usage of new technology, and the turbo-boost that OpenCL may gives to mainstream applications!
As I stated on some forums about choosing a MacBook Pro with IGP GeForce 9400M or one with a “real” GPU GeForce 9600M GT, with OpenCL being used, the previous will stay slow albeit with fast GPU, the second one will be faster with new applications offering it longer life as a useful production tool!
