What is this?

This project is a prototype implementation of OpenCL 1.2 on top of Vulkan using clspv as the compiler.

Disclaimer

This experimental piece of software has been developed as a hobby project by a single person. This is not production quality code. If your whole computer crashes and burns, don't blame me! You've been warned.

Limitations

Only one device per CL context
No support for images
No support for out-of-order queues
No support for device partitioning
No support for native kernels
All the limitations implied by the use of clspv
... and problably others

Supported applications

Full list

Getting dependencies

clvk depends on the following external projects:

clvk also (obviously) depends on a Vulkan implementation. The build system supports a number of options there (see Building section).

To fetch all the dependencies needed to build and run clvk, please run:

git submodule update --init --recursive
./external/clspv/utils/fetch_sources.py --deps llvm

Building

clvk uses CMake for its build system.

Getting started

To build with the default configuration options, just use following:

mkdir -p build
cd build
cmake ../
make -j$(nproc)

Other options

The build system allows a number of things to be configured.

Vulkan implementation

You can select the Vulkan implementation that clvk will target with the CLVK_VULKAN_IMPLEMENTATION build system option. Two options are currently supported:

-DCLVK_VULKAN_IMPLEMENTATION=system instructs the build system to use the Vulkan implementation provided by your system as detected by CMake. This is the default.
-DCLVK_VULKAN_IMPLEMENTATION=talvos instructs the build system to use Talvos. Talvos emulates the Vulkan API and provides an interpreter for SPIR-V modules. You don't need Vulkan-compatible hardware and drivers to run clvk using Talvos. The path to Talvos's sources must be provided by the user using CLVK_TALVOS_DIR.
-DCLVK_VULKAN_IMPLEMENTATION=loader enables building against a copy of the Vulkan Loader sources provided by the user using CLVK_VULKAN_LOADER_DIR. The configuration of the loader to target Vulkan ICDs is left to the user.
-DCLVK_VULKAN_IMPLEMENTATION=custom instructs the build system to use the values provided by the user manually using -DVulkan_INCLUDE_DIRS and -DVulkan_LIBRARIES.

Tests

It is possible to disable the build of the tests by passing -DCLVK_BUILD_TESTS=OFF.

OpenCL conformance tests

Passing -DCLVK_BUILD_CONFORMANCE_TESTS=ON will instruct CMake to build the OpenCL conformance tests. This is not expected to work out-of-the box at the moment.

Clspv compilation

You can select the compilation style that clvk will use with Clspv via the CLVK_CLSPV_ONLINE_COMPILER option. By default, Clspv is run in a separate process.

-DCLVK_CLSPV_ONLINE_COMPILER=1 will cause clvk to compile kernels in the same process via the Clspv C++ API.

You can build clvk using an external Clspv source tree by setting -DCLSPV_SOURCE_DIR=/path/to/clspv/source/.

Using

To use clvk to run an OpenCL application, you just need to make sure that the clvk libOpenCL.so shared library is picked up by the dynamic linker and that clvk has access to the clspv binary. The following ought to work on most Unix-like systems:

$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/build /path/to/application

# Running the included simple test
$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./build ./build/simple_test

If you wish to move the built library and clspv binary out of the build tree, you will need to make sure that you provide clvk with a path to the clspv binary via the CLVK_CLSPV_BIN environment variable (see Environment variables).

Environment variables

The behaviour of a few things in clvk can be controlled by environment variables. Here's a quick guide:

CLVK_LOG controls the level of logging
- 0: only print fatal messages (default)
- 1: print errors as well
- 2: print warnings as well
- 3: print information messages as well
- 4: print all debug messages
CLVK_LOG_COLOUR controls colour logging
- 0: disabled
- 1: enabled (default when the output is a terminal)
CLVK_LOG_DEST controls where the logging output goes
- stderr: logging goes to the standard error (default)
- stdout: logging goes to the standard output
- file:<fname>: logging goes to <fname>. The file will be created if it does not exist and will be truncated.
CLVK_CLSPV_BIN to provide a path to the clspv binary to use
CLVK_LLVMSPIRV_BIN to provide a path to the llvm-spirv binary to use
CLVK_VALIDATION_LAYERS allows to enable Vulkan validation layers
- 0: disabled (default)
- 1: enabled
CLVK_CLSPV_OPTIONS to provide additional options to pass to clspv
CLVK_QUEUE_PROFILING_USE_TIMESTAMP_QUERIES to use timestamp queries to measure the CL_PROFILING_COMMAND_{START,END} profiling infos on devices that do not support VK_EXT_calibrated_timestamps.
- 0: disabled (default)
- 1: enabled
WARNING: the values will not use the same time base as that used for CL_PROFILING_COMMAND_{QUEUED,SUBMIT} but this allows to get closer-to-the-execution timestamps.
CLVK_SKIP_SPIRV_CAPABILITY_CHECK to avoid checking whether the Vulkan device supports all of the SPIR-V capabilities declared by each SPIR-V module.
CLVK_MAX_BATCH_SIZE to control the maximum number of commands that can be recorded in a single command buffer.

judicaelclair / clvk